Genesis 12

MPS

Prayer: God, help me to honor you. I am thankful for this noble task you have given me and the beautiful souls you have entrusted to me. Let me serve you and honor you by rejoicing in the gospel and preaching your word from a place of deep compassion and conviction. I need you, Spirit to move in my heart and my mind this week. Draw me near, ignite a flame in me and let me declare your truth faithfully. You Spirit of God, be the power by which souls are moved, including my own.

Think Origin Story

What does Abraham have to do with the story of the Jewish nation?

What does Abraham and his offspring have to do with God’s plan for the world?

If Abraham is the father of the Jews, the covenant people, what does that matter for me as a gentile? what does Abraham’s family have to do with me and mine?

What did it mean for the Israelites leaving slavery to be a son of Abraham?

What does it mean for us to be sons of Abraham?

Sons of Abraham

Family of Faith

Sojourners on Earth

Kids of the covenant

The call of Abram

The renaming of Abraham

Problem then:

For the Israelites- the canaanites were still in the land.

Who says it’s theirs?

How can they be sure the will receive the inheritance?

What is their family story? what is their role in it?

God calls Abraham to an impossible task (old, barren, enemies in the land)

God wants us to trust in him

Abram and Sarai wait for years

They lose family to wander around amongst strangers

They lose their hometown to establish a new home and a new nation for God

They lose their timeline as their vision for God’s blessing is delayed year after year

-waiting

-having kids old

-not getting to see her son get married and meet her grandkids

They lose everything to follow the Lord

Israelites have heard a lot of their origin story and so have we through these 11 chapters. (Overview of what we’ve seen) and the big idea is that God is good. he is powerful, patient and involved in human affairs. He deals so closely with humans that he makes covenants with us and he has a plan for us.

Now, we too are well acquainted with the family story. The story of faith.

filled with ups and downs, God’s awesome creativity, his kindness, power, etc.

But also the lows. The bible does not shy away from the many errors of humanity, our wickedness, pride, violence, foolishness, etc.

In our own lives..

Problem now:

we too are sojourners, in an imperfect world.

-our home is in heaven

We are called to walk by faith and not sight

-Our God is faithful and so we trust him

-We have seen his faithfulness

-We wait confidently to one day see it and know it fully

The call to follow God is costly

The call of discipleship is costly

Jesus sojourned among us

God calls Abraham

God calls us

-name Change

Jesus answered the call

-The son of God given the name of a man

-Jesus was proud to call himself the son of man

Intro:

Origin Story:

1) Abraham. Chs 12-24 of Genesis

Mentioned time and time again through the bible as the father of true faith

by no means perfect obviously we can’t cover all those chapters today. But you should read his story.

Abraham is the Father of our Faith.

Trust in God

Obedience to God

A perfect transition into our series in James

Faith works.

Define Faith

Trust

(Hebrews 11)

story of Abraham

Trust the Call of God

Trust the Covenant of God

Trust the path of God

2) Background- Problem then and problem now

[READ 27-32]

Abram’s background:

Abram will later be known as Abraham

Terah was his father (27-32)

Has 3 sons. a lot like Noah.

Abram, Nahor, Haran

But Haran dies. the curse of sin and death touches every family of the Earth. Not because God is evil, but because we as a whole have rejected him.

-Yet in his grace, God has a plan to overcome death. He hates it more than us.

-and on this side of things, while death is a reality

-Often times death leads us to seek God and what truly matters

-recent deaths surrounding our church

Terah leaves Babylon (Ur of the Chaldeans)

Travel North to then head west into the Land of Canaan

to the land of Canaan

The promised land.

Recalling God’s promises to their family

the curse of Canaan and the blessing of Shem

(Genealogy from Shem to Abram)

Pilgrims seeking God’s kingdom and will on Earth.

But they stop short, half way there and settle down.

name the place in memory and honor of their lost brother and son, Haran.

perhaps the journey was too long and tedious, the comforts of settlement over the road won them over. eventually they lost their vision, forgot God’s words, and instead of looking ahead, began to look back to what they had.

