From Abraham to the Nations
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis 12:1-3
Around 8 years ago, Amanda woke me up and told me that she had plans for the day but wouldn’t be telling me what they were. She simply said, get dressed and let’s go. Mia was a few months old and we dropped her off at the daycare and headed down the road.
Amanda would not tell me where we were going and simply asked me to trust her. We were on the road for over an hour when finally we pulled into Lincoln Region Airport in Sacramento for a fun day of skydiving.
Now I had always wanted to go skydiving, but it’s not something that I would plan for myself. In fact, had Amanda told me where we were going from the start, I may not have gotten out of bed. But we had come too far to turn back now.
And after some tuturial, we boarded a plane and ascended and I accomplished my first and only ever skydive.
But I’m glad I did it as it is something I will always remember.
Transition to the Text: There are moments in our lives we just remember. Our wedding day, the birth of our children. As Christians, maybe you remember that moment when you were transformed by the power and love of Jesus.
Then theree are moments that are remembered by a generation.
My grandparents would talk about World War 2 and VD!
My dad used to speak of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the moon landing.
For my generation, we remember 911.
I think that it is possible that this younger generation will remember COVID-19 with the same vividness.
But then there are events that happen that are etched into the fabric of history.
The resurrection is one of these.
The fall of the Roman empire is another.
The Revolutionary War
The atomic bomb.
But before all of them, was the call of Abram by God.
Whatever you believe about and Bible, it is difficult to deny the importance of this man who started from nothing to become the father of many nations and at least 3 major religions. God set a man on a path that many may not truly understand is still having ramifications thousands of years later.
But I’m going to say something perhaps controversial to some and to others (Specifically non-Christians) downright heretical.
It is only in Christianity that the call of Abram can truly be understood for the significance that God intended it to have.
How can I say that? Because it is the only way in which the promise that God makes to Abram in today’s passage can be understood as being true.
Big Idea: Long ago, God had a plan to use Abram’s family to bring Jesus into the world.
Big Idea: Long ago, God had a plan to use Abram’s family to bring Jesus into the world.
Now our English Bible’s list a man named “Abram.” And you might ask, who is that? Abram was a man born in Ur which is modern day Iraq or ancient Babylon. When called, his name was Abram which means Exalted Father which was probably a point of pain since he and his wife Sarah were unable to have children and they were already well advanced in years. But God changed his name.
5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
So Abram and Abraham are the same person. But let’s read all the way back when God was just starting out with Abram and calling him to “Follow Him.”
Read:
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Repeat Big Idea: Long ago, God had a plan to use Abraham’s family to bring Jesus into the world.
Main Point #1: God always had a plan for Abram and the World. (Genesis 12:1-2)
Main Point #1: God always had a plan for Abram and the World. (Genesis 12:1-2)
Explanation: Notice something. The focus is entirely on what God will do. Abram is only told to do 1 thing, “Go.” Yet God says, “I will...” 5 times.
I will show you...
I will make you a great nation...
I will bless you....
I will bless those who bless you....
I will curse those who curse you...
There is no, “if” here. The covenant between God and Abram is based only on God. It’s unconditional. Why, because God has a plan that does not depend on man to accomplish it or even play his part. God will do what he sets out to do. All the nations will be blessed. This is a done deal. Yet it’s not difficult to see that Abram has a lot of faith here.
While God already knows what He has planned, there is a lot of ambiguity here in these verses for Abram. In fact, because you and me bring so much with us to our understanding of the text that we miss just how difficult this would have been for Abram to trust God. And this text truly shows what the Apostle Paul tell us about Abram; that he was a man of great faith.
Look at the places where Abram had great faith:
Go from your country and father’s household to the land that i will show you. God tells Abraham to go and doesn’t even tell him where to go. Yet Abram obeys.
God says that he will make Abram a great nation…even though his wife, Sarai has been unable to have children.
God says that he will make Abraham’s name great…so that he will be a blessing to others. So much so that all the families of the earth will be blessed. That’s a huge promise....and a promise that only makes sense if Christianity is true.
Now you and I can look ahead and see that God would indeed bring Abram to land of Palestine. We can see that it is a land so great that people would be fighting over that land for thousands of years. We can see that Abram’s obedience was not in vain.
