Defining the Relationship
Genesis 12-22
After college, when I finished graduate school, I moved home, back from the Carolinas to PA. I started attending an EV Free church in Hershey and became involved in their young adult program. I noticed this lively, vivacious blonde named Ronda, and started building a friendship with her. There WAS one problem though. I was shy. She was talkative and outgoing and a friend to everyone. I was a fly on the wall.
She was a teacher, and so I found excuses to do things with her - going to the games of kids in her class, going shopping, going out to eat with her. In fact, I kept wanting to tell her that I was interested in her and would like to be more than “just friends.” But just when I would get the conversation directed towards talking about dating, it seemed the conversation took off in a totally different direction.
Then came one night, a dreadful, memorable night. We went out to watch a movie together, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. As I was sitting there, feeling so good about being with this woman, wanting us to be more than friends, I slipped my arm around her and started playing with her hair.
**NOTE: I am NOT recommending this as a way to meet women!
She very promptly picked up my arm, took it from behind her back, and put it back in my own lap. On the way home from the movie, we had “THE DISCUSSION.” She said “Is there anything you want to tell me?” I then told her that I wanted to date her and be more than just friends. She told me she really wasn’t interested in dating me.
But I didn’t give up, and a month or two later, after showing her that I really wanted to date her, she gave me another chance and the relationship just grew from there.
In every relationship, there come times where there is a need to “Define the Relationship.” Sometimes the talks are hard, sometimes they are easy, but they are usually necessary. Because relationships don’t just “happen”, but they develop by repeated times of taking steps to deepen the relationship, to take it to the next level.
This morning, we want to look in the book of Genesis, in chapters 12 - 22, at the lesson of Abraham. In the life of Abraham, we see God taking several times to “define the relationship” - to call Abraham to take steps of faith in following Him. And God always shows himself faithful.
1. The Call to Leave - Here in chapter 12, we see God gives Abraham a call to leave - to leave family, relatives, his homeland. Genesis 11:10 tells us that 2 years after the flood, Shem was 100. Then the list of descendants grows. In adding up the years of births and deaths, we find that when Abram was born, almost all his forefathers back to Shem the son of Noah are alive. Abram probably knew Shem and the whole line. Noah was his great (8x) grandfather. He died just about 2 years before Abram is born. Now Hebrews 11:13 says that Noah was living by faith when he died. Yet, we have to wonder about the rest of his generations. God chooses to call Abraham, but he passes over Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, and the whole line of generations. Why?
It appears that even in godly families, often the ways of the fathers are forsaken. Remember, God gave the world a new start in the flood. Yet, what happens, even with a godly man like Noah -- children turn from the Lord. God wants to save a godly race, a people that would be devoted to him. So who does he choose? Not Shem or any other early descendants of Noah. Rather 10 generations removed, a young lad named Abram. Why Abram? I think the answer is found in Genesis 18:19 - The Lord is speaking about Abram, and he says, For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.
In chapter 12, we see that Abram receives a call from God. It is a call that takes boldness. The account in Genesis makes it seem he receives this call after his father is dead in Haran. Yet, Acts 7:2-4 tells us he received this call in Ur of the Chaldees, or better stated, near the city of Babylon. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’ “So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.
Abram receives a call to follow God back in Babylon. In the city of his fathers, a city centered against God, Abram receives a call to follow God.
God took Noah, and used this one man to come out and be separate. Now that Noah is dead, God chooses Abraham to start a new people special to himself. This call on Abram had powerful force.
*It meant he had to leave - to leave all the generations of family and friends he had built there. He leaves his home there, his traditions, his comfort zones. Yet so convincing is he that his father, cousin, and their families all come with him. Even after his father dies in Haran, Abram moves on to follow God, and once again his immediate family move with him.
*It meant he had to cleave - he had to trust God for direction to this new land, provision in the wilderness, security as he traveled. Hebrews 11:8 says 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. There was no obedience until he went. He obeyed and went.
***What is it that God is calling you to do? Whatever it is, you need to be willing to do it, to obey and follow God. It might meant we have to pay a price. It might mean we need to step out of our comfort zones. It might mean we might need to walk by faith for a while. But there is no obedience until we go.
Abraham’s first call to relationship comes with a call to leave. Following God is a journey, not a destination. It is a life of obedience - when God says go, we go. When God says stop, we stop. Wherever God leads us, we follow.
