Look to the stars Part 1

Announcements:

VBS

YouVersion

Flow:

We are kicking off a brand new series titled “look to the stars.”

I have to give credit where credit is due. Wade was given a pretty tough task last week and he did a great job of recapping the first 11 chapters of Genesis

If you weren’t here at the beginning of 2021 when we went through that I would encourage you to go back and watch that, it really sets up where we are going now.

If you weren’t here last week then at the very least you could go back and watch that and get a general idea of the storyline up until this point.

You can find that by going to our website and scrolling down and hitting the “watch now” under current series

That will take you to our vimeo where last weeks message will be. You can click on our name and go to showcases and scroll down to find “new beginnings” which was our series through the first 11 chapters

ok so let me pray and we will dive in this morning

pray

Content:

So if we are reading through the Genesis story and we read through the first 11 chapters we are following this storyline and you see a man by the name of Abram introduced in chapter 11 and then all of a sudden in chapter 12, everything is about Abram.

so in order to understand a little more clearly what is going on and why Abram we need to back track and focus on a couple of things.

We need to focus on God’s original intent and purpose for humanity and also what has just happened before Abram to perhaps better understand why Abram

So, if we remember back in Gen chapter 2 God creates Adam and therefore humanity.

He creates them in the “imago dei” or in the image of God.

So, they are made like God. Not God, but like Him

distinct from all other creatures

God then decrees that man should rule and have dominion and that they should be fruitful and multiply

In essence, we were created to reflect the glory of God and to spread it to the ends of the earth.

Of course we know that that wasn’t good enough, that we wanted more and the fall happens, sin enters the world, and humanity is never the same

We then follow this chaotic journey of man’s evilness and God’s continued faith-fullness to humanity

And it all culminates into what we see right before Abram steps onto the scene

The tower of Babel

Here we see humanity do, in a sense, what God has wanted them to do. They finally come together in unity.

Except that they are pursuing not to spread the glory of God but to become gods themselves

So God scatters them.

And we get to this point of the story and go, “what next?”

It seems as if, God’s best shot at fulfilling His plans and purposes have failed so what now?

What does God do now? Where does He turn? Where do you even start right?

I remember when I lived in Ft Myers and hurricane Charley hit. I was like 13 or 14 years old. We lived in a neighborhood that had massive oak trees. They were huge and they had these limbs that would come way down and then swoop back up and so every yard was just beautiful. We heard that the storm was coming so because of all of our trees we decided to go to a friends house down the road. We stayed there and waited the storm out and I remember getting back in the car to ride to the house to assess the damage. There were limbs and debris everywhere. We rode by a gas station and its canopy had been ripped off and laid halfway across the road. There was half of a travel trailer up by the interstate. It looked like something you would see in a movie. We pulled into our neighborhood and began to look at the damage that was done to our neighbors. We finally arrived at the house and you couldn’t see a blade of grass. Limbs were down everywhere, leaves and debris covered our yard. Luckily, at least what I remember, the house was fine. We were without power for about a week. We had a generator and we would all lay in the living room with a fan blowing on us. But I remember pulling up to our yard and thinking “I don’t even know if it’s worth it.” I don’t even know if it’s worth trying to clean up and fix. Even if it is, where would we start? There’s just carnage everywhere! What do we even do?

Here is where we are in the story of God and humanity.

If I were God, I’d have to be asking myself, is it even worth it?

At this point in history you could hardly see even a blade of God’s glory

It was evilness and destruction

Chaos and confusion

But here is the good news: We serve a God of redemption

We serve a God who can take the worst of the worst and make it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen

Have you guys ever seen a tiger swallowtail?

Pictures

This is just a glimpse into what God does

So hear me clearly this morning

It does not matter what you have done, it does not matter where you have been, it does not matter what someones has done to you or said to you.

You may be carrying with you hurt, and wounds, and scars and you may feel like a disaster and thrown away and that if I knew the details of your life that I would change my mind but let me tell you something

We serve a good God who is faithful and redemptive

He has a way of taking disasters and making them beautiful

And if He can do it in Genesis 12 He can do it today

And that is exactly what He does!

So, if we go back to Gen 11 what do we see as the aim of mankind?

Genesis 11:4 NIV

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

They wanted to “make a name” for themselves.

