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.
One has to wonder why The LORD stuck with Abraham. I mean think about it for a minute or two. Over that 25+ year journey together God had seen Abraham do some amazing things but the LORD had also watched Abraham rebel, lie, try to pawn off his wife, get angry and do a host of other negative things.
I think we have to realize that when the LORD asks us to go for a walk it is for a life time. God doesn't invite us to go on a little jog or for a short walk to merely pass away some time. The LORD wants us to begin a life long journey with Him that will last for all eternity. The LORD is interested in walking with us for the long haul.
God can handle our ups and downs. God doesn't abandon us just because we decide to go down some rabbit trail. God doesn't disappear just because we decide not to stay up with Him or to sit down all together.
Our God is patient. Our God is loving. Our LORD knows that we are not immortal, all-knowing or all-wise. He knows what is in the hearts and minds of us humans. He was there when we decided to fall in the Garden. He walked out of the Garden with Adam and Eve. He did not abandon them either. He did not abandon Abraham. He will not abandon us.
God would nudge Abraham towards confession and repentance as they walked. And in each case Abraham would confess, repent and come back to the right path. It's the same with us. When we stray God will nudge us to confess, repent and come close to Him.
As God invited Abraham, He invites each one of us. He invited Moses. He invited Ruth. He invited David, Hezekiah and Daniel. He invited Mary, Peter and Paul. He invites us.
God doesn't invite us for a day or a week but for the rest of our lives. God isn't interested in some one night stand or a week end affair. God isn't interested in how he can manipulate us or get something from us. God is interested in all of our lives. He is interested in how we grow up, what we choose to do for work and for pleasure. He is interested in who we marry and the family we raise. He is interested in our hobbies, the things we love to learn about and the things we love to just enjoy. He is interested in our friends and the relationships we make in this life. He is interested in every aspect of our lives.
God just likes being with us. He likes being a part of our lives. He likes to watch us enjoy His good creation. He likes to watch us love one another and look out for one another. He likes to watch us reflect His Image and Glory. Not because God is narcissistic but because at the core of God's Image is Love, Purity, Joy and Peace. He knows that when we are reflecting His image and glory that we are living the best life a human can live.
As we walk along the paths of Lent this year let us remember that our walk is not a solitary walk. The paths that God has designed for us to walk are ones that He has created for us to walk with Him. Lent is to be a time of reflection and contemplation but it is also to be a time to enjoy some one on one time with the LORD. Just God and you walking down a path together sharing life with one another. God talking, you listening. You talking, God listening. Creator and creature enjoying one another's company. Lovers of the heart, mind and soul sharing sacred time and space.
II. God invites Abraham (and Us) to go on a Walk of Obedience - v. 1
"Walk before me and be blameless"
It would be easy to look at those words and get the wrong impression. The impression of a teacher or an instructor making you toe the line so that they can quickly see if you are doing everything just right. The impression that God is some supernatural inspector watching us from afar just waiting for the moment He can tell us what we are doing right and wrong.
That is not the truth at all. That's not who God is. And more importantly as we have said before God knows us. God knows our frailties and our brokenness. God has walked with billions of humans on this earth and He knows us from the inside out.
So, what are we to take from this word - blameless?
I think we are to understand the words listening and obeying.
Recently, my wife has been taking an on line Bible study series taught by Priscilla Shirer entitled, Discerning the Voice of God. She invited me to watch some of the videos which I have been doing and have to say they are beyond excellent. What an anointed woman of God and what an inspiring, challenging and uplifting Bible study. Priscilla is as amazing in this Bible Study as she was in portraying Elizabeth Jordan in the movie War Room. By the way, War Room is an amazing movie that everyone should take the time to see and be blessed beyond measure.
Anyway, one of the points that Priscilla shares in her series is that God doesn't talk just to be heard. God talks to be heard, listened to and obeyed. When God talks it is not just to fill the air with words or with noise. When the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY shouts, talks or even whispers it is to be heard and to be obeyed.
It's not because God is some supernatural megalomaniac that demands His own way and will. If that was the case then there would have never been something called Free Will and you and I would have been created to be merely human automatons. We would have been created with a hard drive that God would have downloaded some type of software in which we have been preprogrammed to live a certain way.
That is not what God did. God gave us free will. God created us to be able to hear and obey Him but it has to be our choice. We are given the ability to not listen and to not obey at our own peril.
So, when God says to us - Walk before me and be blameless it is not so much a command as it is an invitation to a whole new way of living.
In the Gospels we have these various accounts of the LORD JESUS going up to people and inviting them to follow Him. Again it was not because Jesus was some person with an inflated complex but because Jesus knew if they followed Him that they would experience a whole new life. If they obeyed Jesus then the doors of Heaven and Earth would be open to them.
