The Promises
The Story of the Old Testament: Genesis • Sermon • Submitted
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Prayer
God Calls a People unto Himself
It’s great to back this morning, and to pick back up on our journey through the Old Testament, and in particular, the Book of Genesis, which appropriately, means origins or beginnings. I thought it’d be helpful to take a step back and see where we are before we dive into this morning’s story.
I want to begin by talking about the layers of stories in the Bible. The Bible has three layers of stories to it. There are the individual stories we find throughout, ones we’ve been looking at so far - Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah and the Ark, etc. That’s one level of story, individual.
But many of these stories make up the second level, which are the broader narratives - the two main parts of the Bible, Old & New Testament. The main story of the Old Testament is the one we’ll begin today, the story of Israelites as God’s chosen people, their history - and that story begins with Abram and Sarai. The New Testament, which takes place hundreds of years after the last story of the Old Testament is, of course, the story of Jesus coming to us, dying for us (the Gospels), and the formation of the early church as they take the good news of Jesus out into the world.
But all of that, those two levels (individual stories and broader narratives) are all part of the one big story of the Bible, the metanarrative. That’s made up of four parts, beginning with Creation, God creating the world - and in particular, humans (all good). Then the Fall, we rebel, disobey God and sin enters the world. Third, Redemption - God, in the person of Jesus, is born as human, dies on the cross, rises from the dead, redeeming us from sin and enabling us to be reconciled to God and live eternally with God in his kingdom. Then the final part of the story, Restoration, Jesus returning, the heavens and earth made new, and all evil and death are vanquished, only God’s good remains.
That’s the story that the whole of the Bible tells, what we would say is the very the story of reality. What’s true, whether we believe it or not. God is reconciling the world to himself through his Son, Jesus.
When we trust in Jesus and begin to follow him, these stories become our stories, our history. Abraham is our father in faith. When we pick up the Bible we’re reading about our family history - which, like all family histories, is very mixed. Lots of mess ups and turning from God, and lots of beautiful moments of faith.
But the one constant aspect of the story is God himself, he is the center part of the story. Ultimately it’s all about him - his creation, his faithfulness, his mercies, his goodness, his desire to be with us and have us be with him. The big question is whether we want to be with him, to share in this great story, especially God’s great work of reconciling the world to himself through Jesus.
Now, to pick up where we left off: Two weeks ago we looked at Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel, story of people uniting together to build a tower for themselves, to make a name for themselves. In response, God confuses their language so they can’t understand each other and scatters them to do what he created us to do - multiply, fill the earth.
So they do, they scatter, all these various people groups. Now God is going to begin to work through one group in particular. And that will start with a man by the name of Abram (later his name is changed to Abraham, but we’ll stick with Abram right now), and his wife, Sarai (again, her name gets changed to Sarah).
At the end of Genesis 11, we learn that Abram is son of Terah, and they live in land of Ur (modern day Iraq). Terah takes his family - including Abram, Abram’s wife, Sarai, and Terah’s grandson, Lot, to go to land of Canaan. But instead they settle in Harran (also in modern day Iraq). We also learn here that Abram and Sarai are childless, Sarai is unable to conceive. Terah dies, and we pick up the story here in Genesis 12.
God’s Promises, Our Faith
Genesis 12:1-9...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.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. 6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. 9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
So God gives Abram a command, a very simple command. Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
It’s pretty straightforward. Go. That’s the command - Go. Go from - Leave this place, leave your home, your country, your family, and then, Go to - go to the land I will show you.
As simple as it is, there’s a lot there. First, everything that God is asking Abram to go from, to leave. Leave everything you’re familiar with, leave that comfort and security of home. The support structure of your community and your family. Not just that, but in leaving, he is forsaking his inheritance. Whatever land Terah had in Ur or Harran, Abram is forced to leave behind.
Abram knows what he’s giving up - and it’s a lot. And he knows virtually nothing about what he is going to. All God tells him is, go to the land I will show you. Just a little vague.
Then God goes on to make some serious promises to Abram, promises to bless Abram by making him into a great nation, making his name great. It’s important to note that at this point Abram hasn’t done anything special, he hasn’t done anything to earn this. This is a very one-sided promise. God is saying to Abram, I’m going to do this for you and Sarai.
He makes the promise of making him father of a great nation - which means people, descendants, lots and lots of descendants. And land, that nation has to exist someplace, rule over some area to hold all these people - if it’s going to be a great nation.
There’s just a slight problem here - Abram at this point has neither. As far as land goes, he left whatever land he might have had - he doesn’t even know exactly where he’s going. He’s a nomad traveling to a foreign land. Worse than that, he has no children - and it hasn’t been for a lack of trying, Sarai is unable to conceive. And at this point in the story, they’re already quite old - he’s 75 and she’s 65. Not exactly prime childbearing age.
God promises to Abram that only that he will be father of a great nation - but through that through Abram and this nation God will make through him, he will bless all other nations, all peoples on earth. (Side note, this is God beginning to peel back and reveal his plan to redeem the whole world, his plan for salvation is being put into action).
Just to make sure you hear this, but these are huge promises, huge. Abram and Sarai are older, have no children, have not been able to have children. God is telling them to leave whatever land they have and go to a land that is occupied, owned by somebody else. And God says, you do this and I’ll make a great nation out of you, descendants so numerous you can’t count them. And every other nation on earth will be blessed through the nation I’m going to make out of you.