This was the goal. Ok so remember that and we will circle back to it

Then enters Abram. Who, up to this point, by all accounts and purposes, is a nobody.

We know him now as father Abraham the father of our faith but here in chapter 12 he’s not royalty, he’s no one of importance. In fact he doesn’t have a home, he just wonders around, seemingly without a plan and without a purpose in his life

So we pick up in chapter 12. Let’s read the first 3 verses

Genesis 12:1–3 NIV

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “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. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So here we begin to see several themes and threads that will follow through the rest of Scripture.

#1 God humbles the proud and exalts the humble

In Babylon what did we see them shooting for?

To make a great name for themselves

they were proud and could only think about getting more

They could care less what God wanted

What He desired for them

They used what God had given them to elevate themselves

They were proud and so God humbled them

And so they scatter!

Let this be a warning for us

We see it all throughout Scripture

One way or another, God will humble your pride

Psalm 138:6 NIV

6 Though the Lord is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly; though lofty, he sees them from afar.

Proverbs 3:34 NIV

34 He mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed.

Proverbs 29:23 NIV

23 Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.

Matthew 23:12 NIV

12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Luke 1:52 NIV

52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

1 Peter 5:5 NIV

5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

It’s thematic throughout Scripture

If we think we don’t need God, God has a way of making us realize how little we are

If we fall on our faces in worship to the Holy One in which all things are made and we live to reflect His glory and His glory alone then He will use us for His kingdom

He elevates us to sons and daughters of the King of kings.

A second theme we see here is that God chooses one for the sake of the many

It’s the term we would use called election

Now, before we get really nervous, especially my raised in church crowd

We aren’t talking about calvinism and armenianism today ok

But, no matter where you fall on that doctrine, you can not argue against the fact that God chose Abram.

He “elected” to use Abram. Abram wasn’t the only man alive. In fact, he wasn’t even the only son of Terah, his father.

There were other options, but God chose Abram.

But we can’t miss the reason and we see that reason in chapter 12

So, God says, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.”

Ok so God has chosen Abram. He will make him into a great nation.

So here is the fruitful and multiply.

God is going to take Abram and try to succeed in the plan where Adam failed

He is going to make him into a great nation that will inhabit the earth

Part 2: “I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.”

Remember this was what the people in the story of the tower of babel wanted.

To make a great name for themselves

So we see, the people of babel who wanted to do it for themselves end up getting scattered

Here, God says, I will do it for you

Part 3: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.”

God is for you! As a reflection of my glory, made in the image of God, as the elected man and soon nation of God

When people bless you, I will bless them

When people curse you, I will curse them

Part 4: Here is the lynchpin to it all, we can’t miss this

“and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Why does God choose Abram? For the sake of all humanity.

To fulfill the story of redemption

So again, we see that God will choose one for the sake of many

I believe too often we get so caught up in our individualistic worlds that we see our relationship with God as only individual but that is not how God works nor is it how He has ever worked

God will use the individual but for the sake of the many

Your relationship with God might be personal and individual but it doesn’t stop there

Your relationship with Jesus was always meant to be one that spread the glory of God to nations

If we are only interested in Jesus in our prayer closets and nowhere else than we aren’t fulfilling the callings of God on our lives

If you would call yourself a Christian than you have been redeemed so that you may spread that redemptive plan to nations not just to keep it to yourself

Here God chooses Abram so that the earth may be blessed

He chooses Abram to save the world

This is why Abram is known often as the new Adam.

God had created, designed, and set it all in motion and Adam failed

He starts over here with Abram as the new Adam to fulfill what the first could not

And spoiler alert, what we will see is that it doesn’t work out all that great either

and yet God is still faithful to His promise to Abram

And eventually He sends the final Adam in Jesus

The One who will, once and for all, make a way for the world to be invited into His redemptive plan and to be blessed through.

So, as we study through the life of Abraham, here Abram. What we should see is:

Abram is an ordinary man with humble beginnings who God chooses to bless humanity through

But, Abram is still a man and will fail

Yet, God is faithful to this promise we see in chapter 12.

He makes Abram into a great nation

He blesses him and all those who bless him

And he uses Abram to bless all the peoples of the earth

We see it in glimpses throughout the rest Genesis and of Scripture

But we see it fulfilled ultimately through Jesus