Abraham: A Man of Faith

Introduction

In book 2 of our study through Genesis we find a pretty significant transition. Through the first 11 chapter of Genesis, the focus was on creation, God’s character, and the devastating nature of sin. We’ve seen all of these things and more in our opening book as God created the world good and, due to the fall, there was a consequence. Eventually we saw that the wickedness of mankind was so great that God sends the flood and Noah/his family were responsible to repopulate the earth. Last week we studied the descendants of Noah’s sons and where they moved to. We looked at how there was yet another disobedience as the people failed to spread out and populate the whole earth as they gathered in one location. There are consequences whenever we don’t do what God commands of us - before we get into our study this evening, what is a consequence you’ve experienced as a result of sin?

As a child I tried to steal a candy bar at Kmart and my mom caught me. As a result, I was forced to apologize to the store manager and I got punished at home too. Sin impacted me even as a little kid as I tried to steal. There was a consequence for this sin and we’ve all experienced various consequences for sin throughout our lives!

As we get into this second book, the author of Genesis (Moses) shifts his focus a bit. Rather than looking at the entire world and viewing things through a big lens, we are going to begin to focus specifically on a people group: The Patriarchs. We find ourselves this evening in Genesis 12 and we’ll look at God’s covenantal promise with Abraham - the Father of Israel. Our God is the God who keeps His promises, as we’ve discussed already. He promises to bless all the peoples of the earth through Abraham. This is good news and we’re going to trace this promise through different people in the coming chapters as this promise doesn’t necessarily come to fruition overnight… It takes nearly 2000 years before this promise will be fulfilled - but again, God is faithful and comes through on His promises.

Here’s our outline through chapter 1 of our study

God’s call and Promise (Gen 12:1-3)

Abram’s Obedience (Gen 12:4-9)

Famine in the Land (Gen 12:10)

Abram is Fearful (Gen 12:11-13)

Abram is Blessed by Pharoah (Gen 12:14-16)

God Intervenes (Gen 12:17-20)

God’s Call and Promise. Would someone please read Genesis 12:1-3. What is the command God gives to Abram?

God calls on Abram to “go from your land.” He calls him to leave. This would have been a very difficult thing to do in this era because of the community/family that he had in Haran with Abram’s father. Yet, this is what God calls Abram to do - to leave and to trust in Him.

God doesn’t give Abram all of the details in this section of Scripture - He simply calls him to go and that He will show him the land that he is to go to. This would be difficult to do in any situation, but especially in this situation.

Whenever God commands us to do something, how should we respond? Think of some different responses in Scripture.

We should respond immediately and do what God calls us to do! We should respond like Abram and go. Yet, often our response is more like Jonah as we go the other way and do what makes the most sense to us, or our response is like that of Moses and we make excuses for why we shouldn’t do what God is telling us to do.

God calls Abram to leave his family behind and this would be difficult. It’s hard enough for Lindsey and I to live an hour away from our family - I can’t imagine making a move like this and knowing that you’ll likely never see your family again! Yet, this is the same thing that Jesus calls us to do as His followers!!

Matthew 10:37 CSB

37 The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

God is calling Abram to lay all of his earthly ties and bonds behind and to follow Him exclusively! Are we willing to do the same thing for the sake of Christ today?

Look at the promises from God in these verses.

Great Nation

Bless you

Make your name great

You will be a blessing

Bless those who bless you

Curse those who curse you

All people will be blessed through you

We see 7 promises - fitting because the number 7 represents completion many times in Scripture. These promises are from God. These are not promises that Abram makes or gets to decide for himself, notice the wording in Genesis 12. God is saying, “Leave… And I will do _________.” It is as though God is the source and Abram is the channel through which God will bless him, his family, and eventually the whole world!

How can we be channels for God to use?

We have to first have faith in Him and rely on Him. We have to humble ourselves and be ready to follow His call wherever it leads us, like Abram. We have to moldable like clay before the potter.

We see the 7th promise is universal in the sense that God blesses the whole world through Abram. The early church understood, rightly, that Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman/the offspring of Abraham who obtains this blessing to all who believe. As we’ve been looking at in the book of Acts, this good news first goes out to the Jews - but it will soon go out to all people of the world because it’s not about a single people having all the blessings, the blessing to Abraham is to bless all the world. We find this blessing in Jesus!

Galatians 3:28 CSB

28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.

