If you’ve been here for the last couple of sermons in this series you may remember that one of the things we noted in the account of Adam & Eve was that they were called to live by faith in God’s word alone. All they were given to go on was what God had told them about not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The choice they had was whether or not they’d listen to God’s word and obey it. They had to decide whether to trust God to look after them even if they couldn’t know everything there was to know about there situation. You may remember that I commented that this is what living by faith is all about. You might say that faith means living by God’s word even when God appears to be absent from the garden. Learning to trust even when you don’t see or fully understand. Keeping away from the tree even though we can find all sorts of reasons for doing otherwise. Well, it may not surprise you to discover that this is a theme that runs right through the bible. In fact it’s basic to God’s revelation of himself. In all his dealings with us, he expects us to hear his word and obey it.
Well, we find another aspect of this in today’s passage from Gen 12 where we read about the call of Abram. God speaks to Abram and expects him to respond in obedience. And what he asks him to do isn’t easy.
Look at how the chapter begins: ’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."’ Now Abram had left his original home of Ur some years before with his Father Terah and their extended family. They’d originally set out to travel to Canaan, but they’d been diverted on the way. They’d got to a place called Haran and had decided to settle down there. And now God was telling Abram to again pull up his roots and move on. But this time his extended family wasn’t going with him. This time to leave meant leaving everything that was familiar, everything that provided support and to go into the unknown alone. Not that Abram was too young to look after himself mind you, he was 75 years old after all, but this would have been the first time he’d had to take final responsibility for his immediate family. So God was telling him to do something very difficult.
But God doesn’t tell us to do something difficult and then leave us on our own. No, along with the command to go comes a promise: a fivefold promise in fact: I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great; I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. He promises Abram all those things that we all long for from time to time: well-being, security, prosperity, prominence. Abram’s future is in God’s hand if only Abram will trust him and go with him.
What would you do? Would you leave the security and comfort of your home and just go? Would you leave all the support of family and friends that you value so highly? This is a question that faces lots of Christians as they consider missionary service, or full time ministry. Are you prepared to give up your current lifestyle to go wherever God leads? But to properly understand what was involved for Abram we need be aware of a couple of things. First of all, at the end of the previous chapter we’ve been told that Sarai was barren; she had no children. So what does that do to God’s promise to make him into a great nation? How could he trust God if the first part of the promise seems so unlikely? Secondly, God didn’t actually tell him where he was going to take him. He simply said "go to the land that I will show you." Now I don’t know about you, but when I go on a trip, the first thing I do is search on Google for everything I can find out about the place I’m going: what’s the climate like; are the people friendly or do they resent foreigners; do they speak English at all; what’s security like; what’s the health situation; is the water safe to drink; are there ATMs so I can get cash out of my account? And then I decide whether or not I should go. But here, Abram isn’t given any information. He’s just told to pack up and move out. And of course even when he gets to the land and God tells him that he’s giving all this land to him and his offspring, we need to remember that this wasn’t a case of Terra Nullius. (no unoccupied land) The land was well and truly occupied. Nor was it like the first European settlers coming to Australia. Canaan was populated with a series of small prosperous City States. With people who were doing well. Who were commercially and militarily strong.
So even as God gives this second promise, Abram is faced with the reality of the Canaanites. You see, the promise of God is never easy to believe or to practise. It’s always believed and practised in the midst of those who practise more effective and attractive ways. Abram’s call is to be part of a tiny minority of God-worshippers in the midst of the vast majority who think they’re doing very well on their own, thank you very much! Or worse, who think that the gods they believe in are the source of their prosperity.
Can you see what God is seeking to do through his call of Abram? He’s beginning the process of renewing his creation, of restoring the blessed world. Already in Ch 9 God has sent a flood to wipe out the evil in the world, to start over again with the one faithful family, the one group of people who truly worship him as God. But it’s to no avail. The nature of humanity is such that almost immediately they begin the downward spiral again of faithless living. They again attempt to become like gods by building a tower that will reach up to heaven.
So now God decides to create a nation for himself. He doesn’t take an existing nation and try to transform it. He builds it from scratch. Abraham is to be the father of a new nation who will reflect in their life together all the things that were lost in the fall. The first step is for Abraham to have faith in God, to believe what he tells him, to trust him to do what he says: that is, to look after him, to provide for his needs, especially to provide a son to continue his line. Later we’ll see how this nation are called to live together under God’s rule, caring for one another the way God intended, in the place where God will take them and where God’s blessing will be experienced once again. But for now Abram is simply called to make God his Lord, to trust him to do what he says, to exemplify the restoration of the relationship between God and humanity. He and Sarai and Lot are to be a minority of three who’ll live as God intended all humanity to live, enjoying God’s blessing in the process.
But let’s go back to the initial promise and its background. The promise comes in a context of barrenness, of hopelessness. At the age of 75, there was little possibility that Abram and Sarai would have any children to continue the family name. Yet over and against that barrenness comes God’s word, the promise of offspring who will form a great nation. As you think about this you may be reminded of the beginning of Genesis. There it’s the earth that’s barren: formless and empty. And what happens? God speaks and the world is made. And here we have an exact parallel. Sarai is barren, but when God speaks, that all changes. We discover that barrenness doesn’t mean hopelessness where God’s word is involved.
