INTRO
This week a historic event took place in the USA. An estimated 40 million people worldwide tuned in to watch the inauguration of Senator Barack Obama as President of the USA.
Significant contributions were made to the ceremony including from Rick Warren (Pastor of the Saddleback Community Church whose course material we have used including ’40 Days of Community’. There was also a magnificent prayer prayed by Rev Joseph Lowrie, who was involved in the Civil Rights movement. He prayed saying, “We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we’ve shared this day…..we know that, Lord, you’re able and you’re willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these…….help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.”
POINT
Barack Obama is not a president in isolation. He is president in a context – president in the context of history.
He is the 44th president in a succession of Presidents from the first president George Washington in 1789.
What is remarkable about his presidency is that it comes so soon after our witnessing the deep racial hatred and discrimination of comparatively recent times shown towards African American descendents of the slave trade. In that sense it reveals the seismic changes that have taken place in the culture of the people of the USA.
APPLIC
All people groups have a history and a context for their place in history. And that includes you and I as Christians, and the Church of which we are a part.
We don’t not stand alone before God in time and space but we stand within a history and tradition. We have ‘become’ the people of God at a time when formerly we were not.
1 Peter 2:9 tells us:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
What does this actually mean, and how did we get here?
Discovering the truth of what this means helps us realize just how special we are to God.
RECAP
We have already set out to better understand our relationship with God as revealed in the drama of Scripture.
• In Genesis the curtain is raised and God’s good creation is revealed.
• Then disaster takes place and all that God made that was good is distorted and spoiled through sin
• Now God is about to begin redeem and restore the whole of creation by dealing once and for all with the problem of sin
POINT
• God was about to begin a plan by which not only the human soul, but the whole of creation would be saved.
• That plan began with God choosing a people for himself – beginning with Abraham.
• God spoke to Abraham. But would he listen, and would he respond in faith?
READING Genesis 12:1-9
POINT
Genesis 15:6 tells us:
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
ABRAHAM HEARD WHAT GOD WAS SAYING
And it wasn’t the easiest thing to listen to.
Abraham’s Call was a special Call
God’s plan was to form a people for himself out of all the people in the world.
God turned his attention to Abraham.
By doings so he did not give up on everyone else.
Israel was going to be an example – a model.
Israel was going to be called upon to mediate between God and the nations (like a priest).
Through Israel all the nations of the world were to be blessed.
So God began with Abraham and Sarah. God told Abraham, to leave his people and move to a land far away that He would show him. God would make him into a great nation.
This would take faith. He would be leaving the security and protection of his family never to see them again, and he did not know what kind of robbers, thieves and murderers he might encounter.
He had no idea where God would lead them, and everybody must have told him he was fool to just give up everything and leave.
Abraham chose to believe God, so he and his family took off to the land of the Negev where God had led them
POINT
Abraham obeyed God even though he did not know where he was going. It was enough to know that God had called him and that God would fulfil his promise to him.
POINT
Abraham had set out on a journey of faith in which the trials and difficulties he faced would make his faith grow stronger.
APPLIC
We should never expect the Christian life to be easy. We too will always encounter trials and tests of our faith.
God does not send trials. But God does allow us to go through them. And if we continue to trust in God throughout them then our faith grows stronger. And we become better mediators for God as we witness for Christ before the world.
DOUBT
Abraham experienced doubt and needed reassurance along the way.
APPLIC
If we experience doubt then we are in good company.
POINT
God had made significant promises to Abraham. But Abraham asked God ‘How can I know?’
READING Genesis 15:1-20
POINT
God has always related to people in accordance with their own culture. This covenant God made with Abraham was one that he would have understood even though it might seem strange to us.
It was in the form of a covenant that two parties would make between each other.
Background
It is how blood covenants were made.
If two parties were going to make a binding agreement then they would slay an animal, divide it, and then walk between the pieces.
Should one of them break the agreement, they brought about a curse upon themselves that they should be as the animals which had been slain.
Here the Lord was making a covenant with Abraham.
The Lord passed through the piece. His presence is represented by the smoking brazier and flaming torch.
And he tells Abraham ‘KNOW FOR CERTAIN.’
Point
There is no record here of Abram passing through.
This is A COVENANT OF ROYAL GRANT = of sovereign grace. The Lord alone passed through.
The Lord made no requirement for Abraham to pass through.
POINT
God reaffirmed to Abraham his promises. And Abraham responded in faith.
Response v6 ’Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness’.
APPLIC
Abram was not righteous through works, but because he considered God faithful who had promised.
The same is true for Christians = saved from sin and its consequences by grace through faith.
Applic
For any of us who may at times doubt our salvation, what is our sign? Is there a covenant of Royal Grant – of sovereign grace?
Yes.
It is the death of Christ referred to at the Last Supper when he said ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.’
NB. **Do you doubt your salvation?
God says LOOK AT THE CROSS and KNOW FOR CERTAIN!!
POINT/APPLIC
THIS HELPS US TO SEE OURSELVES IN THE CONTEXT OF HISTORY.
God’s Plan of Redemption
• God began his plan of redemption by choosing someone who would become the father of a nation.
• God intended that this nation, Israel, be so attractive that the other nation would be drawn to them and therefore to God.
• They were to be a ‘light to the nations’.
• God entered into a covenant with Abraham.
• Other covenants would be made with the nation, most notably the covenant of Law at Sinai.
• God’s intention was to restore the whole of creation , not just a part of it.
• FAITH was key.
• Now Christian believers are the spiritual children of Abraham.
• This is our context in history.
APPLIC
Sometimes Christians question the relevance of the Old Testament Scriptures to us. But the OT helps us see our context:
Pentateuch
Genesis: Call of Abraham and the beginnings of the promise fulfilled.
Exodus: Covenant of law given in the context of the covenant of grace.
Leviticus: Showed the people how to maintain a relationship with a holy God.
Numbers: Records the journey in the desert after failing to ender the promised land.
Deuteronomy: Teaches us about the covenant life
We are now part of the people whom God has formed.
This is the context of
1 Peter 2:9 tells us:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Here we see our place in history.
APPLIC
Israel as a nation failed to be the priest nation – the mediators bringing light to the nations of the world. But the Messiah – born a Jew was the Light of the World.
God’s plan of redemption was one by which both Jew and Gentile would be redeemed, and reconciled to God through Jesus who bore our sins and made a New Covenant with us through his blood.
CONCL
Jesus who said, ‘I am the light of the world’ also said to the disciples ‘You are the light of the world’.
In our daily lives let us remember our commission and seek to stay true to it.
