The Genesis of Abram

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 99

Psalm 99 ESV

The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he! The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he! Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called to the Lord, and he answered them. In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!

Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 1 :3-12

1 Peter 1:3–12 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Sermon:

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Speaker 1

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Well once again, and as always, good morning church. I was glad when they said to me let us go and Worship in the house. Of the Lord. Well, this morning, we will be ending. What's often called the pre-history? Portion. Of the Book of Genesis. The the prehistory portion covers a lot of time.

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There's a lot of important thoughts, but it's very much big picture. And sometimes you'll zoom in on. Adam and his descendants, Noah and his descendants, but but largely, we're looking at. How did the world go from? Well, truly. How did the world go from? Perfect pristine Garden in the Garden of Eden.

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The often painful, broken world we see today. It's the beginning Genesis 1-3. How do we go from? Adam, one man who walked with God, who did all of this? A lot of the broken, painful things we see today. So, we look at his descendants, the battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpents.

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How do we go from? What was once wonderful? Great creation. Division. How do we go from one family and Adam and then one family and Noah? To the the dispersing of all the nations around the world. Prehistory deals a lot with how the world. It's broken. But from here.

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The tenor. The message begins to change. Because starting with the man of Abram who we will be introduced to this week. We start to see how God is going to fix. All of the Brokenness. And instead of big picture. Instead of large things we zoom in. To one man.

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And one man's. And so, as we end pre-history, which is the end of chapter 11. We get to the Genesis. Of one man. Abram. We'll be looking at the introduction to his life before we get to chapter 12, where where he is properly introduced, and so our text this morning is Genesis 11, 10-32.

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But it's a little bit. This passage, as we'll see. It's, it's a little broken up. It's, it's a lot of things stuck together, and so instead of reading all at once, we will read it in chunks as we get to them. So this morning, let's open our time together with a word of prayer.

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Dear Lord, we do. Thank you for today. We thank you for your grace and your mercy given to us. For the kindness that you showed us that you have called us out of Darkness. And into light. We thank you for the hope that while we were dead in our sins and trespasses, you made us alive together with Christ.

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As your grace and mercy shine so abundantly to us. Help us to see that. Help us to know and understand what you have done, what you have said. Help us to see your savior. Your goodness and your grace in the text before us today. May you speak to our hearts.

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I asked this morning you would speak through your servant. It's in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. And amen. As we open this text, I I said two weeks ago that the the genealogy in chapter 11? Or in chapter 10, rather that was the generations of the sons of Shem of Noah, Shem, ham, and japheth.

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We had a a broad genealogy instead of a linear genealogy. We had a broad one. Well here. In chapter 11, verse 10, we pick up another genealogy, this one with one important goal in mind. This is Abram's. Genealogy. And we're going back to the form of a a linear genealogy.

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Let us read this genealogy, everyone's favorite part of Genesis. Let us read this genealogy together. Genesis chapter 11, starting in verse 10. These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered R pashad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he fathered arpashad 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

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When arpashad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shayla. And art Bashad lived after he fathered Shayla 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Shayla had lived 30 years, he fathered Ebert. And Shayla lived after he fathered Heber 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered peleg.

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And Heber lived after he fathered pale, like 430 years, and he had other sons and daughters. One pedal I could lived 30 years. He fought the Ryu. And Peleg lived after he fathered Ryu 209 years and had other sons and daughters. When Rio had lived 32 years, he fathered sarag.

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And Rayu lived after he fathered Sarah 207 years and had other sons and daughters. And say rug had lived 30 years, he fathered nahore. And Sarah lived after he fathered nahor 200 years and had other Sons and Daughters. When nahord lived 29 years, he fathered Tara. And ahor lived after he fathered Tara 9 119 years and had other Sons and Daughters.

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When Tara had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram. Nahorn. And hey, rap!

06:08

Abram's genealogy. No, we've come to another again. We call these before a linear genealogy. And this genealogy is very important. There's not really right before. What are the lessons right? You look for the form of the genealogy. Then you look for the exceptions in this one. There's not really any exceptions.

06:26

It's a very straightforward. Maybe for some of you would say blessedly shorter genealogy. But yet, it would be important for us to go back and remember to go back to. Genesis 5 to see our last linear genealogy, because there are some important connections here. The form of the first genealogy.

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In Genesis 5, we had just to pick sort of the the quintessential example. Genesis, chapter 5, verse 6. When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enoch. Now, let's come to ours. Verse 12, when Archbachad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shayla. We start with the same form. And in fact, that form continues.

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Verse 7 of Genesis 5 Seth lived after he fathered Enoch 807 years and had other Sons and Daughters. In Genesis 11 that we just read. The verse 13 and arpashad lived after he fathered Shayla 403 years and had other Sons and Daughters the forms actually the same. But then our first genealogy, just to remind us.

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Thus, all the days of Seth were 912 years. And he died.

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There is no more to read from any of the other entries. In Abram's genealogy. We have dropped thee. Thus, the all the days that this person lived for some amount of years, and he died. What's going on here? Well, there's two thoughts. One a little more positive, one a little more negative, and I think both applicable.