An important thing for us to realize in this opening section is that the command to Abram was to “Go” - and this is God’s command throughout the Bible. Isaiah was commissioned to Go in Isaiah 6. We know that the Great Commission in Matthew 28 commands us to Go and make disciples. God commands all of us to go and do His work. How should we respond to this command? Like Abram in the following section.

Abram’s Obedience (Gen 12:4-9). Please read Genesis 12:4-9. How does God encourage Abram through this journey?

He appears to Abram at Shechem and says, “To your offspring I will give this land.” He gives him comfort in appearing and he gives him another promise that He hadn’t told him before.

MacArthur is helpful in telling us that around 2090 BC Abram arrives in Canaan. He is 75 years old and is coming here with his nephew and wife and their servants/possessions. God has promised Abram that he will be made into a mighty nation and that the whole world will be blessed through him. In reading verses 4 and 6 we come across 2 problems, though. What are these problems?

Abram is 75 and has no kids and Canaan is already occupied by Canaanites.

Whenever we face problems, it can be easy to get stressed out or to worry. We don’t know if Abram did this at this point in time, we simply see him placing his faith and trusting in God as he and his family travel on this journey. To encourage Abram, we see in verse 7 that God appears to Abram and gives him another piece of information that He didn’t give Abram in verses 1-3.

Why would God wait to tell Abram this part of the promise until now?

To make sure that his motives were in the right place and that he was continuing to trust in God rather than hoping to get something from God.

Shechem is a place that appears several times in the Old Testament and it is a place where decisions are made. In Deuteronomy we will see that the Israelites must choose between following God and being blessed or disobeying Him like the Canaanites and being cursed. In Joshua 24, Joshua gives a charge to the leaders of Israel and instructs them to fear the Lord and choose to worship Him in truth. This is where we find the famous phrase in Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my family, we will worship/serve the Lord.” In 1 Kings 12, after the death of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel splits into 2 as Rehoboam went to Shechem and summoned Jeroboam there where they would eventually split the kingdom into 2 parts, Israel and Judah.

Shechem is a significant place and it is a place where choices must be made. For Abram, as he went here he had a choice: Trust in himself or trust in the Lord. He trusted in the Lord and worshiped Him accordingly. After this scene, we see that Abram moved once again and this is the pattern for his life. He is a nomad of sorts, an alien living in a foreign land. Though he has many possessions and much wealth, he is a sojourner and this is true of several people throughout the redemptive line of history - specifically Ruth.

Famine in the Land (Gen 12:10). Please read Gen 12:10. Abram is faithful in trusting God thus far. Many expect this type of faithfulness to be immediately rewarded! What does Abram experience?

A famine! The famine was so bad that he couldn’t even stay in Canaan, he has to go down to Egypt in order to survive. Does this happen again in Genesis? A famine that strikes and is so disastrous that some people have to venture down to Egypt in order to survive? Joseph’s brothers/family! Egypt was uniquely positioned to survive famines in the ancient world (and even today) due to the Nile River and the Nile Delta as the river-water makes its way to the Mediterranean Sea. Canaan required rainfall to produce food, and there were times whenever there wasn’t a lot of rain as we’ve been studying on Sunday mornings with Elijah. Egypt doesn’t have that same problem because the Nile continues to bring water through its borders/fields.

There are some Christians and non-Christians alike who believe that if they do good things, they will be rewarded accordingly. If you live our the golden rule, you’ll be treated fairly and nicely by others. If you work really hard, God will bless you because God helps those who help themselves. This is the logic used by many people in church pews each week. In the Bible we know that sometimes God does bless people immediately whenever they obey Him. We also know that, as MacArthur talks about on page 6, God uses all things to make us more like Jesus Christ. Romans 8:28 reminds us of this as Paul shares

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

A famine? Does that fall in the category of “all things?” Yep, it does. On one hand, Abram is experiencing the famine and he’s probably not thinking that it’s a “good thing” and we have hard times/circumstances that we don’t think are good often! But, we cling to this promise and we know that God is still at work in the hard times to bring about His plan and to make us more like Jesus!

Have you ever had something happen to you that you thought was very bad but somehow, God used it for good?

Yes! Health problems throughout my life have seemed to be bad in the moment. I tore my patellar tendon at 16 and that ended my track career pretty abruptly. But what it did was allow me to focus on golf and I was able to build relationships with friends that wouldn’t have grown as deep had I not hurt my knee.

Let’s continue and see how God brings about something good from this famine in Egypt

Abram is Fearful (Gen 12:11-13). Please read Gen 12:11-13. Why is Abram suddenly so afraid?