They settled for somewhere in the middle of God’s promise and the world they came from.

The Israelites were certainly facing this same temptation when Moses compiled these stories for them into one book.

40 years in the dessert

another 7 years of war ahead

How many of us feel that temptation to stop short on the road of faith? to settle for less than God’s promises.

perhaps now you feel stagnant.

Perhaps you feel settled into your life and keep God in a box.

you know that if you really open your life up to God, so much will change.

We are all guilty of:

living for comfort

the nicer things

the known not the unknown

the things we feel capable of, nothing bigger than ourselves

not living because of fear

living in the past and not the present or looking ahead

forgetting his promises or not even knowing about them!

not a christian and you don’t even know of the glorious purposes he has for your life!

Abraham or Abram is the father of faith in many ways

A testimony for the Jewish people. True sons of Abraham

trust God’s calling

trust God’s covenant

Trust God’s path

A Testimony for us. True sons of the faith

trust God’s calling

trust God’s covenant

Trust God’s path

pt 1: Trust God’s calling

[READ v1]

God Calls

God initiates.

the death of Terah wakes Abram up too.

God chooses the time to wake us up and call us to something so much greater than what we are living for.

-Whether its the loss of a loved one, or a job or your pride, sometimes we need to lose something to be woken up to the the fact that life is about something so much greater and so much more beautiful than ourselves.

our fears may stops us [app]

-Who am I?

-God is mistaken

-What could I give? How inadequate I am.

-what gifts?

-what money?

-What influence?

Who God calls

Abram & Sarai

Old and barren

He is not calling them into a game of bingo, he is calling them to establish a nation of people throughout the world that will be a blessing to all people everywhere.

why choose an old barren couple?

unlikely

God wants to be the hero

God call us to things greater than ourselves

Greater than your comforts

Greater than your goals for your life

Greater than your fears and weaknesses

Greater even than your strengths

Trust God’s call is greater than your comfort

Answer the call

The cost of the call

Abram and Sarai left everything

He is the oldest brother and the patriarch now. But, notice how nobody goes with him except Lot. He leaves them behind.

family

homeland

language

the known

all of this, but why go? Why trust God? Why give everything for God?

Because They believed. Abram and Sarai believed God.

They trusted God’s calling.

because they trusted God’s promises

2) Trust the promises of God

covenant is a solemn oath, a promise bound by life itself.

[READ vv2-3]

God makes a covenant promise to Abraham

“I will make your name great”

“I will bless you”

“So that you will be a blessing” and

“in you all the families of the Earth shall be blessed”

this is not the 1st covenant we have seen in Genesis.

in all the other covenants God makes both blessings and curses

Here, there is only blessing for Abraham. all the curses fall outside of his family of faith.

The is a covenant of grace from the get-go.

God has good, excellent, beautiful things in mind for Abraham.

To bless him and to make him a blessing to others

What greater calling and promise is there?

God reminds Abraham of this covenant over the course of his wanderings

Gen 15 God shows abraham that he is safe in God’s blessing because God will lay his own life down for Abraham

Gen 22 God supplies a substitute lamb to save his son’s life

God gives everything to Abraham

God makes a covenant with you

Jesus answered the call

Jesus seals the covenant

Jesus trusted the path of God

Abraham

3) Trust the path of God

Abraham’s sojournings

The canaanites lived in the land when God says to Abraham, “I will give your offspring this land”

how many years of jounreying?

pilgrims of the bible

Jesus left his home and had no place to lay his head

letters to the 12 tribes

[Illustration- personal story?]

[Application]

Conclusion

God chooses unlikely people for his kingdom

Abram and Sarai

Changed to Abraham and Sarah (Father and Mother)

chapters 12-24 of Genesis

name Abraham appear 247 times. He is an important character

12:1- Abram is called

12:2-3 is covenant

repeated X amount of times

Conclusion:

English Standard Version Chapter 11

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.