We can see that God would give Abram a son by his wife Sarai well into her old age. We can even look forward and see that God would make Abram not only a great nation, but many nations. We can look at history and see that Judaism, Islam and Christianity all trace their origins this man God called to Go.
We can see that God would change Abram’s name to Abraham.
But of course, Abram didn’t know any of this. All he had to go on was faith.
Illustration: We are often tempted to read ourselves into the Bible and try to glean God’s will for our lives through the lives of biblical characters. We might think God is telling you...
God is telling me to leave where I am.
That God promises to make you great.
That God promises to bless other through you.
Let’s be careful because we are in the story of Abram, but not in the way you might think. We are living out God’s promise to bless the world through him. In this case, we are blessed not because of our obedience but because God used Abram to be blessing to the world in a very specific way.
Yes, God had a plan for Abram, but more than that, God had a plan to redeem the world (including us) from the sin and death that had been running rampant since Adam and Even sinned in the garden.
And we continue to be sinners in desperate need for a savior.
Application: So what can we learn from Abram? How does it apply to us?
We learn to trust God in all circumstances even when we don’t have all the answers. Looking at the story of Abram, and even bringing in that information that we know that Abram didn’t know, we can learn that God is absolutely faithful to deliver on His promises.
We learn that God doesn’t bless people for the sake of themselves but to be a blessing to others. God did not bless Abram for Abram’s sake and God won’t bless you for your sake. We are always blessed to be a blessing. And if you aren’t a blessing when you are blessed, you aren’t living out the fullness of the Christian life.
We can learn that these great characters of the Bible can be examples of faith to follow in our own life.
But there is a bigger story here of which Abram plays a small part. And that is the story of God’s glory in the redemption of His people.
It started back in Genesis 3:15 and continues even today until Jesus returns to take us home.
God was going to use Abram not to make his name great, not to make a great nation of the jewish people. Not even to bring Abram into the land per se.
God’s purpose for Abram was to be a a vessel through which God would bless all the nations of the earth by bringing a savior into the world..
Which also shows us that God’s people are from all the families of the earth.
This rings out in
9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
God’s plan is not just Abram and his family but for the world.
So what is that plan?
Main Point #2: The plan is Jesus. (Genesis 12:3)
Main Point #2: The plan is Jesus. (Genesis 12:3)
Explanation: Now we really don’t know how much that Abram knew when God first called him to go, but considering that God didn’t even tell him where he was going tells that he probably didn’t know much else. But today, we happen to know a lot. And looking back through history, we know that the way in which Abram would be a blessing to the nation of Israel and the way in which all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abram was that in a few thousands years, a descendant of Abram named Mary would give birth to a baby and would call His name Jesus. That baby would grow up live a perfect life and while he was without sin, would die for the sins of people from every tribe and language and people and nation. And what made him worthy to die as our substitute? He was both a perfect man and fully God in the flesh.
And the point of starting all the way back with Abraham and then slowly working forward was to create a long line of prophecies that could be traced, verified and fulfiled in a very specific way leaving know doubt that Jesus was that long awaited promised savior.
It’s important to note that God had been planning long before Abram. In fact, we’ve already mentioned Genesis 3:15 which is the first biblical reference to the coming Messiah, who would crush the serpant’s head, but God was planning even before that to redeem His people from their sins.
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,
9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
It wasn’t like a man like Abram came along and finally God could do something about this sin issue. Abram was God’s chosen vessel....nothing more. God uses ordinary people to join an extraordinary plan. Jesus was always Plan A. Before the foundations of the earth, God knew that Adam and Eve would sin and that they would be in need of saving. So even before sin entered the world, God began his plan for the redemption of mankind.
And just in case 2 Timothy might be misunderstood here are a few more:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you
21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
7 Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation,
8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
You begin to see a pattern here. In many cases, we have made the great story of redemption about us. The jewish people no doubt made it about themselves and kept it to themselves…which became a major point of contention between the earth church and the Jewish teachers of the law.
A few centuries later, the roman empire tried to make it all about them.
In America today, we talk about us as a Christian nation…as if there ever was such a thing.
Denominations try to make it all about them.
The blessing to the nations promised to Abram and fulfilled in Jesus was a blessing to all the families of the earth.
When we share the gospel with people today, we are living in the blessing of God through Abram. When we don’t…we have forsaken the gospel and failed in our mission.