Because he is in a foreign place and isn’t trusting in the Lord.

Consider the example of Peter walking on water. Whenever Peter’s focus was on Jesus, he was walking. Whenever he began to take notice of the waves and the storm, he began to sink. Likewise, whenever Abram’s focus was on the Lord, he was confident in God’s strength and he was faithful to obey. Whenever he began to look around and take notice of other people, he was fearful for his own life.

We see several times in Genesis a husband will tell someone else that their wife is actually their sister and each situation brings about consequences. We see this in Genesis 12, 20, and 26 with Isaac and Rebekah.

Abram is afraid that he will be killed by these men if he says that he is married to Sarai - rather than trusting in God to provide, he comes up with a half-truth which is still a lie.

He knows that God has promised to make him into a might nation - yet, Abram thinks that he is about to die here without having first had a child. To be a mighty nation, you’ve got to have offspring and God promised it’s coming. He promised that this land in Canaan would be his descendants’ yet, he thinks he’s about to die. This is silly - isn’t it? He takes his eyes off of God’s plan and lies because he’s afraid.

Do we do silly things whenever we take our eyes off of Jesus?

Yes! We make up stories/excuses rather than putting our trust in the Lord and casting our fear upon Him.

Abram is Blessed by Pharoah (Gen 12:14-16). Please read Gen 12:14-16. Does Abram’s lie work?

Kind of! Because Sarai was beautiful, Pharoah gave Abram lots of stuff and he didn’t kill him. Yet, we see that she was taken to Pharoah’s household. Meaning that he had lost Sarai, and with her, the promise of descendants. He might’ve received some nice stuff from Pharoah, but his wife was in another person’s house. As MacArthur shares, his fear led him to selling his own wife.

MacArthur speculates that possibly Hagar was one of the female slaves given to him from Pharoah in this transaction of sorts. This causes problems to transpire in the future! His single disobedience carries with it consequences that literally continue 4000 years later.

Thoughts on why Abram would continue to go through with this?

God Intervenes (Gen 12:17-20). Please read Gen 12:17-20. Some people say that God never intervenes in human actions/daily life. How does God intervene in these verses?

God intervenes and brings a plague on Pharaohs household. After the truth comes out, Pharoah lets Abram and Sarai leave. Abram and Sarai are going to be made into a mighty nation - God doesn’t go back on His promises and He promised this would happen. He intervenes to ensure that Sarai doesn’t become one of Pharaohs wives and that the line of redemptive history would remain intact.

Sarai was in trouble based on Abram’s fear and poor decision making. God intervenes and saves her and things are restored momentarily. There are consequences, though. MacArthur brings out a helpful point that Pharoah had been generous with Abram and given him gifts/possessions only to be met with a plague due to Abram’s sin. Our sin, one single sin, can have devastating effects on those around us and we’ve seen this several times in Genesis. We saw it in Genesis 3 with the Fall. We saw it with Ham, Shem, and Japheth and their responses to Noah’s drunkenness and how their choices impacted future generations. We see it again here with Abram’s lie leading Pharaohs household to experience plagues. Sin is Serious

How have you seen God intervene in your life or in another place in Scripture?

We see God intervene in Genesis 50 as Joseph recalls that his brothers meant something for evil that God meant for God. God intervened. God intervened with Saul on the Damascus Road. God intervened with Jonah as Jonah sailed the opposite way and God used a whale to get him back on track. God intervenes often. This doesn’t mean that we can’t disobey God, Abram certainly did. He chose to do the wrong thing - but God prevailed as God always does. God’s plan will happen one way or another. Sometimes He has to use a whale, send a plague, or speak through a donkey to get us to understand rather than just trusting in His plan in the first place.

When have you been called to make a radical change in your own life for God? What were the costs/results?

To Pastor at Morgan Baptist Church and move away from family/friends to a place that we were completely unfamiliar with and distant from people we knew. There were costs to this but God has provided and helped us to grow as we submit to His will.

Often God will not reveal the next step until we obey the present step (11)

Abram was obedient in following God’s plan and then he was told that his descendants would receive the land of Canaan as their eventual home. God didn’t tell Abram this from the get go, he told it to him later. God expected him and expects us to trust in His plan one step at a time.

Sometimes we tell ourselves that we’ll obey God with the big stuff - some say that they’ll die for Christ if it comes to it… But they don’t live for Christ daily. We’re called to be obedient in both big and little things and to follow Him step by step.

Bottom of page 11: How is Satan using fear to hurt people today? How can we fight against his attacks?