So leave your current land, all your family and go. I’ll show you where, just go.
It’s kinda of insane that Abram actually goes. He does. Packs up all his belongings (he doesn’t put it into storage in case he comes back), but he packs it up and gathers his people and goes.
At the heart of this story is not the geographic location, that’s secondary. Heart of this story is God working in Abram to shift what he has always relied on - country, people, family, etc. to rely on God. To be willing to let go of those things so what he can trust in God.
This is such a great example of challenge of faith. When I use the word faith here, of believing, I’m talking about trust. About a willingness to rely on someone or something. To lean on that thing person or thing because of what I believe it will do for me or how they will treat me. Which we do all time - can’t live life without faith.
When I sit down in a chair, I trust that chair is built properly and will sustain me so I’m willing to put full weight of my body on my chair - don’t think about, just sit down. Based on our experience, the vast majority of time, the chair will. But what if chairs weren’t well made, had a regular habit of breaking apart (or you had friends who enjoyed pulling all the screws out)? We’d be really wary, wouldn’t we? We’d start off by putting a little pressure on it with our hands, then push some to put more pressure, then little by little more of our body weight. Then, if we felt it was sturdy enough, we’d sit down on it. But we’d be ready to jump up at the first cracking noise we heard.
That’s always the way we are with people - because people are much more unpredictable than chairs. We’re always testing and probing to see if the person we’re interacting with is reliable. Are they safe? Will they treat us well? But we all have people in our lives we trust to one degree or another, including ourselves.
And when we find things we think we can trust, we are loathe to give that up for an unknown. Which is exactly what God is asking Abram to do here - to leave what is familiar, what he knows - what he has come to trust because he knows it.
When I was in college I worked at a Young Life camp in Colorado, Frontier Ranch - and I was on the Ropes team. One of the things we did was lead kids through the ropes course, which was built up in the trees, high off ground). We’d be stationed at various elements the kids would make their way through. At the last station, the kids would cross a log and come to the platform that one of us was standing on. From there, they had to jump off the platform and try to grab a trapeze bar that was hanging out in front of them. That was it, jump out into midair and try to grab that bar.
Now, they had harness on. They were connected to a belay line - at the end of that line was their leader on the ground to make sure they didn’t go crashing down to the ground. Very safe, very secure. But it didn’t feel that way. They knew the platform was secure. It was solidly made, they could stand there, they trusted it.
We were asking them to trust us by leaping out into the air - didn’t matter if they caught the bar or not, their leader had them “on belay” on the safety line, and would lower them down. But that’s an unknown situation - people don’t typically jump out into midair when they’re high up in a tree, that doesn’t end well. Between their leader and myself, we were saying to them, trust us, we’ve got you, nothing will harm you.
This is what God was saying to Abram - trust me. Put your faith in me. Lean on me. All that you’ve relied on before - your land, your country, people you know, your family, your wealth, leave that.
It’s very telling that the directions about where he’s going to are so vague - go to the land I will show you. It requires that he continue to seek after God, to keep looking to God, so God can show him where to go. You all, I’m sure, know the experience of being in an unfamiliar area and following someone you knows the way - you’re locked in, because you want to make sure you get to where you’re going - otherwise you have no clue.
This is a scary transition. We often continue to trust in things or people who are not even that reliable, but because they are familiar, we at least know what to expect from them.
But this is transition God is always working in our lives to do - for us to move from placing our primary trust in people and things to trusting fully on him. From looking to a relationship as primary source of our happiness. Or looking to money for security. Sometimes it’s more of strategies, our own “wisdom” - if I get people to like or admire me, than I’ll feel important. So I work to show how smart or capable or virtuous I am. Or I’m very particular about who I will be in relationship with, keep my heart very guarded, because I trust my wisdom about who and how much I’ll let people into my life.
Why it’s often easier for those who have nothing left to lose to turn to God - everything else has failed them (including themselves). It’s those of us that think we’re doing OK, we can manage - that’s far harder to let go of.
In all of this, all we have to go on is what Abram himself had to go on - the character of God. Is God trustworthy? Does he truly know best (Father Knows Best)? Can I rely on him? Challenge of trusting in God is so often we don’t know how or when or often even why. But the one thing we know is Who.
If there’s one thing that’s absolutely clear about this story, what we can see in command that God gives Abram - is that God wants Abram to trust him above everything else. I am the faithful one. I will do what I promised. My word is sure. It’s the same thing God wants to nurture in our lives, trust in him over everything else.
Spiritual Direction - How do I nurture faith in Jesus in my life? Eugene Peterson has a great phrase (title of one of his books) “Long obedience in the same direction.” Idea that the life of faith is cultivated by seeking to be more and more obedient to Jesus, little by little. You won’t be obedient in big things if you aren’t obedient in small things. And so, to nurture faith, take small steps of obedience:
Get into word (cultivate a spiritual discipline in your life). Took a long time to develop in my life.
Grow your generosity (Regular giving, start small, look for opportunities)
Forgive a friend, a family member (heart of grace)
Love your neighbor (heart of servitude, desire for their good - including experiencing life in Jesus).
Inspiration
In Romans 4, Paul writes that Abraham received all these promises by faith. Everything God promised him came to be. And that’s true for us as well. In that sense, Abraham is, as Paul writes, the father of us all. the father of all who believe.
I want to finish by reading a short passage from Romans 4, verses 18-25: Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Let us be fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he has promised us, and give ourselves more and more fully to him in faith.