Sermon: Out of the Comfort Zone Gen 12:1-4 Feb 27, 2002
Turn with me to Gen 12:1-4
I. A Hero of Faith??? - Abram/Abraham
A. Seems so Simple
1. God said go - Abram went!
2. An Amazing Example of Faith
a) Held up as a standard of faith
(1) father of our faith and the muslims
b) Heb 11:8 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.
c) In the New Testament Paul speaks of Abraham and he commends the faith of Abraham to us as “Only believe.” We hear the stories like this one and we go home from church berating ourselves, telling ourselves we ought to have more faith, we ought to believe more, we ought to trust more, we ought to obey more, We ought to be more like Abram. If we would only believe everything would work out? I mean, Isn’t that what we say in church? Have faith and see what God can do”… so simple, so easy
d) And yet, The simplicity and easy of it accuse us our lack of faith. It points it finger at us as being weak, sinful, unworthy individuals
3. We could never be like Abram, w don’t have the faith that Abram did - or do we? We think of him as above us, a standard of faith held so high we could never get close
a) truth of the matter is Abram is just like us.
II. in the infamous words of Paul Harvey - And Now for the Rest of the Story
A. Joshua 24:2 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.
1. Abram wasn’t a Christian much less a Jew - he worshiped other gods.
a) now I find that highly interesting when the opening verse in today’s scripture simply says God called Abram to go and he went.
b) we don’t know how or when he became a believer in the one true living God, or how God appeared to him, how Abram knew it was God talking - there is nothing in the scriptures to tell us
B. So what does the scripture tell us
1. Another look at the first verse of today’s reading
a) Gen 12:1 - This time notice exactly what God told Abraham to do
(1) Notice God’s first words to Abram are leave and go. Leave your country. Leave your people. Leave your father’s household. Leave your comfort. Leave everything that is familiar to you. Leave your desires. Leave your preferences. Leave your daily routine. Leave our buddies. Leave your soft king size bed. Leave your three quarrel meals a day. Leave your golf outings with your friends on Friday afternoon. Leave your dinner dates with Sarai at The Olive Garden or McDonalds. Leave your cable tv and blockbuster video store. Leave everything that you have to come to love and enjoy over the past 75 years of your life and go.
(2) Go to the land that I will show you. Go to the unknown Go to the unfamiliar. Go to the place where you will have to trust Me like you have never trusted Me in your whole life. Go to where I will have to provide for you. Go and watch me be your road map, your atlas. Go and watch Me be your provisions. Go and watch Me be your Bread of life and your living water. Go Abram and watch Me be your all in all through it all. Go and I will bless you.
a) When God called Abram he called him to a journey alone. Isaiah 51:2 later marks this point but did Abraham go on alone? No way!
(1) he took all his excess baggage with him - his family, his nephew - lot, his material possessions and all the responsibilities of being a patriarch
(i) It is hard to hold on to the Lord when our hands are full of everything that gives us security and comfort.
(2) It sounded so simple and straightforward at the start of our story today - God called Abram went
(a) God called Abram to rip himself away from all of these things so that he could find out that God and God alone , is the source of security and comfort. He is our provider and He alone can supply us with the things that will endure throughout time.
(3) But when we notice the details, when we really look deep into the story what we really find is not a story of a super human saint but a story of hesitant, faltering, first steps of a man who doubts God, who isn’t perfect, who makes mistakes, who sins, who doesn’t trust God to protect him or to fulfill his promises.
(a) Abraham gets points for going and loses points for not going alone!
b) And then very quickly we find Abraham paying the price for not following God’s directions more explicitly. Slowly God strips away the things that are keeping Abraham from getting closer to His and His will.
(a) Abraham and Lot get into a quarrel over possessions and land
(i) perhaps Abram should have left lot behind
(ii) they split and go separate ways.
(b) a severe famine strikes the land and Abram must search for food and help in a foreign land
(c) Abram lies about his wife telling the pharoah that Sarah is his sister - Why? Because he was afraid for his own life. Not once does he do this but twice!! Maybe he should have left his wife at home.
(d) Abram doubts God’s promise to give him a child by Sarah so he takes Sarah’s handmaiden Hagar and has a child by her named Ishmael
(e) And when God does fulfil his promise Ishmael and Issac are at odd’s with each other and end us separating the family and the faith.
(f) but All along the way Abram learned many things, got closer and closer to his God given goals, mission and quest but you know what he didm’t live to see it complete fulfilled or finished. He died before he could see God’s plan fulfil AND YET
2. Despite Abram’s failures, doubts and hestitancy God still claimed, upheld him as a man of faith
a) Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
(1) four times this is repeated in the New Testament Romans 4:3 and 22, Gal 3:6 and James 2:23.
I. Did Abram struggle with believing God, trusting God? Yes! did Abram ultimately place his trust in God? You bet!!
A. By Abram’s obedience and faith he became part of God’s plan to save the world.
1. And guess what we are part of that plan too
a) okay so you are not perfect, you don’t always do the right thing, you sin sometimes, you doubt God and try and go it your own way.
b) God can still use you even when you think He can’t
B. God is calling us each of us out of our Comfort Zone into service for his kingdom
1. Calling us Out of our beautiful neat churches, out of our comfortable lives, out of our close knit circle of friends
2. Matt 28: 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
3. Matthew 10:38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
4. Matthew 16:26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
5. The material things, the things of this world, the world’s standard of successs - isn’t God’s standard and so he gave us an example
C. A perfect example - someone just like us
1. someone who made mistakes
2. someone whose faith was full of gaps and doubts
3. someone who with wobbling legs, and knocking knees stepped out of their comfort zone into the unknown
a) scary, isn’t it. To think that God might call you to leave everything that you have worked so hard to secure.? To think that God might call us to rid ourselves of the things of this world that have brought us a sense of security? Yet God told Abram to go and He would bless him. Abram leave it all and watch Me bless you!
b) What a trade off leave and go and be blessed him and become a blessing to the world.
(PAUSE)
D. You, know, God will take any beginning, any small step toward him and make it grow.
1. make us grow, stretch us, and shape us in the image of Christ
2. And he Promises that if we do he will bless us also
a) Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
3. If you will permit me to paraphrase Neil Armstrong’s words:
a) One small step of faith by man IS One giant step for God’s Kingdom
b) God want’s you to step out of your comfort zone into His blessedness - if God can create a whole nation, a whole faith out of Abram - just image what he can do through you.