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Why does Abram's genealogy not have, and after he lived after he fathered this person, he lived this many? And thus, the days of this person were this many years, and he died two thoughts, one. The focus here is not death in the same way. Instead, the focus is the faithfulness of these people to begin to fill the Earth.

08:27

That was what would happen at the beginning of chapter 10 when we were the first half of this this genealogy? The it's the table of Nations. This is where peoples and languages and nations have come from. And so, part of the focus is change. This is how the world is filled and who the world is being filled with.

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That's the positive side. Is also a negative. Why doesn't? Why don't the why don't we have in this genealogy? That's what I'm trying to say. And he died. And he died. And he died. I think part of the reason.

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It's because we don't need it. Because we know?

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Death is just a part of human life. This is a I I wrote this earlier this week. This is. Especially applicable and poignant today. As you mourn the loss of a dear brother. Death is part of life. We don't need to read any diet because we know. We know arbuchad died.

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We know Shayla died. We know Eber died. We know pelig died. We know Ryu died. We know they all died. This is part of life. This is the broken world we're born into, even here. The Brokenness of the world? Is seen. The genealogy ties to the linear genealogy from Abraham or sir from Adam to Noah.

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Here we have from. Noah's son, Shem, to Abram. It's part of what's going on, but also as a continuation of. Two weeks, ago's genealogy, the table of Nations genealogy in Genesis 10. Instead of the sons of Noah. Shem, ham, and japheth, and we follow those three lines. We are now zooming in on just the sons of Shem.

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These are verse 10, tells us the generations of Shem. And there is some overlap just if we want to look. Verse 21 of chapter 10, Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the other brother of japheth children were born. The sons of Shem were Elam. Esser and arpashad.

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Oh well, arpe shots here in verse 12. Verse 24 of Genesis 10, arpashad, fathered Shayla and Shayla, fathered Aber to Abra, born two sons. Name one was peleg. For his days, the Earth was divided. Well, here we have those same people. Arbashad verse 14 is Shayla, verse 16 is Eber, and verse 18 is Pele.

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But now, we're going to continue from peleg on. To one man. Terror. Who had three sons? Abram. Nahor. And hurray! We go from.

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Looking at how the world has divided how languages people's Clans. How all of that has developed, and now we're coming back down, and we're going to get to one man. And the one man we care the most about spoiler alert at what's going to come in the rest of Genesis?

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Is Abram? How does God get us from? Adam. To Noah. To Abram. Well, this is how? By sovereignty, ordaining and working through the people to have genealogies that direct us to the point that he wants us to get.

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I said earlier when I did the New Testament reading the reason I did the reading. Because we were going to read. From Luke again. I wanted to. Share a little something else, but? But if we go to Luke? Go to Luke chapter 3. Starting in verse 23. We have.

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A genealogy.

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In verse.

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Of Luke 3. We're gonna go backwards. We read this in a Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Son of Tara, the son of nahor, the son of sarag, the son of Ryu, the son of peleg, son of Ebert, son of Shayla, son of Canaan, son of arfixad, son of Shem, son of Noah. It's all right here. We're zooming in in this genealogy to a tiny portion of the genealogy that will drive us to ultimately. Our Savior. This is all a part of God's master plan. And here we get to one man, Abram.

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The first section is all Abraham's genealogy, but then the tone shifts and we start moving into some narrative. As we're introduced now. To Abram's family. Verse 27 of Genesis chapter 11. Through verse 30. Now, these are the generations of Tara. Tara, fathered Abram, nahor, and haran. And haran fathered Lots. Haran died in the presence of his father Tara in the land of his Kindred in Earl ER of the Chaldeans. And Abram and nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai. And the name of nahor's wife, milka, the daughter of hayran, the father of milka and Esau Iska.

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Now, Sarai. Was Barren? She had.

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Abram's family.

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Is broken. There's no other way I can find to describe what this passage is telling us. I think sometimes because we hear the names because we just came through genealogy. We sort of our brain shuts off a little bit, and we don't fully realize all that's going on here. But notice this Tara has three sons, Abram, nahor, and haran. Haron has once unlocked. So the characters we have right now. Are Tara? His three sons and one grandson. Heron's son law. But yet? Haran died in the presence of his father.

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Tara. Outlived his trial.

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This is not how the world should work.

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But in a broken world. This is how the world often. Works. Heron died in the presence of his father. Also, he died in the land of his Kindred. In Earl of the Chaldeans.

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He died far away. In a place far away and in a place known for.

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It's idolatry. It's paganism. It's lack of acknowledgment of the one true God. That's the nicest way to say.

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It's where he died. In the wilderness. It's broken.

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But yet, life goes on. And so now we have Tara two sons and one grandson. Verse 29 in Abram and the whore took wives. But again. It's still broken. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, but Sarai, we read in verse 30. What? And this will be the discussion of Grace group this week, but it. Saying here.

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Sarah, verse 30. Was Barren? She had no child. We just read a genealogy. The way these things work is, people have children, and they have children, and they have children, and they have children and Abram takes the wife Sarai, and this chain is broken. She has no children. She's Barren. There are no descendants for Abram. This is broken. We have a father who buried his son, and we have a man who cannot have sons. This is not how the world should work.

