Abraham

Connect Card Talk

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I proposed to Kelly in March of 2008. I remember praying and thinking about whether it was time to propose. Then I went and bought a ring. Most expensive thing I had purchased at the time. Then we met and rode back to our favorite spot on her parents land. I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.

Kelly said Yes, which was a big relief! And we got married a little over a year later. And that engagement seemed like forever! Some of you have had longer engagements. But what if Kelly had said yes, and I said, “Great, how about 25 years from now?” She probably wouldn’t have said yes to that, right? I ain’t that good. There may be a couple movie stars or maybe Justin Timberlake from his NSync days that Kelly would have been willing to wait 25 years for, but the goofy Ardmore boy with the shaggy hair wasn’t one of them!

The only way somebody would be willing to wait that long, would be if what they were gaining was worth it, right?

In the next portion of this study on covenants, we see God reach down to a man named Abram and make a covenant with him. But it is 25 years before the smallest part of that covenant is fulfilled!

Let me read the intro to this story and then I’ll pray and we will start breaking it down…

Genesis 12:1–4 CSB

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

PRAY

Abraham’s story begins in chapter 12 and goes until 25. So, our goal is not to dive into every single detail of this. It’s to see the overarching point of the covenant God made with Abraham and why it was so formative. As I said in an email newsletter yesterday, This covenant was the most formative idea in the minds of the New Testament authors. It literally shaped their entire theology! And my argument today is that it should shape ours as well! We at least need to understand the historicity of it so that we can read the New Testament with clarity. But the more we understand about God’s covenant with Abraham, the more God will use the New Testament to shape us!

So let’s begin with a framework to help us move efficiently through this story...

1. The Promise MADE

These quick few verses tell us a ton of stuff! But you and I can just breeze over it, especially if you are kind of sort of familiar with the main Bible characters. I mean, when God called Abram to leave his home and go where he would show him, of course Abram would, right? He loved God!

But that’s not what we should get from the text! Look at this…

The first thing God says is go from YOUR LAND...

Abram was from Ur. If you are like me, that means ZILCH! I am not great with modern maps let alone ancient ones! But Ur was in the area in their day called Babylonia.... What do we know about this place from the text so far?

(Babylon......... Babel.........)

The only time we have really heard this region mentioned by name was when humans gathered there to build a tower and a city. You remember this story? In Genesis 11, we hear this train wreck. God had called mankind to spread across the globe and spread the name of Yahweh. Instead, they gather at Babel and build a tower to spread their own name.

This rebellion against the one true God becomes descriptive for this area. IN fact, in the writings of the Prophets, the term Babylon becomes a poetic slang term for rebellion against God.

And here, we find that that’s where Abram is from. So, he may not have even heard of who God is. We assume things in the story that are not necessarily there and in so doing we lose the bite that these stories should have!

He is also called to leave his relatives...

I know many of you don’t live anywhere near your relatives. That’s a very common thing in today’s world to move across the country for work or to simply make your own way. That was not the common thing of the ancient world though!

To leave where Abram had land, family, workers, and livestock would have been very difficult. He carried some of these things with him, but the easy thing here is to stay right where his family was. That’s what everyone did.

And the third thing was that God told Abram he would give him a big family… God told a 75 year old man who had a wife unable to have children that he would be a dad.

Don’t make the case with me “Weren’t people living a lot longer back then?” OK? It was still a bold stepout! That’s why we continue to get Abram’s ages at each step of the way! The author knew this was crazy!

So...

Abram was from Babylon and may have worshiped other gods at the time, it would have been insane for him to leave his family land, and the apple God was holding out seemed a little rotten! Yet, when God called...

Genesis 12:4 CSB

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

There is something going on here that we don’t fully grasp yet. If you are reading this story with fresh eyes, you have to ask the question, “What is Abram experiencing that is causing him to follow this command?” But we got to keep reading!!!!!

Jot this down in your notes as well because this is important as you read through the rest of the Bible...

God’s promise here in Genesis 12 is a three fold promise. God promises to give...

Big Family, Land, and a International Blessing

A big family, land and that Abram’s family would be a blessing to all nations! The rest of the Bible are centered around these three ideas!

Back in our storyline, several years pass, and we see God take this 3 fold promise and double down on it. He makes an official covenant with Abram.

If you remember from last week, a covenant is a legal agreement between two parties. Think of it like a handshake… I’ll give you the thing I promised if you do what you promised.

Flip over to Genesis 15 and lets check this out...

Genesis 15:9–10 CSB

He said to him, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half.

So...... This is gross right?

We don’t know when this practice started, but this is what became known as a covenant ceremony or the act of “cutting a covenant.” You can google it! ...... After church!

They would cut these animals in half and lay them opposite one another with a little walkway. Both parties would then walk between the halves as an understanding that death is what they would receive if they were not faithful to their end of the handshake.