This is exactly what God was telling Abraham. He was inviting Abraham to walk with Him. But as Abraham was walking with God he was being invited to live a very different life than the one others were living around him. Abraham was being invited to live a life in which one becomes more and more the authentic human being God designed for us to become.
Back in the Garden God had plans for all of us humans to enjoy four wonderful and exciting relationships. We were to enjoy a progressive relationship with Him, with ourselves, with others and with all of God's Good Creation. We were to enjoy growing more and more in knowledge and wisdom. We were to enjoy experiencing deeper relationships with other human beings and with creation as well. It was to be our joy to help God co-create the whole world to look like the Garden of Eden.
Well, we flub that mission that is to be sure. But God did not abandon us. God is still on a mission for us humans to become the best people we can be and to enjoy this life that He has given us to the fullest. Jesus tells us that He came to bring us life - Abundant Life.
Over the last couple of years I have spent a lot of time with Dr. Tom Wright. Now, I have never personally met him and we have never shared more than an email conversation. But I have probably spent over 200 hours reading, studying and taking some of his classes on line. I have watched well over a hundred of his videos as he has shared different areas of the Bible and teachings on God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Even though we have not physically walked together we have walked together. I have metaphorically sat as his feet as he has opened up the Word and allowed me to see God in ways I have never seen before. It has been a journey that has enriched my soul and has enabled me to walk a closer walk with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Tom has helped me enjoy my personal and corporate walk with God more.
I believe that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY (EL SHADDAI) is inviting all of us to come alongside him and Abraham. Not just to learn and enjoy their walk but to enjoy and learn from our own personal walk as well.
Psalms 119:105 tells us:
"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (ESV)
Psalm 34:8 -
"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!" (ESV)
There are all those things that are necessary of course for a successful walk. You have to both be going in the same direction. You have to be aware of any pitfalls. You have to stay in close proximity and communication. You have to be in a spirit of communion and in the case with God you must have a listening ear and an obedient mind and heart.
But taking all of that in stride - you just enjoy one another's company. When you walk with the LORD you are able to see new things and to enjoy new things which leads us to our final point:
III. God invites Abraham (and Us) to go on a Walk of Blessing with Him - v. 2
God had a purpose in mind for Abraham. The Lord's invitation to Abraham to go on a walk was not to be simply to be a leisurely stroll around the desert. Their walk together was to be progressive, it was to be relationship building and it was to be immersed in the Supernatural Power of the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. It was to be therefore a walk of Blessings!
+God wanted Abraham to be - ABRAHAM. We have used the word Abraham during this sermon because it's easier to use that name. However, for the past 99 years Abraham had gone by the name of Abram. A name that was given to him by his father Terah which therefore reflects more on Terah than it did on Abram.
Abram means "high father". Now, since Abram was about eight days old when they gave him that name it is hard to imagine people looking at this little baby boy and thinking - "Hey, this kid is a high father". No, the name reflected back on his father Terah as a man of high standing, prestige and importance. Every time Abram heard his name it was to remind him and everyone around him that this young man's father was a person who was significant - a man above other men.
God wanted Abram to have a new name. One that did not reflect on his earthly father but one that reflected on Abram's relationship with God. A name that only God could give him. The name Abraham means "Father of many". That "many" could only come about because God was going to bless Abraham with a bunch of children. And each time people would now hear the name of Abraham it would speak of Abraham's God and Abraham's life of righteousness, faithfulness , obedience and supernatural blessing.
+ God wanted to bless Sarah, Abraham's wife as well. We see in this passage that Sarah receives a new name. While both names (Sarai and Sarah) refer to one being a "princess" there is a great difference between the two names. Sarai, "my princess" is a name that refers to a princess of her own house and tribe. It is local and finite. Sarah on the other hand has global connotations. The name Sarah is the name given to announce that someone is a princess of the world. Sarah's name would be a name that would be voiced over all the earth. She would not merely be Sarai, princess of a certain land in Canaan but Sarah, God's princess for all the world. That is quite an upgrade.
+ God wanted to bless Abraham with a whole new spiritual, physical, emotional and social relationship as well. One that would involve new levels of trust, obedience, insight and revelations. The LORD GOD ALMIGHTY was opening up the door for Abraham and Him to be in covenant with one another. Abraham was to take a monumental step in his relationship with God. No longer would Abraham be a long distance follower but He and God would experience a oneness of heart, mind and soul. God's people would be Abraham's people and Abraham's people would be God's people.
+God wanted Abraham to also be a vessel of great blessing. God wanted to use Abraham and his descendants to be a people whom He could use to pour out all types of riches, blessings, anointings and miracles everywhere. God wanted Abraham to be so close to Him that at any given moment Abraham would be ready to receive a blessing from God which of course would spill over to his own family but those blessings would also spill over on other people as well. We see King Abimelech of Gerar testifying of this in chapters 20-21 in Genesis. His people had been blessed by having Abraham and his family living near them.
