Today, we begin a series dedicated to the life of Abraham, the father of the faith (Romans 4:11b). He’s one of the greatest men to have ever lived. You cannot understand the world if you don’t understand this man’s story. Abraham is honored as the father of three “religions of the Book” – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Today, you can drive by synagogue, mosques, and churches – all of these consider themselves children of Abraham. Jews, Muslims, and Christians have named their children “Abraham” for 4,000 years in honor of Abraham’s place in all three religions. You will not be able to understand the world itself if you don’t understand this man’s story.
If you have your Bibles, please find Genesis 11 with me.
5,500 years ago, the wheel was invented. 5,200 years ago, the first writing systems appear in history. More than a 1,000 years ago, gunpowder was used in warfare with the Chinese and was called “flying fire.” In 1886, the first gas-powered car was invented. In 1903, Orville & Wilber Wright fly for the first time. All of these are significant events in our history. But none are as monumental as the significance of when God spoke to Abraham. Yes, bigger than the wheel, the airplane, and even gunpowder. Our story comes from 4,000 years ago and it’s a story of tremendous hope.
By the way, when we begin reading, the word is Abram. Don’t let that throw you off. Later on, his name will be Abraham.
Today’s Scripture
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 11:27–12:3).
Right in the Middle
If you were to step inside the entrance of our home, you would find our dining room table is set for fall. At the center of the table is a centerpiece chosen by my wife. The centerpiece is set there for all eyes to be drawn to it. Likewise, Abraham’s story is set in the center of the book of Genesis. Genesis is broken up into eleven sections where each section is bracketed by the telling the story of one generation.
There are five stories of five generations in front of Abraham and there are five stories of five generations behind Abraham in Genesis. Abraham’s life begins in Genesis 11:27 and end in Genesis 25:1-11 with his death and burial. Again, Abraham’s story is placed intentionally in the center of Genesis. God wants you to focus on His choice of this one man and this one family. Abraham’s life is placed prominently in Genesis in order to catch your eye.
Introduction to Abraham
Abraham was one of three brothers who hailed from the southern part of present day Iraq. Not only was he wealthy but he would mount a small army (318 men) to defeat five kings to save his nephew’s family (Genesis 14). God changed his name from Abram, which meant, “father of many,” to Abraham, meaning “father of a multitude” – e.g. “Big Daddy!” Abraham’s life is intentionally placed squarely in the center of Genesis.
But Abraham was not without flaws. He often lied by telling people his wife was really his sister to save his life. He abandoned his son, Ishmael, and Ishmael’s mother so the two had to flee into the desert (Genesis 21:1-21). His wife, Sarah, gave birth at 90 years of age and God later asked him to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19). Thankfully, God later provided an animal for sacrifice in his son’s place. His stellar life was finally capped off by being the first Jewish man to own land in the Promised Land. It’s this one man is chosen out of all the families of the earth and this one man receives an avalanche of blessing cascading one after another on him.
1. God’s Call
It’s impossible to overexaggerate the importance of this story of God speaking to Abraham. Around 2,000 years after our story, a really good man was accused of speaking blasphemy against God and Moses. Shortly after the death of Jesus, the Sanhedrin hear Stephen defend himself. And the very first words out of Stephen’s mouth in his defense trial is how God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12. It’s truly impossible to overexaggerate how important this story is.
1.1 God’s Plan, One Man
God chooses one man. God singles out this one man in order to bring God’s blessing to all nations. God singled out Adam at the beginning. But soon his sin had banished his wife, Eve, and he from the perfect Garden. The tragedy of their decision catapulted all of humanity into misery and confusion. No sooner had he left the garden than their son, Cain, killed his brother, Abel over jealousy. Shortly after the Adam and Eve debacle, God pressed the reset button with a man named Noah: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). But no sooner did Noah get off the Ark, than we witness the ugly scene of him passed out drunk with no cloths on (Genesis 9:20-27).
The earth was in chaos. Humanity had chosen to take a destructive path and everyone was sliding continually downward and divine intervention was required. So God starts over with humanity again, only this time with a man named Abram. God chooses Abraham as the New Adam to end the lines of disaster. God makes a new fresh start.
1.2 The Command of God
We don’t know exactly how God spoke to Abraham. Did Abraham here a voice from above? Was it through a dream in his sleep? Or did God speak directly to Abraham’s mind? We do know the very first word out of God’s mouth is the word “go”: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). God tells Abraham, “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household. “Get out here. Leave this place, Abraham.” This was a divine call.
