Genesis 12 1-9 2008
Lent 2/ New Member Sunday
Genesis 12:1-9
“A New Home”
Introduction: It is the year 2091 B.C. The location is the Tigris . . . Euphrates . . . Ur . . . Haran ... Iran and Iraq. The people are Abram and his wife Sarah, his nephew, Lot and Abrams father Terah. Terah dies. And the LORD said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to the land that I will show you." God's call was direct. It was a radical request. Abram's response is recorded four verses later, "So Abram left." But what lay between this command to "Leave" and the obedient reaction of "So Abram left". No doubt it was an inner struggle that tested the steel of his faith to the core.
Obedience is always costly. It is never easy. Abram is ordered to turn his back on what had become familiar and friendly, to go out to the unwelcome and the unknown. He is to head for a land that God will show him, a promised land.
As in the time of Noah, we might wonder about the reactions of his neighbors. Some of them no doubt wondered, “What in the world are you dong Abram? “Have you lost your mind?” “Are you hearing voices in your head – voice that they certainly didn’t hear?” There was Abram packing his gear, ready to head out to God only – knows - where. He had been doing so well in Haran. His flocks and herds had excellent pasture. He was a rich man. "You've got all this," his neighbors must have taunted. "What do you want with a promised land? Silly fellow, following some will-o'-the-wisp when you already have it made right here in your own home town. Forget about this business of a city without foundations whose Maker and Builder is God. Use your common sense, and keep both feet planted here on good old terra firma in the land between the rivers, in the land of the people of the east. But Abram went. He walked by faith. As the writer of the Hebrews declares, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."
The date is June 11, 1846. 20 families leave a small village called Nahausen near Brandenberg Germany. Their destination is America, Juneau, and finally Theresa. Of course they had no idea bout this final destination. Due to circumstances and dreams of a promised land, they felt the desire and the call to go. Mayville is where they called home. Here, they built a church.
The date is 1966. years before a young Kansas girl is given the desire and dream of being a teracher. She too leaves, not knowing where she will end up. From Kansas to Wisconsin, to Mayville, the Lord led our beloved Connie to the new land that He would show her, and to her knew church - Immanuel.
The date is 1995 The place is Ann Arbor and Chelsea, Michigan and Fort Wayne Indiana. A family of five, leave all they have known and loved behind, and begin a journey to where God only knows. Six years later, through the call of God, in the voice of this congregation, they come to a new the land, to new faces and a new family.
Over the last 150 years this pattern has been repeated over and over again. Through the guidance and the call of the Lord, many families, pastors, and teachers have been called to this church, Immanuel, and have made it their home. This pattern continues to this very day, a day when we celebrate the new members that God has brought into our midst. We should understand that every one of us has undergone a journey to be here. It is a journey of faith in the living God and our Savior Jesus Christ that we share.
Such decisions are rarely easy. Often there is an inner struggle that goes on. So therefore we can relate well to Abram's journey from his old home town to the new land. The journey is different for all of us. Some of us leave behind the lives and towns that we knew and come here not knowing what city the Lord will show us. This is no more extreme than a family that leaves another congregation to join this one. It is no more extreme than a person that joins our church because of marriage. After all, both are embarking on a journey to something totally new. The decision to leave a church behind and join a new one is always a struggle. It is a struggle to know whether the right decision is being made. It is a struggle to wonder whether they will be accepted or whether they will fit in or not. For a person that marries into this church there is definitely a journey and a struggle as they learn to be a husband or wife, learn to set up a home, a new home, a new church. We should make no mistake, the Lord has called us here to this place and this time to be a family, a tribe, that exists to praise and worship and to share and proclaim the mercies of the Lord in Jesus Christ.
Why was Abram called? What was God’s great purpose? God chose Abram to be the ancient father of Jesus. That thorough his seed all the peoples of the earth, every nation would be blessed through the forgiveness of sins that comes in Jesus name alone through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. The blessing that God gave to Abram continues to flow into our lives.
In our baptism, God in His mercy called us to faith and gave us the blessing promised to Abraham. "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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
At the heart of this seven-fold blessing is the promise that the whole of humanity would be blessed! The blessing would be the opposite of the curse that came upon humanity as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin where all humankind was cursed. The Bible witness to the call of Abram is a decisive event in God's program of outreach and salvation. Seen in Biblical perspective, it is one of a series of events leading to the supreme event, the coming of Abram's seed, the Lord Jesus, into the world to redeem mankind.
In Jesus was God in the flesh, walking as a man among men, being the perfect obedient He was called to be, even though it led him down a road of sorrows and to a cross of death. He willingly obeyed the call of His Father. Unlike Abram, Jesus was not called to the Land of milk and honey but rather to a land of desolation, destruction and flowing with the wrath og God. This was the land of the cross. He obeyed, suffering and dying in our place, taking upon Himself the wrath and punishment of God that we deserved, and now offering forgiveness to people, through repentance and faith.
As Abram was called, so are we by the Gospel. As Abram was blessed so are we. And as in obedience he became the blessing he was called to be, so we have been blessed to be a blessing to others.
In a very real sense, the vocation that is work of all Christians is to be that blessing to others. Our first obligation and object of our blessings is each other. We have been called together as a family. With that we have all the blessings and curses that regular families share together. Next we are called to welcome all those people that God calls here, to make this place there home. We do not choose who those people are, or what kind of people they are. Should this surprise us? Many of the people listed as our newest members are babies. Who of us chose what kind of child we would have. There is no catalog for that kind of thing…at least not yet. And heaven help us when there is. But these children are called to be here, like families and individuals that join us. We are glad and praise God for them. Finally, we are blessed to be a blessing as we invite people, call people, share the good news of Jesus with all people, whether they join us or not. The blessings of God over-flow from you to all the people of the world. All this is by God’s grace in our lives, ... so that it may be known among the nations what the God of Abraham has done.
Immanuel of Mayville and Theresa is our home – for now. According to our faith in Jesus Christ, we are one family forever. This is our faith. This is the faith of Abram, whom God has called Abraham…
Hebrews 11 - 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. 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 was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 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. 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. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 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.
This city is your city. Heaven is your home. In the name of Jesus. Amen.