Sermon Central
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Called To Be A Blessing!
Contributed by Brian Williams on May 6, 2024 (message contributor)
Summary: Abram didn’t need a change of scenery or circumstance - Abram’s life needed to be transformed. He had to break his past cultural ties because they had such a powerful hold on him.
Called to be a Blessing
5 May 2024
From the beginning of Genesis we have seen the cascading effects of the Fall on the human race. But despite all that happens on this planet, God has given the world hope that through one woman - Eve, one family - Abraham’s, and from one nation - Israel, from whose lineage a Savior came and defeated death and evil once and for all. This Savior came through the lineage of Seth as we can see in Genesis 11:10-26. After the flood and the dispersion of the human race, the narrative focuses on one family who will end up being the source of blessing for the whole world.
If we follow the family stories in Genesis, first we had Adam and Eve, starting in Paradise and then the Fall and the heartbreak with their kids, Cain, and Abel. Then it was Noah and the drama that happened with him and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth after the flood. Now in Genesis 12 the story is focusing on a family that we will watch go through some incredible yet humanly impossible situations and come through on the other side. Let’s read: Gen 11:27- 12:9 (ESV)
27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.
12:1 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.”
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak[d] of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
At the end of chapter 11 we are introduced to Abram’s family:
? his father, Terah
? his brothers Nahor and Haran who died
? his nephew Lot
? his wife Sarai, and
? his brother Nahor’s wife Milcah and her sister Iscah
Abram's father decided to move from Ur to Canaan but stopped short in Haran. Like Ur, Haran was also a place where the moon god was worshiped, and we know that Abram’s father and his family were polytheistic. What’s sad is that this was the last recorded family that knew about the true God and now they had given themselves over to idol worship. And the fact that Sarai was barren made things look very bleak. Was this the end of the line? Was there no hope for the future?
Then God spoke to Abram, (12:1) disturbing his life and called Him to get out of Haran. God’s call was powerful, personal, and must have been challenging because Ur and Haran, according to archaeological finds, were at the height of prosperity. God didn’t call Abram to leave insignificant, little towns but cultured and sophisticated cities. God was saying get out of that place, the place of his birth, his family and relatives, his old way of worship, his trade, and a place of security. Even if your family is not willing to leave Haran, you need to get out.