Now, there is nothing worse than buying a house! The amount of paperwork that you have to sign. All the agreements and clauses and whatever. I try to read and pay attention but 15 signatures in, I’m signing as they are explaining, you know what I mean?

As bad as all those signatures are, imagine if your mortgage company made you walk through dead animal parts? It could always be worse, right?

So, here, Abram has laid out the animals but the Bible tells us that Abram fell asleep waiting on God. It was a deep sleep!

And then this...

Genesis 15:17–18 CSB

When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River:

So check this out! Who walked through the bodies? Well, let me ask it this way, “Who didn’t walk through the bodies?” ABRAM! Right? He was either still asleep and saw this in his sleep, or he was sleepy headed but awake enough to see the floating fire pot and torch.

So, Abram doesn’t go through the bodies, but God does! The author seems to make it clear in the text that the pot and torch represent God passing through the bodies.

So, what does that mean? What is the significance that God passed through on behalf of Himself and Abram?

God is saying, if I don’t hold up my end, I should taste death. And if Abram and his descendants don’t hold up their end, I will taste death as well.

Do you see that? That’s an intense statement right?

Do you see the Gospel in it too? When man breaks the covenant, God will lay down his life for them? We should see this as a little foreshadowing to Jesus who would come in the picture later on earth and give up his life.

But, even before Christ comes, we can see the mercy in how God deals with Abram’s family in the future. We know them as Israelites, and we know that they are a family of punks who don’t often follow God, but God continues to bear with them, right? Just like we talked about last week.

We have yet to get much of a requirement on Abraham and his descendants yet. It appears that God is just going to let them be freeloaders on his promise. But we see that change in chapter 17.

That’s where we want to acknowledge the...

2. The Promise DELAYED

What we need to acknowledge here is that we have flipped 2-4 pages of the Bible (depending on your font size) but a lot of time has passed!

Genesis 12, Abram was how old? (75)

Well, look at how Genesis 17 begins...

Genesis 17:1–2 CSB

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, saying, “I am God Almighty. Live in my presence and be blameless. I will set up my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you greatly.”

So, even if you aren’t great at math, you can probably get close here. How many years have passed and STILL the most basic part of the promise God made hasn’t been realized? 24! SO FAR! They still don’t have a baby!

Abram had a baby with one of his wife’s servants, but God said, that ain’t what I meant! You will have a kid with your wife!

Let me take an aside here and address something this text is not saying...

I talked with a lady at one of the churches I served in previously about this story. Her and her husband were trying to have kids. And she was trying to pull application from this story out to her family because it seemed similar to them, waiting on God to open up a womb. Her question was essentially, “Are we disobedient because we are seeking other means of pregnancy? Do we just not trust God enough?” But I will say that I don’t think this story answers that question.

There are lots of questions we bring to the Bible, often about morality, right and wrong. And those answers are probably found in the Bible in some form or fashion, but we can’t force them!

Just because a situation in the Bible is similar to your situation doesn’t mean it’s the same and we can swap our names out and it be true.

For example, here, God is building a particular family with particular genetic makeup! Yes, Abram’s son with the servant woman was born out of in essence an ancient infertility method. A strange one, but nonetheless. But God’s plan was to bring about a lineage not just from Abram’s genes. But also from Sarai’s!

This verse isn’t speaking to parents who are having trouble having a baby. That’s my point. Don’t make a section of the Bible answer questions that it may not be trying to answer!

God then changes the names of these two old Babylonians. Abram’s name is changed to Abraham because it means _______________ and Sarai’s name was changed to Sarah, and God said kings of peoples will come from her!

Still no kid! But we are getting names that sound like names of a dad and mom.

To this idea,

Genesis 17:17–19 CSB

Abraham fell facedown. Then he laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a hundred-year-old man? Can Sarah, a ninety-year-old woman, give birth?” So Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael were acceptable to you!” But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a permanent covenant for his future offspring.

It’s a crazy story, I know! But God goes on to say that by this time next year, she will give birth again to Isaac.

In this interaction, God also gives Abraham some terms. He introduces Abraham to the idea of circumcision. He says that every male adult and child will be circumcised. A lot of thought has gone into WHY! What a strange thing for God to ask of them. But the best explanation I have heard is tied to the fact that God has talked about over and over again about how the Israelites will reproduce and multiply greatly at this point. And now, what kind of sign would help the world see that this people were set apart for a purpose!

So they are bringing a knife to a particular part of the body that deals with procreation, right?

Whatever the reason, this was God’s way of setting them apart from those around them! And it’s not nearly as weird to the ancient cultures as we think it to be in ours!

What we know is that when God left Abraham that day...

Genesis 17:23 CSB

So Abraham took his son Ishmael and those born in his household or purchased—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that very day, just as God had said to him.