This morning, what is God calling you to leave? Of ten the things He calls us away from are things that we desperately want to hold on to. But obedience is always rewarded. God calls Abram out to bless him, to give him the land of the Canaanites. 12:6 tells us “At that time the Canaanites were in the land.” So, who are these Canaanites? Look back to 9:25, 10:15-19 -- these were descendants of Ham. Following God’s call means that Abram is given the land of his relatives. Look at 12:7. Abram’s offspring are given the land. Why? Because the Canaanites did not choose to follow the ways of God. They made all forms of idols and worshipped them. When Moses comes into the promised land, they are to destroy all the people living in the land, because they are so completely sinful. Deut. 18:12 says because of their sins they were driven out of the land.
The call to follow God, the call to leave, was a call that brought blessing. To those who refused to follow God, their land was to be taken away from them, they were to be destroyed as a people.
What is God calling you to leave behind?
The first step in following God is a call to leave. But God goes on to take the relationship to the next level.
2. The call to Covenant
We live in a society where promises are quickly made and broken. I don’t like telephone telemarketers. What I especially hate is their low level of integrity. Some time ago I got a call from one of my credit card companies. They started out, “Mr. Rhine, we’re calling on behalf of your whatever card. As a thank you for being such a valued customer, we’re sending you absolutely free vouchers for $50 worth of free gas at the station of my choice” To which, knowingly, I said “Thank You!” Then he went on telling me he would also enroll me in a travel club or some other program that would be conveniently billed to my credit card account.
I declined to join the club, but said, “I’ll just take the free gas.” He said I couldn’t do that, and got mad because I wanted my FREE gas but wouldn’t sign up for the club. I berated him over his lack of honesty in advertising.
We all know many who fail to keep their promises. Sometimes it’s a credit card company or other telemarketer. Sometimes it’s a boss who has been promising us a big raise real soon. Sometimes its a spouse who promised to be faithful “till death do us part.” And sometimes the promise breaker is the face that stares back at us in the mirror. Did you ever promise yourself: “Just one more cookie!”?
#Mrs. Love: now this is the last biscuit I’m going to take -- 7 times
But sometimes our promises we break to ourselves have much more serious consequences than adding a few calories. Sometimes we promise we are going to give up a sinful habit and lifestyle and become committed to God: we want to make a new start. Yet even then, we end up breaking our promises: to ourselves, and to our God.
This morning we want to look at the fact that our God is a God who makes promises. He makes conditional promises that are binding: he calls them covenants. We make these all the time.
We put our money in the bank and they say, “If you will pay us 8% interest, we’ll loan you the money for a car.” But if we stop making payments, they come to repossess the car. A covenant -- and both parties have a role to play, a part to keep in the agreement.
Look with me now in Genesis 15. Here we see again God coming to Abram and making promises to bless him and reward him. But this time God gives a tangible evidence that he is going to follow through with these promises. Look in verse 9 - God has Abraham split animals open as a sign of the certainty that these promises would come true. What does all this mean? Let’s watch a video clip that explains it.
**Show Van Der Laan clip - That the World May Know
How has God shown his love to you?
God once again takes the relationship one step further, extending his love to Abraham, and calling him into a deeper relationship. He gives a call to leave, a call to covenant, and then in chapter 21,
3. A Call to Hope - God calls Abraham to trust him for an heir, a son from his own body.
In 12:7, when Abraham leaves Haran, God tells him, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.” In 15:2, Abraham complains because his heir is a servant. There God tells him that his heir would be his son. From him, would come peoples as many as the stars in the sky, as many as the sands of the seashore. In chapter 17, God tells him that many nations would come from his descendants. In 18, Sarah is told she will bear a son. Here in chapter 21, we see the son is born, Isaac.
God had taken the relationship to an even deeper level, asking Abraham if he could trust God to do the unbelievable. It was a test of faith. Hebrews 11:11 tells us “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.”
How did Abraham end up with a son - the son came because Abraham was willing to believe something foolish, that God would keep his word and do that which seemed unbelievable.
This morning, what are we looking for God to do? Do we have faith to believe that he can do things that seem silly or unbelievable or so far out of reach that we want to give up -- yet our faith keeps us believing and praying and waiting. Are we expecting God to work?
God continually gives Abraham the opportunities to step out in faith and define the relationship. And Abraham shows himself faithful. A call to leave, a call to covenant, a call to hope.
