Let's Go For A Walk With God!

Scripture: Genesis 17:1-8, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25

Theme: Walking With God

Title: Let's Go for a Walk with GOD

I. Our Lord invites Abraham (and us) to go on an Everlasting Walk with Him - verse 1

II. Our Lord invites Abraham (and Us) to go on a Walk of Obedience - v. 1

III. Our Lord invites Abraham (and Us) to go on a Walk of Blessing with Him - v. 2

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, God's Only Son who came to take away the sin of the world!

I like to go walking. For me walking is a wonderful part of life. It's not just exercise, it is enjoyable. Growing up, my mom didn't drive so we walked a great deal. If we wanted to go to town for a few things we would walk a mile and half there and a mile and a half back. If we wanted to go to church then we would walk about a quarter of a mile to our local church. If we missed the school bus it would be a 1 - 3 mile walk to the elementary school, middle school or high school.

Our family didn't have a riding lawn mower so we pushed mowed our yard. That required a lot of walking. One of my first jobs was mowing some of the yards around us so that meant a great deal more walking.

Last year my riding lawn mower broke and so until I can get a replacement I push mow our yard. Nowadays, I usually wear a Fit Bit that lets me know how many steps I take a day. My daily goal is around 15,000 steps. When I mow our yard that's no problem as it takes between 20,000 and 25,000 steps to complete the job. It takes a few hours, but, it allows a person to get out in the sunshine, to get in some exercise and you can do a lot of good thinking while you walk.

Our friend Abraham was a walker. Everyone was back in his day. For long distances they may have used a camel (if they were rich enough to have one) or a donkey but for most of the time people walked everywhere. And the Bible tells us that Abraham walked a great deal in his life.

Genesis chapter 12 tells us that Abraham and his clan left Ur of the Chaldees and set off for the city of Haran. That's about a 600 mile journey. Then they walked from Haran to Shechem and then on to the Negev which is another 500 or so miles. Later on, they walked to Egypt and back a few times - around 300 - 350 miles each trip depending on which they took. So, you can see Abraham and his family did a great deal of walking in their time.

Our passage this morning deals with walking. In particular walking with God. Let's see what the Holy Spirit has to share with us this morning:

I. Our Lord invites Abraham (and us) to go on an Everlasting Walk with Him - verse 1

Halek is the Hebrew word we have here for walk. It's a word that means walking before, beside and behind. The idea is to share life with someone as you walk with them.

Now, we know that this isn't the first time that The LORDand Abraham have gone on a walk together. After all, we just touched on the fact that Abraham and his clan had already walked from Ur to Haran to Shechem, Ai and the Negev. All of that was in obedience to God's guidance and leading.

In fact, Abraham and The LORD had been walking together for well over 25 years. Abraham was around 70 when he and his family left the city of Ur and he was 75 when he left his father's family in Haran. So for the past 25+ years of so, he and The LORDhad been walking together one step at a time.

It had been an up and down kind of walk. The Bible tells us at times Abraham had done a wonderful job walking close to the LORD and at other times not so good. At Shechem and Bethel, he had put up altars to worship and praise God. These were high moment in their walk together. However, in Egypt Abraham tried to pawn off his wife Sarah for some special favors. That wasn't a high moment for God, for Abraham and most certainly not for Sarah. Abraham sure didn't do any favors for his personal relationship with his wife at times. It's a miracle that Sarah didn't leave him a couple of times during those years.

In chapter 15 Abraham and the LORD have another high moment. But then by the time we get to the middle of chapter 16 Abraham and Sarah had decided to take things into their own hands and manufacture the Promise Child through Sarah's Egyptian slave Hagar. That little act of rebellion would and has adversely affected the People of God ever since.