Sermon for March 8, 2020

This morning I'll be reading Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 through 4.

And I'll be reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

The verses that we have this morning show the beginning of the journey of Abrahams faithful walk with God. Of course he is called Abram here since God hasn't changed his name yet.

1 The LORD said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.

God bless the reading and the hearing of your word this morning.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, as we begin this morning, we ask that you open our ears to hear and our hearts and minds to receive the message that you have for us today,,, In Jesus' name I pray,,, Amen.

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These four verses of chapter 12 are the faithful first steps that Abram makes in obedience to God.

As I read these verses earlier in the week,,, I wanted to try to help us see how we need this same faith to get us through our journey today.

Faith is something that you use every day.

Even if you aren't a Christian,,, you have,,, or use faith every day.

When you go to bed at night,,, you have faith that you will wake up in the morning,,, your alarm clock will work.

You will make it to work,,, doctors appointment,,, whatever is planned for the day,,,

When you drive,,, you have faith that not only will you stay on your side of the road,,, but so will the people you pass every day.

These are just a few of the ways that we all use faith that isn't necessarily associated with our Christian faith.

We make them a part of our daily life as Christians,,, that's true,,, but that's true of every aspect of our life as well.

We need to look at Abrahams faith and be sure that we see how his faith impacts our life today,,, and see how we can use this information to help us in our walk with God this week.

(2:50)

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Verse 1 says: 1 The LORD said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Before this verse,,, we aren't given a lot of information about Abram,,, or Abraham as we know him.

We aren't given any explanation of why God chose him to be the man through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed!

All we are told is that God spoke,,, Abram obeyed.

Even if we look at later verses,,, we don't see any definite explanation as to why God chose Abram.

Which leads me to ask,,, isn't that true for a lot of us that God has called?

To help explain that,,, I want to direct your attention to the verse in Acts chapter 7 verse 2 where Stephen says: 2 “Brothers and fathers,” he said, “listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,

This is in answer to a question during a part of the trial just before Stephen is stoned to death.

He lets us know that it was Abram that was called instead of his father,,, even though scripture says that Terah set out to go to the land of Canaan.

So apparently,,, Abram had already been called,,, and like so many times today,,, he didn't fully answer the first call in its entirety.

If you have felt God calling you in the past,,, don't worry,,, that call is still there,,, God doesn't give up on us.

We may give up,,, but God doesn't until we have rejected all of His offers!

I know that for me,,, I spent most of my life trying to get good enough to answer God's call.

Even when I realized that God wasn't calling the ones that He thought were capable of doing the job but the ones that were capable of being obedient,,, I still thought that I wasn't good enough.

It was only when I realized that I would never be good "enough",,, that I had no choice but to put all of my faith in God,,, just like Abram,,, that I was ever capable of anything that God needed me to do.

(5:06)

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Here in this verse,,, God is calling Abram away from his land,,, his family,,, and his father's house.

God doesn't always call us away from everything or everybody that we know.

What God will do though,,, is call us into something much better than what we are used to.

It "could" be a new place or new people,,, but it could just be a new relationship with Him that He is calling us.

Again,,, we might find ourselves unconsciously trying to make ourselves better even though we really know that we cannot be good enough for God.

It's that type of behavior that can cause us to be uncertain about a relationship with God.

I've been there,,, I know how these feelings can hold us back.

I know that I work hard to spend the appropriate amount of time doing all of the things that I stress are important for a true relationship with God.

I've tried to do those things for many years.

But I know from my years in the past,,, I've missed times that should have been spent in prayer and Bible study,,, instead I've rushed off to work or whatever else I was doing at that time.

Afterward,,, I would be ashamed!

If any of you have ever read the book "The Man In The Mirror" by Patrick Morley,,, he says that you know how you are,,, even if you have everyone else fooled.

He says,,, the one that looks back at you in the mirror,,, knows the true you,,, just as God knows you!

You can't fool God,,, even though you might even fool yourself for a little while,,, it eventually catches up with you.

But you know what,,,

God was choosing us,,, not because of who we are,,, or how good we are,,,

But,,,

Because of who we can become,,,

if we truly allow God complete control of our lives and we are obedient to His "calling",,, and we work with His "power",,, there is no limit to what we can do or accomplish,,, through Gods power working through us!

And that's what Abram did.

He was obedient and gave God complete control of his life.