Illustration: I love the star wars movies…the original 3…like the real original 3…where Han shot first. but the first time you watched those, you knew you were starting a movie in the middle of the story. And there are few moments in movie history like that moment when Luke finds out that Darth Vader is his father. (Sorry if that’s a spoiler…but come on!)
But we knew we were in the middle of a bigger story that wasn’t even about Luke. So they went back and made the prequels to tell the rest of the story. Additionally even after the death star exploded in Return of the Jedi, you knew the story wasn’t over....so they “attempted to finish the story.
Praise be to God that the end of His story won’t be like that.
Well, our stories are a lot like that. it didn’t begin when we are born and won’t end when we die. God exists from eternity past on into eternity future. And the part where we show up in God’s great story is like jumping into a story somewhere in the middle, but after that great climax of Jesus on the cross. This is the great blessing to the world.
So what part do we now play in God’s story?
Application:
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Now the similarity to Abram’s call shouldn’t be lost here. We too are to go wherever God may lead. Again, doesn’t tell us where to go, just to go. We are also told to forsake all to follow Jesus.
We’re called to make disciples of Jesus who will become, in a sense, a great nation called the church, a nation made up of all people from all the families of the earth.
And God won’t make our name great, but through our love for Jesus we will make His name great as we take his name to the nations!
Our mission as the church continues for us to be a blessing to the world as we share the finished work of Jesus on the cross!
Which begs the question, have you been transformed by the power of God? Are you in the blessing of Abram? Simply put, do you admit that you are a sinner in need of a savior? Do you believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins and was raised to life. And will you confess with your mouth that Jesus is now Lord of your life?
For many of us, we are good with the first 2 here. We can admit that we are sinners and we can believe in Jesus....but it’s confessing with your mouth that Jesus is lord is often lost on us. Why must we do that?
Because it is in our confession of faith that we pass on the blessing to others who need to embrace the love of a savior.
You have to tell others!!!!!
Response: How will you share your story of how you have been blessed by Jesus coming into your life?
Response: How will you share your story of how you have been blessed by Jesus coming into your life?
Conclusion:
Now for Christians, we have been blessed in Abraham by our embracing of Jesus as the satisfaction of our sins on the cross.
So what ought we to do because of that blessing?
Well we can do what most Christians do…we can keep it to ourselves not wanting to bother others or to push our faith on them. Then of course we can ask, “why aren’t more people becoming Christians?” Or we can pray for revival without the willingness to play our part.
Or....
We can obey scripture and share it with the world. We can plead and beg people to consider their sin and the truth of the Bible. And we can implore that they look to Jesus and find life.
But let’s also remember that the blessing is for our family. The first person, Abraham probably shared this blessing with was his wife.
But it’s so easy to be closed minded that we forget that the blessing has always been for the entire world.
So share the blessing with your family, by pushing our kids to go to church. People say, “well I want my kids to want to go rather than being forced.” They will want to go if you as parents show them that community is a joyful thing.
Share it with your community. Who is the last neighbor you brought to church? It’s really easy right now as you can just share a link with them. But when this is all over, we want to bring people to church.
Share it with your country. This is a tough one, because we are tempted to think that God will bless our country when we elect godly leaders. But actually, the greatest advancements of the christian faith have always been under brutal governments. We affect our country by what we do in the face of opposition and persecution not what we do to avoid it.
Share it with the world . The world is filled with sinful people from North America to South America and from South America to Asia and Europe. Yes there are even sinners in Antarctica, studying penguins, who need to come face to face with their sin and embrace the savior that came and died for them.
Now some will go. We need young people who are willing to go, like Abraham, to a place God will show them. One of the biggest barriers to missions is actually parents who want to spread the gospel but don’t want their kids to move across the world. Raise kids who are willing to go.
Support missions through your financial giving, by praying, and by going.
And believe it or not, this pandemic has actually made it easier. Because people who said they could never get online are now online. People are tuning in to sunday messages.
So here is a challenge for you this week. Invite someone to join in on a church service next week. It doesn’t have to be ours, though I hope that you like ours enough to share, but share a service where people will be confronted with their sin and offered the gospel.
Let’s not waste this great opportunity to bring many sons and daughters to Jesus.
Let’s Pray.