1.3 Trust
God was asking for Abraham’s trust. God showed up at Abraham’s house one day with a subpoena, if you will. Abraham was to leave the modern nation of Iraq, the ancient city of Ur, and go to unknown place. God told him to get out, but He didn’t tell him where he was going. It took him years to find out even where he was going. Abraham wandered. His father died in the midst of his wandering, and then God told him where he was going. Abraham was called to trust God for God will bring His friend “to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1c).
1.4 The Promise of God
“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).
There are seven individual promises inside these two verses – let’s count them.
1) “I will make of you a great nation” (Genesis 12:2a);
2) “I will bless you” (Genesis 12:2b);
3) “I will … make your name great” (Genesis 12:2b);
4) “…you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2c);
5) “I will bless those who bless you” (Genesis 12:3a);
6) the one “who dishonors you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3b);
7) And then the climax, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).
God continually expands the promises to wider and wider to the whole earth. Five times God tells Abraham He is going to bless him. Five times God tells Abraham that Almighty God’s favor rests on him.
You might be saying, “Pastor, this little history lesson is nice and all, but what does this have to do with me? A young person says, ‘I am anxious this week because of important mid-term tests I’m taking.’ Someone else says, ‘If this job doesn’t come through for me, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ Still another might say, ‘I am so worried about a call from the doctor’s office. She is to call the lab results and I cannot sleep. What does Abraham have to do with my test anxiety, my job interview, or my lab results?” The very first words in your New Testament are these words: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). In the first sentence of the first verse of your New Testament, Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham.
You cannot see God’s working and planning fully in your life. You and I cannot comprehend the plan of God. But you can trust His plan.
All you’re concentrating on this week is your test, a call, or an interview. Your spouse has died after fifty-seven years of marriage and you’re falling apart. In the midst of all this, I am calling on you to pause and really see Abraham. God has ordered the events of history and the movements of people for His purposes and His plans. The world finds its hope through Jesus Christ and Jesus finds His foundation in Abraham.
1. God’s Call
2. Abraham’s Response
What’s interesting is to move back a generation to see Abraham’s father, Terah.
2.1 Abraham’s Father’s Family
You might be surprised to know Abraham’s family were not Bible-believing, right-wing evangelicals. They were far from it. Look with me at Genesis 11:27 again: “Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Genesis 11:27-30). So Abraham’s father, Terah has Abraham, Nahor, and Haran (Genesis 11:27). Terah’s son, Haran, died while Terah was still alive (Genesis 11:28). Abraham marries Sarah, who is barren – this will a big story in the days to come (Genesis 11:30). Years later, Joshua records this morsel about Abraham’s family: “And Joshua said to all the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods’ (Joshua 24:2).
Again, You might be surprised to know Abraham’s family were not Bible-believing, right-wing evangelicals. Abraham’s family were moon-worshippers. They didn’t admire the moon, instead, they worshipped the moon. The city of Ur was leading area for moon worship. The cemetery discovered there even shows how people were buried with a ritual of human sacrifice to honor the dead. This was Abraham’s background. So what takes place back in Genesis 11:31 is a surprise.
2.2 Abraham’s Family Join Him
“Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there” (Genesis 11:31). Only later in Genesis 12:1, are we are told how God tells Abraham to leave. But here it looks as if all of Abraham’s family will join him in God’s plan, his father, his nephew, Lot, and his wife, Sarah. The sequence isn’t clear here in Genesis 11 and 12, but our friend, Stephen, makes it clear: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you’” (Acts 7:2b–3). So God speaks while Abraham is the ancient Mesopotamia, the whole family moves out with Abraham, but settles in Haran. The Lord appeared to Abram, and made Abraham understand that he must emigrate from his country. Abraham was to journey into another land, and no more dwell in city, or town, or village, but become a sojourner with his God, a tent-dweller, and a stranger in a strange land. This was a monumental act of faith. Abraham was a pagan living among pagans. He was older man by this time and he had a good business. He was settled into his homeland. But when he heard the voice of God, he risked everything to obey God. He risked everything to trust God and to obey Him. He didn’t know it, but the very gospel would begin with the good news of Abraham leaving his family and his home.
1. God’s Call
2. Abraham’s Response
3. Our Worship
Pick up reading with me in verse 4: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord” (Genesis 12:4-8).