(7:27)

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Verse 2 says: 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

Abram was told that he would become a great nation,,, his name will become great,,, and he will be a blessing.

Abram and Sarai,,, were childless.

If you go back and read verse 30 in chapter 11 it says:

30 Sarai was unable to conceive; she did not have a child.

Yet,,, even while knowing all of this,,, God tells him all of these things and he leaves in faith.

That's faith,,, that's why it's credited to him as righteousness.

(8:09)

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Verse 3 says: 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Jeff Strite says that while he was in Bible College,,, he was told that this verse was for Abraham only,,, it didn't apply to Christians.

But he searched and found in where Jesus said: 42 And whoever gives just a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple —I assure you: He will never lose his reward!”

In other words: God promises to bless those who bless us.

“Then in Paul tells the Christians in Thessalonica: 6 since it is righteous for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you

What is he saying? God will curse those who curse us.

Jeff says, “Now I find great comfort in that. I am pleased that God is focused on my needs.

He cares so much for you & me that He will reward people who watch out for us - & He will deal harshly with folks who hurt us.”

But it doesn’t stop there,,, he goes on to say,,,

Just as God told Abraham that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed through him - so also, God intends everyone you meet,,, to be blessed through you.

God wants to bless your children,,, your grandchildren,,, your friends,,, your neighbors,,, the people you work with.

They all should be affected by the relationship you have with God.

Jesus said in : 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

And if the fruit of God’s Spirit that is obvious in your life - "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" – if all of these things,,, cause them to begin looking to God,,, it can ultimately lead to their wanting God for their Father as well.

So yes,,, God wants to bless you.

And yes,,, He wants to bless others,,, through you.

(10:37)

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Verse 4 says: 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.

In verse 4,,, Abram obeys God by leaving.

But he causes problems for himself when he takes Lot with him.

If you remember,,, Abram and Lott both have livestock and there isn't enough room for both of their herds and this causes division to come between the herdsmen.

This leads to a division among them,,, and also allows Lott to be enticed by the riches of the land near Sodom that almost cost him his life.

Again,,, if we are observant,,, we can see how God still used Abram even though he wasn't fully obeying God's instructions.

That's one thing that I keep seeing in the scriptures about Abraham.

They are similar to King David in a way,,, because of the way that the Bible doesn't hide their faults,,, but yet,,, at the same time,,, you can see how much he loved God and how through his faithfulness God blessed him.

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I also want you to notice Abram's age.

He was 75 years old when God called him out of Haran.

He wasn't a young man.

The life span of man had been getting shorter by that time.

So that's another thing that we need to pay attention to this morning.

God can use us at any age or time in our life.

No matter what or when we are called,,, we must respond like Abraham and be obedient and let God work through us.

(12:23)

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So what does all of this mean for us as we leave from here today?

As I told you at the beginning,,, I wanted us to see how Abrahams faith could help us in our daily walk with God and I believe that the greatest thing that we can see is that God used Abraham in spite of his faults.

He wasn't perfect,,, at times he was far from it.

He tried to rely on his own wisdom at times when he should have depended on God.

Not necessarily in these verses,,, but later in scriptures we see this happening over and over.

And that's what I believe is hard for us to see sometimes because we just continue to think that we can always be a little bit better or a little bit more prepared.

God calls us to do something,,, and then,,, He gives us everything that we need to get it done,,, in spite of our downfalls!

That's where we see that we need to rearrange our thoughts on faith.

Our focus needs to change from our faith in God,,, to our faith in what God can do through us and the fact that God will be faithful even when we do mess up,,, as long as we are faithful and have the right attitude.

That's why Abraham was successful.

He knew that God would do what He said that He would do,,, so Abraham concentrated on whatever he was supposed to do.

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What I'm trying to say is that we don't have to be perfect for God to use us!

If we are obedient when God gives us something to do,,, then He will supply us with the power that we need to work toward perfection.

We may not make it today.

We may not make it tomorrow.

But,,, through the Holy Spirits help,,, we will make it.

And it's through a faith like Abraham,,, that will make it all possible!

(14:15)

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So as we sing our final hymn,,, let me remind you that the alter is always open,,,

If you feel God speaking to you,,, don't hesitate to come,,, maybe you just have questions,,, God will answer,,, you just have to ask Him,,, whatever the need may be,,,

As we sing the final hymn,,, come if needed!

Oakdale - Hymn Page - 348

Seminary - Hymn Page - ???

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