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The name of nahor's wife is milka. But milka is the daughter. Of Heran. Well, who's hey ran?

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One of the brothers. Of mahor. He marries his niece. It's not how the world should work. It's broken.

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Abram comes from a broken messed up. Family. We do not have here a genealogy that points us to this. This great, stunning Pinnacle of humanity. We get a genealogy that leads us to a broken Wayward family wandering in Earl of the Chaldeans. We have a genealogy of the sons of Shem that points us to more Brokenness in the world, more pain, more suffering.

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This is where we find Abram.

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In fact, we zoom in even a little more. We look to Abram's home. Where does he live? Verse 31. Tara took Abram, his son. And lot, the son of Harry and his grandson and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son, Abram's wife. And they went forth together from Earl of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Heron, they settled there. The days of Terror were 205 years, and Tara died. Inherent.

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Here they are living in Earl of Earl ER of the Chaldeans. You have at one? Tara and his three sons, but he loses one son. Verse 28 told his hair died in the presence of his father. So, now, Tara's gonna pick up, but he doesn't even take his whole family. He takes one son, Abram. We're leaving nahor. He takes a grandson lot. And they're going to get to Canaan. That's the promised land. Though there's no promise yet.

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As we read that when we read Canaan, we have to understand Moses when he wrote this when he wrote they're going to Canaan. The people who read it originally, be like, oh, that's the promised land? But, where's the promise? There's not one yet. Well, what's going on? Well, we have to go forward to find fully what's going on, but God has called Abram. And the way the story is going to work is. God has called Abram. And Abram's going to go to the land of promise. God says, he'll say this. This will be next week. Go from your country and from your king to your father's house 12, 1, and I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you, and so go to this land.

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And they're to go to the land of Cain and butts. We're not there yet. Abraham's home was Earl of the Chaldeans, and then Abram's home is. Huron.

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They don't make it to the land of Province.

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They're supposed to go from ER of the Chaldeans to Canaan. They go from ER of the Chaldeans to haran, and they settle there.

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They get halfway there. It's as if I'm saying I'm going to leave Las Cruces. I'm going to move to Albuquerque. And I end up in Socorro. It's actually a really good picture because I'm moving from one place. I love. And his. To a place that. Could probably tolerate living there. But halfway in between is. If you love Socorro, I apologize. I live there for a year. One of the worst places you could ever live. That's Abram's life. You get called from Earl the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. And then, somewhere in between, they stop in Huron.

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And this is where the father of Abram Tara will die.

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Abram's home. When he's early Chaldeans, we talked about this briefly. This is Pagan Moon worshiping idolatry. All sorts of bad things.

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And then they settle. Not yet in God's promises.

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And this?

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Is whom God will choose? To bless the Earth.

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The Genesis of Abram is a ignoble one. To say the least. His room messed up family. And the wrong. And all these wrong things.

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So, what's going on here? Two things one importantly? God will choose whom God will choose, and God is the only one who will choose whom God will choose and God will choose whom God will choose for the reasons that God chooses and for none other. God is Sovereign. And he calls the Riff Raff. The ones from the broken families, the ones who are living in the hurt and pain and difficulty of Life, the ones who feel like their lives are. Wandering and difficult, and pain and God will choose them, and God will use them, and God will bless them.

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And so, part of this lesson here is. God will do what God will do, but there's another lesson here.

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Hebrews. If you flip with me.

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Hebrews chapter. 11.

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This is. The entire life of Abraham.

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Four verses five, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, five verses. But the writer of Hebrews knew the point.

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Hebrews chapter 11, verse 8, says. Abraham. Obeyed.

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When he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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. For he, Abram was looking forward to a city that has foundations whose designer and Builder is God. Verse 11 by faith. Sarah herself received power to conceive when she was past the age. Since he considered him faithful, who had promised, therefore, from one man and him as good as dead.

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As many were born, descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand. By the seashore. Faith. The genealogy of Abram is not what God used. It was Faith the broken messed up family was not enough to stop God from using Abram for Abram had Faith Abram's home and where he grew and where he dwelled and where he settled ultimately could not stop God's promises because he had faith. Faith triumphs and trumps all of these things. We must be a people who walk by faith and not by sight.

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This is. The lesson we must learn.

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Spoiler alert, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about Abram. Where it's been a lot of time talking about Abram, whose name will be changed to Abraham. So, just bear with me as we go through this man's life. I'm gonna try to keep Abram while he's Abram and Abraham, not until he gets his name changed, but it's hard. Forgive me. I'm asking now, just like. Just like Noah and Moses, those names get mixed up in my brain, sometimes Abram and Abraham. It's even harder.

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But as we go through this man's life, he will mess up. He will make. Mistakes, large and small.

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But he has FAITH

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So, too, we. May May grave many mistakes. Our genealogy may not be even as good as Abrams. Our family might be broken. Our home situation might be messed up.

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We're saved by grace through faith. This is the gift of God, lest any man should boast. Walk by faith! And not by sight. Let's pray.