TOPIC: ABRAHAM – HAPPY FEET
Text: Genesis 12:1-9
Introduction:
(ILL. Finish It – The life of a Christian can be described in one of four ways: as a journey, as a battle, as a pilgrimage, and as a race. Select your own metaphor, but the necessity to finish is always the same. For if life is a journey, it must be completed. If life is a battle, it must be finished. If life is a pilgrimage, it must be concluded. And if it is a race, it must be finish.)
Who among you here saw the movie “Happy Feet”? Actually I it was a story about the “emperor penguin”. And it is also base on the documentary film “March of the Penguin”. That documentary movie talks about “emperor penguin” living in the North Pole where all you see is ice, but there are times that the ice also melts. You will see this penguin feeding for 2-3 months and then they will take their first march for almost 70 miles just to go to their breeding ground. For a week or more they walk to that place, and for the next weeks and months they will march back and forth the sea. They take turn marching just to feed their young, some of them died along their journey and it was not an easy journey actually but very hard, sacrificial and they will do it for 8 to 9 months. But this penguin keep on marching taking the hard journey just for their young until their young can already able to stand on their own, that is the only time they will stop their march and go back again to the sea and for 4 months eat and play and preparing for another march the following year. They spend almost 80 – 90 % of their year doing what God intended them to do in order to multiply and only 20% on the sea and feed. But the next breeding, you will see them again with the new one, happily doing the march, why, because they knew from within them God’s destiny for them.
In Genesis 12 there is a man who also experiences a hard journey, and it was a journey of faith. It is not only happy feet, but a happy faith too. The man is Abraham, who this time was called Abram. Let’s open our Bible in Genesis 12:1-9. (Let’s pray first).
Abraham was focused in his journey and able to finish it because Abraham knew in his heart that it was a journey:
1. PLANNED by the Lord
Genesis 11:31-32 (read). Probably the Lord’s planned for this journey is for Abraham’s father Terah. But then after Terah leaved Ur, their place of origin, Terah stops at Haran and on the way forgot God’s planned. So when Terah died on Haran God’s planned continued and it was Abraham’s turned. We can see here that God’s planned was not affected by dying or living of the person He called to fulfill His plan. We can see that also with Moses and Joshua (Joshua 1:1-5). After Moses died, the plan of God didn’t die, it was just passing on to the next generation. That is the truth of the matter that God set a plan and each one of us was called by God to become part of this wonderful opportunity. Even if we don’t do it I assure you it will come to pass, because God can bring another one just to fulfill His plan. But if we respond to His calling to become part of His plan then it is a great opportunity for us. God’s plan will come to pass whether we take part or not because He is the one who prepare the plan. God planned everything according to His perfect will, even for our life. Jer. 29:11 says, “For I know the plan I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We are destining to have a good future not a blinking one. God has a blue print for all of us that we need to do, that we need to follow. It is easy to do the plan that people want for us, example our parents, our spouse, or other people or even our own plans, but God has a more wonderful and perfect plan for each one of us to follow. So the journey that we have in our life is a journey planned by the Lord.
2. PREPARED by the Lord
Not only that He plans it but He prepared everything. God didn’t called Abraham to this journey without preparing first the end of his journey. Like the “emperor penguin” God prepared for their nesting place. Gen. 12:1, “to the land I will show you.” God refer here to the land of Canaan, the Promise Land. God didn’t called Abraham for nothing; He prepared the place and everything in that land for Abraham and his descendants that is why the Promise Land was called, “land of milk and honey”. (ILL. Creation, like a mother preparing food for her children while they are in school after they get home the table is prepared for them to eat). That is our God He don’t call us for nothing, He always prepare a place for each one of us, a place where we can bloom, where God gave us a dominion to rule. Like in creation God prepare first everything, even the Garden of Eden and then God place Adam there to rule to have dominion. Many of us do not experience authority to rule and have dominion because we are not on the right place God prepared for us; we try to go to the place where God intended for others (ILL. Mayor Eddie has no jurisdiction and authority in Bauan, but in Batangas City he can practice his complete authority). Remember that Eden was made because of Adam & Eve. The place was created and prepared because of us that are how special we are to God. He thought first of us that is why He created all that we need first. Genesis 2:8, “Now the Lord God planted a garden, and there He put the man he had formed.” See God always prepare for us a right place. So we should be in the right place rather than being misplace, doing the right thing, working with the right people, otherwise we are in the wrong place. Sometimes probably we don’t understand at first but for sure when God call you, He will prepare because He plan and that is why He also prepare. Don’t let your own preference dictate you, but let God place you in His prepared place, because God not only planned it but He prepared it for you. Because God destine us to rule, to take authority, to reign with Him.
