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Theme for 2022 is “Begin Again”
In this eight-part series we are looking at how God began everything and how God begins again.
We began with Creation - how God created a good world and wanted that goodness to spread and fill the earth.
And we learned that God’s plan even through the flood was to redeem the earth and to restore a new humanity.
Last week we talked about how God allowed humanity to be divided - He even encouraged it - so that they would scatter and fill the earth.
Genesis 1-11 has sometimes been considered the “prologue” of the Bible.
A prologue is a part of a book or a play that is separate from the main story, but which sets the stage for being able to understand and appreciate the plot, the characters or the context of the main story.
In other words, everything we have talked about so far is just the backdrop for what God is going to do next.
God is on a mission.
Missio Dei - The mission of God - literally “the sending of God”
God is on a mission to reach the world.
God is going to begin by sending one man - Abraham.
And from Abraham, God is going to choose a people who will be his representatives.
And from that people he is going to chose a family, a tribe, the line of David, through which he is going to send His son.
And then Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to the church.
The Holy Spirit empowers the church to go to the world.
This is God’s mission in a nutshell.
God enters into relationship with people so that He can send them to go to other people.
As the people who are in relationship with God enter into relationship with other people, they bring those people into relationship with God.
That is how God is reaching the world- through people.
God’s plan is to redeem and restore the world, but to do that we must reach the world by joining God on His mission.
To understand what God is doing against this background of beginnings, we need to look at one more beginning.
Let’s follow Abraham, whose story is going to take up the next fifteen chapters of Genesis.
(Noah only had four chapters.)
He’s our first main character in the mission of God.
Abraham will show us what God is doing - what it means to follow God’s leading, to have a relationship with God and to live a life of worship.
This should help us to understand what we are sent to do.
Follow God’s leading
Leave the past behind.
Abraham set out with his father Terah to leave Ur of the Chaldeans.
Ur was the port city of Babylon.
One of the names for the city is “mound of bitumen”
It would have been a center for making the bricks and mortar for the construction of the tower of Babel.
But we know that construction is no longer happening.
People are leaving town.
The economy is collapsing.
Abraham’s father Terah decides to leave town.
We don’t know much about Terah except that he had children comparatively late in life to most of his ancestors.
He was at least 70 before Abraham was born.
Maybe he was too busy to have children?
Also, Abraham had a brother who died back in Ur, that’s why we see Abraham looking after his nephew Lot.
We don’t know why Haran died, only that he died in Ur, leaving a son to be cared for by relatives.
I know this is entirely speculation - but there must have been some tragic accidents when God confused that languages.
What if Abraham’s brother was in such an accident?
We don’t know why Terah left Ur, but we can imagine.
Babel was a big failure.
People are talking different languages and there is confusion and arguing where people are not understanding one another.
He had experienced personal tragedy and loss.
Abram and Sarai are not having children.
Nothing is going right, its time for a fresh start.
Perhaps God spoke to Abram’s family already in Ur and told them to leave.
God would later say that he called Abraham already in Ur.
Sometimes God uses circumstances to lead us.
Sometimes tragedy leads us down a path that we might not have otherwise discovered.
Sometimes experiencing loss can help us to let go of attachments that might have kept us stuck in one place.
Sometimes things not working out leads us to new possibilities that we never would have considered.
I don’t believe that God causes tragedy, failure or disappointment, but I know that he uses all of these things to lead us to a better future.
God is on a mission.
Joining that mission means letting go of the past.
Maybe you had high hopes for prosperity in Babylon.
Maybe you were making a killing off selling bricks and mortar.
Maybe you sacrificed family climbing the ladder of success.
It’s time to move on and join God on his mission.
Don’t settle for less than obedience.
If God was leading Abraham toward what would become the promised land, they only made it half-way.
They settled in a place called Haran.
Interesting that they place they settled has the same name as Abram’s dead brother.
I makes you wonder if it was called Haran before they got there or if that was the name that they gave to the place.
Maybe that’s why they they got stuck there - maybe it was grief.
“If only Haran were here!”
- “Hey let’s call this place ‘Haran’!”
The scripture says that they “settled” there.
The text implies that they were only half-way obedient.
It says in the same sentence that God called them to go to the land of Canaan.
Yes, Canaan, the cursed uncle of Nimrod who build the tower that failed and destroyed their livelihood.
Maybe that’s another argument for staying in Haran.
They would stay in Haran until Abram’s father Terah died.
Abram’s brother Nahor would never leave Haran.
He would still be there years later when Abram’s son Isaac is looking for a wife.
They got out of Ur, but they didn’t get to the place that God wanted them to go.
They “settled” in Haran.
The place of mourning.
The place of “good enough.”
The place of “at least we are not in Ur.”
But it is not the place of obedience.
What has God spoken to you that you have never fully realized?
Did you reach a point where you were like “Eh, this is far enough”?
Did you get to a place where you no longer felt the urgency to move forward?
Have you settled for less than obedience?
Why do I ask?
Because God is on a mission!
We’re not there yet.
There is further to go.
How do join God on his mission?
Develop a relationship with God.
You won’t know until you go.
God reiterates his call to Abram.
Or if it was Terah, Abram receives it again.
The call is to leave everything that is familiar.
Leave your country.
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