It seems that Abraham obeys God immediately. This becomes a more common practice of Abraham in the rest of his story. He is still far from perfect but this is a turning point. This action of circumcision God says is tied directly to the covenant. It is a symbol of their obedience to God and his being their God among a world that worshiped many Gods.

But this surgical procedure was not the only thing God would ask of his people.

3. The Promise OBEYED

The next year, Sarah gives birth just as God had promised. They named him Issac. He was the promised one that they had waited on for 25 years! And he had finally come!

Several years pass and then we get Genesis 22.

Genesis 22:1–2 CSB

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered. “Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

Abraham would have been familiar with child sacrifice. Several ancient pagan religions include these as acts of extreme devotion to a god.

But this is the only time we see Yahweh getting in on it.

Can you imagine how crazy? The son you’ve waited for… The son I finally gave you… Yeah, I want you to sacrifice him to me.

This would have shocked Abraham like it does you. But again we see Abraham being obedient to God’s call!

Genesis 22:3 CSB

So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about.

He probably got up early cause he didn’t sleep any! Either way...

Something to notice here: Isaac is not a baby. In fact, we see that he is old enough to talk, old enough to reason (because he recognizes there isn’t an animal) and he is old enough to carry the wood for the offering. Most scholars say he was 8-12 years old.

If you don’t know the story, Abraham goes as far as tying Isaac up, laying him down on the wood that will eventually burn his body up, and raising the knife in the air...........

But then God stops him and provides another sacrifice. A ram whose horns are caught up in the weeds nearby.

They both no doubt shed some tears as they sacrifice the ram instead.

As we look at all the moments of obedience in Abraham’s life, he can seem to be a mindless drone that does whatever God tells him to! God says “LEAVE” he does! God says “CIRCUMCISE” he does. God says SACRIFICE” he does! We can begin to think that God wants our brains on the table and our mindless obedience to him, but that’s not what is going on here.

When you go all the way back to chapter 15, we catch a glimpse of an important word for the rest of Bible, especially what we know of as the New Testament.

Genesis 15:5–6 CSB

He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Notice here… Abram BELIEVED the LORD!

Abraham’s obedience to God in these crazy ways was not mindless! He was not some emotionless drone doing what God wanted. He was a real human with real emotions and real concerns, but at the end of the day, he believed God. He believed in the promise of God! He believed that God had plans to grow a family that could produce a blessing to all nations! Abraham believed that God had a rescue plan for mankind!

And his obedience was because of THAT TRUTH! Abraham believed God, so he obeyed him. He had FAITH in God that led to WORKS for God.

Hebrews 11:8–12 CSB

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the one who had promised was faithful. Therefore, from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and as innumerable as the grains of sand along the seashore.

He goes on...

Hebrews 11:17–19 CSB

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promises and yet he was offering his one and only son, the one to whom it had been said, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac. He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking.

Do you see what was driving Abraham all along? Was it fear? Was it trying to earn this promise? NO! It was faith! And in doing so, Abraham became the father of not just a nation, but he is the father of all those who trust in God!

Paul makes this clear in Romans 4 if you would like some fun reading on that.

The faith of this one man set the tone for what it looked like to believe in God so that not only one nation could be saved from the corruption of the world, but that people from ALL NATIONS could be! I am not a Jew, but I am a child of Abraham because I believe in the same promise!

The story of Abraham is interwoven into the rest of the Bible. The Biblical authors have that story ingrained in their minds and they allude to it in the smallest ways sometimes. But if you and I will grasp it and study it, we will begin to see those hyperlinks!

The story of Abraham also gives us some important foreshadowing! I’ve already pointed to the Gospel in the covenant ceremony, but it’s also evident in the three fold promise!

God said, “Your family will be my special blessing to all nations.” He definitely meant that his people were to be his image bearers and make much of the glory of God in all nations; however, when we get to the New Testament, Matthew reminds his readers that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham. He didn’t just bear the image, he was the image! He was God! And in one act of sacrifice on the cross, he showed the love of God to the world more than God’s people had ever done or would do. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham!

And maybe my favorite image...

A dad sacrificing his son on a hill near Jerusalem. Does that sound familiar?

Years and years later, Jesus would be led with the wood on his back up a hill just outside Jerusalem. But this time, the son would not get away alive. He would die. But the Bible helps us see that in this death, God was accomplishing what he had promised to Abraham so long ago!

Today, if you have faith in the promises of God like Abraham did, you can be saved! Not because your faith is great, but because Jesus died on the cross to redeem the relationship between God and Man.

If you would like to talk with someone about trusting in Jesus for the first time today, we will have counselors by the back door and I’ll be down front as well.

If you’ve already trusted in Jesus, let me ask you, Are you trusting today? God has called us not to have faith at one point in our lives but to live lives of faith. Trust him with our relationships, our future,