Paul picks up on all of this in Romans chapter four where he reminds us that it is through Abraham that God chose to show us the way to true faith, to redemption and restoration. It is through Abraham's descendents that we discover true faith is faith in Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, Redeemer and Savior of All. True Faith that is immersed in grace and lived out through obedience. We are to understand that faith is to be our everyday watchword as we walk with the LORD. Faith will open up the doors of a new life and blessings for us and for all those around us. Like Abraham, our personal walk with God can bring blessings to those who are around us.
+ God also wanted Abraham and Sarah to experience the blessing of a supernatural miracle beyond human comprehension. God wanted to use him and Sarah to bring about a New Life even though they were now 99 and 90 years of age. According to the medical science of that day ( and our day) this couple was seen as way past the time to bear a child and yet the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY would use them to bring forth the Promised Child Issac. New Life would come from those who were considered dead. For as God's angel Gabriel reminds us in Luke chapter 1 - "nothing is impossible with God".
What are we to do with all of this? New names, new relationship, new revelations, new life and new vessels for God to bless people all over the world?
Is Genesis chapter 17 just another portion of scripture we are to read during Lent? It is just a story of a life lived thousands of years ago a long way away in a desert land?
By no means. It is a story that reminds us during this season of Lent we are:
1. Invited to walk with God. We invited to begin a walk with God that will never end. It will be an everlasting walk. We are invited by God to go with God and enjoy the life that God has for all of us. We are invited to walk with God on a day to day basis sharing life. We are invited to share sacred space and time with the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. We are able to do that through the Word, through prayer, through meditation and through just talking and being with God at work, at school, at the office, at the factory, in the kitchen, at the store and wherever we find ourselves.
2. Invited to walk with God to experience a whole new life. One that brings us close to God and enables us to learn how to walk a life of righteousness and holiness. Walking with God will transform us. It will change us from the inside out. The closer we walk with God the more we will think like God, talk like God, act like God and live like God. The more we follow God the better we will become as human beings. God will make us new creations. God will give us a new heart and a new spirit. God will come into our lives and take up residence. God will become one with us in heart, mind and soul.
3. We are invited to become a conduit of blessings for others. Our personal walk with God can and will spill over some blessings and anointings on other people. We can be the beneficiary of God's blessings, miracles and anointings in our own life and we can be the conduit for that to happen in the lives of our family, our friends and for generations to come.
Now, take that last thought - the thought that for generations to come we can be a blessing to others.
My mom did not have a great deal of wealth, education or prestige in this life. But she did have this amazing life of faith and prayer. She showed us Jesus by reading to us, teaching us and living before us this amazing example of mercy, grace and love. She was not perfect, but, she did her best to model what a life in Christ was to look like and sound like here on this earth. She was a great human witness of God's forgiveness, mercy, glory and honor.
Her life and her prayers are still blessing all of us today even though she has been gone for quite a number of years. For you see, prayer has no time expiration. Her prayers for her children and grandchildren are still being answered today and are having an impact on future generations. Her example is still having an effect today as people all over the world continue to share her story of God's amazing grace, mercy and love. She still continues to bring us joy, laughter, peace and comfort today.
This is huge. This means that each one of us today can not only be a recipient of God's mercy, grace and love we can be a vessel that God can use to transform generations to come. By our walk with the LORD we can have a major impact on our world for hundreds of years to come. By our accepting God's invitation to walk, to experience a deep relationship with Him and to live a life of obedience we can change our world.
Our prayers - who we pray for - how we pray - the times that we pray can end up opening new doors of ministry, lead people to experience faith and lead to new revelations and blessings. Once again, there is no time expiration for prayer.
This is why it is essential for us to have prayer times - to pray for the lost, to pray for the next generation, to pray for Revival, to pray for healings and on and on and on. Prayer changes things not only for today but for tomorrow and the next day and the next week and the next month, year, decade and years to come.
This morning as we continue our Lenten walk
+Have you started a walk with the LORD - if not, today you can. Today, you can start you everlasting walk with Jesus by confessing your sins, repenting and allowing God's Holy Spirit to redeem you and sanctify you.
+How is your walk with the LORD? Is it up to date?
+Is your walk transforming you? Is your time with the LORD helping you mature in the faith?
+Are you allowing your walk to bring about blessings, miracles and riches into your life and into the lives of others.
This morning as we close we want to sing -
Contemporary - I Will Follow - Chris Tomlin
Traditional - Where He Leads I'll Follow
Our altars are open to come and spend some time with Jesus!
