INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• Before the start of a new episode in a television series, the show will begin with a review of the previous episode.
• Let’s do a review of The Story revealed in the Bible.
• Last week we discovered that God’s vision in creation was to be with us. Adam and Eve chose a different vision and sin was introduced into the human race. Once sin sunk its teeth into mankind it was not going to leave.
• The choice Adam and Eve made cost them everything, their relationship with God, each other, the earth, and creation in general.
• Sin caused them to be banished from the garden they enjoyed for so long.
• Even with this happening God passionately pursues us at a great cost. God relentlessly pursues you because you are the point of the Story.
• WE know that God has a vision to be with us and sin threw a wrench in that vision but God has a plan.
• In Chapter 2 of The Story, we start to see that plan unfold as we discover that God decides to build a nation and through that new nation win us back to Him!
• As we know when God does something those of us with a lower story mentality cannot understand why God makes the choices He does. As The Story unfolds today we will see this will ring true.
• God builds a new nation to reveal God and God’s plan to get us back.
• As we examine this new nation together, let us first look at…
• SLIDE #2
SERMON
I. The people God chooses to build a new nation.
• If you own a business and have a job opening, one of the things a good business person will do is to look for the most qualified person to fill the job.
• As an employer you want the best you can get!
• Imagine you are looking for a person to do your network security at your bank. You would look at the resumes of the applicants; you would look at their education, their certifications and their experience.
• That is how those of us with a lower story mentality would go about our search. It is logical. I mean would you hire a person to secure your bank network who knows NOTHING about network security? Maybe at Target.
• Let’s see how God goes about choosing the people with whom He will build a new nation.
• First let us look where these people will come from.
• The City of Ur.
• SLIDE #3
• On the map in the front cover of the story you can draw a person at the city of Ur.
• On your Bible map find the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In this area the Tower of Babel was being built by many nations who all had one language.
• God confounded their language and the nations scattered. God chose to create a new nation in this area of the world.
• When God scanned the city of Ur, He did not use the whole city to start His new nation; instead His focus was centered on one couple.
• Our logic would tell us to pick the whole city because with a whole city you can more quickly build a nation.
• Let’s look at the people God chose to begin the new nation with.
• If you are God and you decided you were going to build a new nation and you decided you were not going to choose a whole city, but a couple, what would you look for?
• I personally would look for a fertile young couple who were full of life and who were as spiritually perfect as can be.
• What does God do?
• God chose a couple, Abram and Sarai. Later to be known as Abraham and Sarah.
• Abraham was 75 years old and his wife Sarah was 65 years old when God chose them and by the way, Sarah was barren, in other words without child.
• As a side note Abraham’s parents and grandparents worshipped pagan gods.
• God made a stunning statement and choice by choosing the AARP couple to begin the nation with.
• From God’s upper story perspective, He intervened and did the miraculous. God did with Abraham as promised.
• God called Abraham to follow Him.
• SLIDE #4
• Genesis 12:1–4 (NIV) The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
• Why did Abraham follow God?
• SLIDE #5
• Hebrews 11:8 (NIV) 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.
• Hebrews tells us it was by faith that Abraham followed God.
• On the map on the slide you can see the extent of Abraham’s faith. Look at the distance he traveled.
• SLIDE #6
• Can you imagine how hard it would be to do that? Many of us as we get older are very resistant to change.
• How many senior citizens does it take to change a light bulb? CHANGE? WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT CHANGING ANYTHING!
• Why did God choose this AARP couple who were really past the time to be able to have children to begin His new nation with?
• God chose this unlikely couple so that all people would look to God, knowing that the only way this nation could get started with by God’s power.
• God wants people to see Him and understand His plan.
• God wants us to know even if the world does not think we are qualified, God can and will use you, no matter who the lower story world looks at you!
• Choosing you to serve Him may make no sense to the world around you but to God it does.
• When I felt called it made no sense that God would use a 20 something factory worker with no resume to preach the gospel.
• Abraham and Sarah should remind you that God can use you if you allow Him to!
• Next let us see….