But the choice for Abram is to believe that, to believe the promise of God’s word, or to hold on grimly to the present ordering of life, to hold on to the apparent security of home and family; to the support networks, the love and care in their situation of barrenness. It’s a choice to risk all so that he might have all. Remember what Jesus said in Mark 8: "...those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it." You see the choice is the same for us. Do we retreat into the safe and the familiar or do we take the risk of obeying God’s word and following him wherever he might lead. Mind you, don’t jump to the conclusion that this is telling you to get up and go to a foreign land. God may actually be telling you to stick where you are but to get involved in his work here in Wattle Park in a more active way. To take the risk of telling people of your faith in Jesus. To be part of the growth of this particular part of his kingdom. To be prepared to be part of a minority that are showing the way to live in Gods world, in a right relationship with God, caring for one another.
Well, anyway, Abram’s decision is to go. He embraces the promise and sets out. Notice that we’re told that Abram left and Lot went with him. It’s as though we’re being reminded, just in case we’ve forgotten, that the only heir that Abram has at this stage is his nephew Lot, the son of Haran. And it makes you wonder whether at this stage Abram was taking Lot with him just in case. Perhaps this is an indication of Abram’s humanity. That even this great man of faith might want to hedge his bets just a little, just in case he’s misunderstood what God meant.
Anyway, he and Sarai set out with Lot, taking all their possessions and their household staff. We’re not told a lot about what happens but what we’re told is important. We’re told he arrived in Canaan and travelled through the land as far as Shechem, at the site of the great tree of Moreh. Now apparently this great tree was a local religious site. I guess that’s because its size indicated the pleasure of the gods. Anyway God chooses to speak to Abram at this point and promise that his descendants will be given this land. But Abram doesn’t stay there. As I just mentioned, the Canaanites were in the land and presumably weren’t very keen on some nomad taking up permanent residence in their territory. So Abram moves on. From Shechem in the north he moves on to the region of Bethel in the centre of the country. Here he builds an altar, as he had at Shechem, and calls on the name of the Lord. Remember that in those days it would have been normal when you went to a new country, to worship the gods of that land. Gods were thought to be regional. So when in Rome you did as the Romans did. But Abram breaks that tradition. As a sign that God’s plan is starting to work he devotes himself to the worship of God alone. He calls on the name of the LORD. He declares this to be the LORD’s land and declares himself to be a worshipper of the LORD alone.
From there he continues his journeying, travelling toward the Negeb, that is, the southernmost region of Canaan. So he’s travelled through the whole land, from north to south. He’s made a symbolic journey of occupancy, symbolically taking possession of the whole land, even though he never physically does it. In fact for his whole life he’s a man on a journey, never actually reaching his destination. He’s a sojourner, a nomad. He trusts the promise but his life falls short of grasping the fulfilment. He’s in the land but he doesn’t yet possess it.
But does that mean that he’s mistaken about God’s call? We’ll see in a couple of weeks time that the land is important, but at this stage what really matters is his trust in God. Will he listen to God’s promise or will he let the external realities override that trust? The fact that he sets out knowing how impossible it is for Sarai to bear a son is a sure sign of his faith and trust in God. That’s why Abraham becomes the definitive example of faith in God.
He’s our model for modern Christian living. Things have changed in many ways, but not in this. We still face great obstacles in our service of God. Life is still difficult in so many ways. The world around us is just as opposed to God as it ever was.
But just as Abram journeyed in faith towards a goal without reaching it, so we travel towards a new creation that God has promised us. And notice that the promise to Abram is also a promise to us. God promised Abram that through his descendants all the peoples on earth would be blessed and we share in that promise through Jesus Christ. At the end of our journey we’ll find Christ and we’ll be incorporated fully into God’s kingdom and the new covenant that Jesus has brought about through his death and resurrection. This is why we need to hold loosely to this world and to the things of this world. Just as Abram was called to say good-bye to the comfort and security of familiar surrounds in order to follow God, in order to receive the promise by faith, so we’re called to hold loosely to those things that give us comfort and seeming security. Let’s remember that at the start of this story, Abram and Sarai’s security and comfort was inseparable from their barrenness as a couple. It was only when they left to follow God, and even then only some 25 years later, that that barrenness was removed and the promise of descendants became a possibility.
For us, Christian discipleship is often understood as following "The Way": that is, the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, the way to Jerusalem. It carries with it the idea of living in a way that’s in contrast to every fixed and settled form of life. It’s following the promise rather than the safe and seemingly secure. But it’s a life that’s lived in the certainty of Jesus’ completed work on the cross, in the certainty of God’s love for us and his power to carry out what he says he’ll do. It’s lived in the certainty that he’s with us in the person of his Holy Spirit. As Paul says to Timothy: "Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day."
What does the story of Abram teach us about how to live in God’s world? It teaches us to follow Abram’s example of living by faith. It teaches us to hold loosely to the things of this world, the things that appear to give comfort and security. It teaches us to act on what God promises even when our external circumstances appear to indicate that it’s not working. It teaches us to keep believing, to keep acting even when the promise hasn’t been fulfilled. And it teaches us to have our focus fixed, not on where we are now, not on the journey, but on the destination. That is, on Christ who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. And to act always in the light of that future reality that we’re awaiting.
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