3. PROVIDED by the Lord
God also provided for our journey, He provides strength, wisdom, protection, favor, blessings, etc. We can see this truth in Abraham’s journey, how God bless him while continuing the journey. That is what good with God, he didn’t just bless us after finishing the journey but while we are our own journey God provided everything we need, and notice also that when I say that God provided for this journey, that includes the people and circumstances that Abraham encounter in His journey that include different kind of people that probably you don’t like to encounter on your journey or even to be with you in your journey, and yet God let you to cross with them, it was also part of God’s provision. (ILL. God’s impression to me one morning as I jog in our place regarding shell’s symbol). PROCESS! v. 1 said, “…go to the land I will show you.” This is good thing to know, God already see things before Abraham obey, go and arrived in the land. In Genesis 22 where Abraham’s faith was tested to offer his only son Isaac, on the mountain of Moriah it was said in v. 8, “God himself will provide the lamb for burnt offering.” This is where the name Jehovah Jireh came but in truth according to a Bible scholar the name is more of God who sees rather than God provides. Meaning before God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac and before Abraham obey God already saw everything from the start to the end. Like an inventor or a painter when look to canvas or raw material, they already see the finish product before they start to make it. Our own journey was already seen by God from start to finish and He already provided everything we need, strength to keep on, endurance, etc to finish and complete our journey. Even trials, testing, etc is provided by God to build us up, to make a person He wants out of it. Just as Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” and “Your grace is sufficient for me.” This journey was provided and prepared by God because He is the one who planned it. God destine us to success, to abundance living.
4. PROMPTED by Faith & Obedience to the Lord
Now you can know all this things and still don’t reach the end of your journey. I can plan, prepare and provided a vacation for you and yet still don’t have a vacation because you don’t go. This journey needs a right response from Abraham. Right doing is the fruit, right believing is the root! He needs to believe & obey about God’s spoken word. When I’m, watching the “March of the Penguin”, I notice that they know exactly when and where and how and what to do. Before Abraham obey God, the journey is already done for him, already finish, already blessed by God, victory is already there, abundance is already there, Abraham was able to receive it because he believed, that makes the difference. Like the Emperor Penguin, the potential is in their system already given by God. It only mean one thing, that obedience to God’s purpose in their life is in their system that is why for more than hundred of years they do it without anybody telling them what to do and yet they keep on multiplying because they just do what God tell them to be and to do. (ILL. Bumble Bee – study and science said that it is not possible for bumble bee to fly because of its weight and the size of its wings, and yet since God created them the bumble bee keeps on flying). Why? Because this where faith comes in. Facts is base on what we know and what we can do but faith is base on what God can do and done for all of us.. When God gave us new life, God embed in our system the potential that we have inside us, but it didn’t come out because we obey others, our own thinking, than listening and obey God for what He intend for us. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Jos 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
We can see Abraham’s obedience, even though he didn’t know the place – Hebrews 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” Abraham believes, he operates on the principles of believing not doing, speaking not working! (ILL. Ours to Obey, His to Make Way – A pilot was having trouble bringing his plane down to land. From the control tower, he was given instructions. "But there is a pole there," he objected. The answer came back, "You take care of the instructions; we will take care of the obstructions." So with the child of God. In the Word, he or she has God’s instructions. God will take care of the obstructions. It is ours to obey the instructions from God’s Word.). Abraham obeys without any reservation to His God, for him his role is to just obey God’s instruction and its God’s role to remove every obstruction.
Conclusion:
God destined us to reign, destined us to succeed, destined us to victory but we need to let our mind to have a right focus, focusing on who we are before God. Do not let others or anyone or anything determine your destiny except God. Focusing on what God has done for us, for our God set a journey before us, it is not accident that you become part of God’s family, that you are here right now in this place, because everything was PLAN, PREPARED and PROVIDED by God, but it is up to you if you to be PROMPTED by obedience to God.