3.1 A Public Worship Service
Abraham took off on an approximately 800 miles journey after the death of his father. Abraham arrives with a large entourage, a lot of people are traveling with him, maybe as many as 2,000 or more. He arrives in God’s chosen place and his arrival would have created quite a stir, don’t you imagine. Once there, he meets the Canaanites, some of the most wicked people you’d ever encounter. And then Abraham builds an altar for worship. This was a public worship service where all the local Canaanites watched. Right in the middle of the most wicked place on earth where no one knew the God of the Bible, Abraham conducts a worship service for all to see. Abraham had arrived to proclaim God’s name among in a hostile place. Somebody given Abraham an Amen, will you?
If you take a mission trip with me to Vancouver and worship with The Point Church, you will worship in the student center of Simon Frasier University. Yes, you will worship in the student center. In the commons area of the student center to be exact where students and anyone will walk through the back of your meeting. When you worship there, everyone can see you. Students, faculty, and visitors will simply walk through the back of the commons area or what we would consider to be the worship center. It’s a different setting to be sure.
Abraham set up a worship service in a place where everyone could see him.
3.2 According to Your Faith
Abraham teaches us the importance of patient faith. He will wait twenty-five years from the time God makes the promise of a great, big family to the birth of Isaac – twenty-five years. Abraham teaches us the importance of patient faith. Do you remember Jesus saying on one occasion during a miracle, “According to your faith be it done to you” (Matthew 9:29b).
Jesus didn’t say, “According to your finances be it done to you…”
Jesus didn’t say, “According to your fame be it done to you…”
Jesus didn’t say, “According to your friends be it done to you…”
Instead, Jesus said, “According to your faith be it done to you” (Matthew 9:29b).
I want you now to imagine two letters that are sent to the post office. One letter is typed beautifully by a word processor. It is typed on exquisite, expensive stationery. There is not a word misspelled. It is beautifully framed. Everything is perfect, not a smudge, not a smear. It is perfectly addressed and it’s placed in the mail. Another letter is written. This letter is written on common notepaper like a yellow legal pad. It’s stuffed into an envelope. It is written by pencil. It is full of grammatical errors. It is smudged, dirty. But there’s one difference in the two letters. The first letter, so beautifully written, has no stamp on it. The second letter, written in pencil, with smudges and smears, has a stamp on it. Question: Which letter will be delivered? Now, let me tell you something, folks. Faith is the stamp that gets your letter on through—faith.
Conclusion
Like much of you this week, I kept an eye on the Amber Guyger trial. The former Dallas police officer fatally shot Botham Jean last year in what she described as mistakenly entering into the wrong apartment. Found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Guyger’s shooting was against the backdrop of hate between white and black in our country. Many saw this shooting as another reason to hate police officers. But in a break from the constant drip of hatred and fighting came something remarkable at the sentence phasing of this week’s courtroom drama. In a remarkable act of kindness, the brother of the victim took the witness stand on Wednesday and spoke directly to Guyger, saying, “I love you like anyone else.” Brandt Jean spoke directly to Guyger, saying, “I know if you go to God and ask him, He will forgive you.” He continued, “I love you just like anyone else and I’m not going to hope you rot and die. I personally want the best for you. … I want the best for you because I know that’s exactly what Botham would want for you. Give your life to Christ. I think giving your life to Christ is the best thing Botham would want for you.” Brandt Jean, eighteen years old, then asked Kemp if he could give Guyger a hug, a request the judge granted. It was then that He then stepped off the witness stand and met Guyger in front of the judge's bench and embraced as Guyger broke into tears. Even the judge choked back tears, as did most everyone left in the courtroom. Then the judge approach Guyger with a small Bible in her hand. “You can have mine,” the judge said to Guyger. “I have three or four at home.” She then began to counsel Guyger. The pair were talking low, barely audible, just the two of them. “This is your job,” the judge said, opening the book. The judge mentioned John 3:16, saying this will strengthen her. Guyger nodded her head. “You just need a tiny mustard seed of faith,” the judge said. “You start with this.” “Ma’am,” the judge said warmly. “It’s not because I’m good. It’s because I believe in Christ.” “You haven’t done so much that you can’t be forgiven,” the judge told her. “You did something bad in one moment in time. What you do now matters.”
Jesus empowers healing from hatred and hurt like no one can. God is working His plan to bless the world starting with Abraham to the cross of Christ. Abraham had remarkable, patient faith. Do you have faith in the Son of God?