• SLIDE #7
II. The four-fold plan God reveals for the new nation.
• As we look back at Genesis 12:1-3 we can see God’s four-fold plan laid out before us.
• Look at verse 2.
• SLIDE #8
• Genesis 12:2 (NIV) “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
• Part one of the four-fold plan: God will make the new nation great.
• God did that, He made the nation of Israel great and it survives to this day.
• The nation of Israel has had a great history and during the days of Solomon was one of the world powers.
• Part two of the four-fold plan: God will make Abraham’s name great.
• How many of you have heard of Abraham before you got here today?
• How many can name any of the kings of the world during the time of Abraham?
• To this day the name of Abraham is revered. He is also revered in other world religions by the way.
• Looks like part two was accomplished.
• Look at verse 3 and we will see parts three and four shared.
• SLIDE #9
• Genesis 12:3 (NIV) I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
• Part three of the four-fold plan: God will bless all who bless Abraham and curse the one who curses Abraham.
• If you look at the life of Abraham even in the times where his faith waivered God blessed him and no one had the upper hand on Abraham. God blessed him and cursed those who tried to stop Abraham.
• Part four of the four-fold plan: God will bless all the nations of the world through Abraham and the new nation. God will use the new nation to reveal his heart and his plan to win us back.
• This is one of the best promises because it directly involves us! Through the nation of Israel, the line of David, came the Messiah, Jesus Christ through whom we can obtain salvation.
• Jesus will be the way in which God can have His vision of being with you fulfilled!
• As God dealt with the nation of Israel we can see that even through their disobedience, God did not forget His promise to Abraham.
• This should be an encouragement to you, God loves you and He will not forsake you nor will He forget the promises He has made to those who love Him.
• Next, speaking of disobedience, let’s examine…
• SLIDE #10
III. The turbulent beginnings of the new nation.
• In Genesis 16,18, and 22 we see that the nation did not get off to a great start.
• When God calls Abraham he is was 75 and Sarah 65.
• Now if God were going to start this new nation, one would think God would get it started ASAP because Sarah biological clock was, well sort of out of sand.
• Well 10 years pass and no children, it is kind of hard to start a new nation without children, kind of hard to have descendants that number as the stars without the FIRS one!
• So, Sarah proposes her own way to start a new nation. In Genesis 16 because Sarah is old, she offers her Egyptian slave Hagar to Abraham and now Ishmael is born.
• Well Sarah is looking at the situation and using lower story logic surmises that she can help God by giving her slave to Abraham to father the child.
• God blesses Ishmael, but does not build the new nation with him.
• By the way, this was a common practice because people did not want their family name to die out so if the wife could not produce a male child, it was common for the man to have more wives or concubines to kind of help the process of getting a son going.
• Now more time passes. At age 99, the Lord appeared to Abraham and told Him the covenant was still in place.
• Abraham asks if Ishmael will be ok to start the nation, and God says no.
• Then a year later in Genesis 18 the Lord appears to Abraham again. Now Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90.
• They are promised their OWN child. Sarah laughs at this impossible promise from God. God tells them the child name would be Isaac which means “laughter.”
• Finally about a year later, Sarah has the child!
• WE can learn that what seems impossible from our perspective is possible with God!
• Ok, now we have the start of the new nation, child number one!
• Well, God throws a potential wrench into the mix. When Isaac is a young teen, God has a request of Abraham.
• Genesis 22
• SLIDE #11
• Genesis 22:1–2 (NIV) Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
• God severely tests Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
• Abraham obediently responds believing that God could raise his beloved son to life from the dead (Hebrews 11:7).
• Isaac is spared and a ram is offered in sacrifice.
• Centuries later another beloved Son will be sacrificed and is not spared (John 3:16). God will win us back at great cost to himself.
CONCLUSION
• SLIDE #12
• In choosing Abraham and Sarai to begin the new nation, God reveals a pattern.
• God chooses unlikely people who are not the smartest, the most beautiful and handsome with the best resumes.
• God chooses ordinary people like you and me. You are not disqualified to be used greatly in God’s great Story.
• You may reveal God, too, and reflect his plan to win us back.
• Next week Chapter 3!
• Are you ready to let God be the star of your story?