4. A Call to Trials - Genesis 22 - and this is the call that none of us like.
Notice that verse 1 starts out with a note to the reader - “This is just a test.” Sort of like when they sound the Emergency Broadcast System” - they want you to know ahead of time it’s only a test so you don’t get worried. God tells us this is just a test so we don’t get worried as we read the account.
I can think of two different extremes of teachers I had in school. The first was Mr. Harris. He was my history teacher in college. He always gave the opportunity to pick the test you wanted, either an essay test or an objective test: multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc. Now, I just hated essays, because I hated to write so long. I loved objective tests. The only problem with Mr. Harris’ tests was that he asked things that weren’t in the book and had never been studied in class. His thought was that if you wanted an “A” you would have studied outside of class materials and would know the answers. Almost everyone, myself included, always took the essay test.
The other extreme was Mr. Foose. Mr. Foose also was a history teacher, and he loved history. Yet, he loved his students and loved to see them achieve and do well. I can remember many tests where a student would be perplexed and not have a clue. Mr. Foose would come over their shoulder, whisper, “Oh, come on, you know that one. Don’t you remember when Washington was crossing that big river--what was it’s name. Oh, come on, it’s one of the states, the first to join the Union. If Della Reese was there, what would she wear. Come on, what would Della wear?
Mr. Foose loved to see us succeed.
Sometimes we look at the tests God gives us in life like Mr. Harris’ objective tests. We think that God is out to get us, he’s trying to make us fail, he wants us to sin. This morning, I would say that that is far from the truth. This morning, let’s look at God like Mr. Foose: he gives us tests to show us that we can do it; when we need help, he’s right there to come along side us and to prompt us a little. Sometimes he even gives us the answers we need when we don’t know what to do.
God brings testing into our lives, but he does it to have us pass the test with flying colors. James 1 tells us that we should count it joy when we face trials. If we need wisdom to face our trials, we can ask of God, and he will give it to us. God never tries to get us to sin; he never tempts us with evil. Rather he allows tests to come to show us approved.
In Genesis 22, we see one of these tests. God’s tests are often difficult, but always passable.
Remember that God’s desire is that we pass the test, that we grow and learn, but not to have us fail. If we never were faced with difficulties, there would be no struggle and no growth. Let’s look at the struggle of this test.
*22:2 - Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
sacrifice -This was a test that was going to cost Abraham something. It was a sacrifice
of possession -“his only son - Abraham was not sharing something he had plenty of, but giving up totally the only son he had from his body
of emotions - “whom you love - Abraham was called to give up that which was very precious to him, his emotions were focused in his son. God often calls us to give up that which means the most to us. Many times we think we have complete control over all we have, but God calls us to give up all for him. He wants everything we have.
of hope - “burnt offering” - this was total abandonment. In a burnt offering there is no way the animal (or person in this case) would be walking back from the altar.
Yet, while this test seems unbelievable, yet it was a test that was passable. Abraham had already committed to following the ways of God. Look back in 21:4 - Abraham starts out Isaac’s life by obeying God’s commands in circumcising Isaac. Abraham sets a good example for Isaac, worshiping and calling on God’s name at Beersheba, in 21:33.
Hebrews 11:17-19 it tells us “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Even though this was a test of sacrificing that which was dear to him, Abraham had already committed himself that Isaac was devoted to God. Even though all hope would be gone by a living sacrifice, Abraham still hoped in the goodness of God to do that which was impossible.
**This test also was a drawn out test. It wasn’t something that could be done in a matter of minutes. It took Abraham three days, traveling with his son, each day knowing that at any time he could turn back and just disregard the commands of God. Each step closer to the mountain was a step closer to his son’s death. Yet, as we have said,tests are often difficult, but always passable. 1 Cor. 10:13 tells us that whatever test we face, God provides us a way to pass the test. If we’re willing to take his way.
How is God testing you right now? What is God calling you to give up? What hope that you enjoyed is being destroyed? Let’s remember that God’s tests are to deepen our relationship with him, to take our relationship with him to the next level.
Abraham was not a perfect man, and Genesis also records some of his foolish mistakes, but he was a man who God chose to call into deep, personal relationship. Through a series of calls, through a series of steps of faith, God deepened the relationship. In your life today, God wants to take you to the next level of relationship. He wants to define the relationship. He wants you to know that he can meet your every need. He wants you to follow. How will you respond to the call of God?
Prayer --
