July 25, 2021

Online Worship for Trinity Eight, Sunday July 25, 2021

Preacher:
Passage: Genesis 12:1-9
Service Type:

Sermon for Trinity Eight – Sunday July 25, 2021
Calvary/Marquette ● Soli Deo Gloria

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus, the Christ. Amen.

Genesis 12:1–9 (NKJV)
Now the LORD had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4 So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land.

7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. 9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

In the Name of Jesus, the Christ,
In whom all the Promises of God are Yes,
Dear Fellow Redeemed in His Precious Blood –

It could be a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity or something that happens from time to time. You are satisfied, even happy with your job. You keep your head down and work hard. Everything is going well. You are productive and enjoy what you do. Then suddenly, another employer offers you a job. Suddenly everything changes, and you have to decide whether to keep the job you have or take the new opportunity.

If the benefits and upside of the new opportunity outweigh the benefits and upside of your current job, you may conclude: “I can’t pass up this opportunity.”

What if your new job required that you leave everything behind: family, relatives, hometown and home. In order to reap the benefits, you have to let everything else go. Would that change your view? Would you conclude: “I can’t pass up this opportunity.”?

Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldeans, a wealthy city northwest of the Persian Gulf in what we today call Iraq. He was told, “Go, leave your country, family, relatives, and go to a land that I will show you.” There was no promised paycheck, no photos of prospective mansions to live in, no promise of a beautiful country. In fact, God didn’t even specify what land he was to move to or where. How would it compare to Ur of the Chaldeans or to Haran in Syria?

Were we in Abram’s sandals, would we conclude that there were just too many questions? How can I leave my home, everyone and everything to go somewhere…especially when the offer came from someone I can’t see? If you asked me, humanly speaking it all seems pretty sketchy.

Honestly, we probably wouldn’t fault Abram if he had replied,
“Well, thank you for the offer, but I’m doing pretty well right where I am.”

What did Abram do? He believed God’s offer, His Promises sight unseen. He pulled up the stakes to his tent in Ur and he and his father Terah, traveled Northwest and settled in another land, in a city called Haran. After his father died, the offer was made a second time (cf. Acts 7:2-3).

What did Abram do? He acted again. He pulled up the stakes of his tent in Haran and at the age of 75, took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and all his possessions and servants and journeyed south into the land inhabited by the descendants of Ham, the Canaanites.

Why? Was he a gambler? Did he flip a coin? Did he have a severe case of ‘wanderlust’?

The Scriptures reveal time after time that Abram acted – on God’s Promises. He did this because Faith’s Incentive…is God’s Promises. It is to be the same for every Christian today. We live and move and work and hope – not in an effort to measure up to God’s commands – but because we trust God’s Promises to us in Christ Jesus. We don’t set out to make our own life or own way, but humbly follow Christ and His Word and rely upon Him along the way to provide our needs of body and soul.

God deals with sinful human beings the same way today…on the basis of His Promises in Christ. He grants faith that trusts in what Christ has done. He moves sinners to serve Him because of His great promises.

May God the Holy Spirit bless our study of the Scriptures according to Jesus’ own prayer (John 17:17), “Sanctify them by Your Truth, O Lord, your word is truth.” Amen.

+++++++

God didn’t only command Abram to go, he also promised him great things. In fact, from a human point of view we might even say that they were good incentives to go. God attached to his command a seven-fold promise:

“Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

 Great Nation -- Abram was a 75-year-old man with a barren wife (Genesis 11:30) and yet God promised to make of him a great nation. God didn’t only promise to grant him children, but that his children would grow into a great nation. The family to arise from this 75-year-old and his wife would be ‘as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky.’ The family wouldn’t only be large, but tremendously great promises would be given to and through them.

The Apostle Paul referred to those promises in the letter to the Romans, saying (9:4b-5):

“…to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.”

 God promised to bless Abram; to crown his life with earthly benefits and riches, even as He granted him to trust in Him.

 God promised to make Abram’s name great; He and his family would become famous! He was not a self-made man, but a man blessed by God.

 God promised that he would be a blessing to others; He would lead a life that would glorify God. Such a life would be a blessing to others. The Spirit of God bears witness to the God -given faith of Abram, and holds him up as an example.

 God promised that he would bless those who blessed him. Those who wished Abram well and received the Word spoken by Him from God would be blessed. On the other hand,

 God promised to curse those who cursed him. When some wished evil upon Abram God turned that evil around an brought it upon them.

 God promised that the entire world, that the families of the earth would be blessed in connection with Him.

Well, humanly speaking that sounds like a pretty good package of benefits, doesn’t it? Would you drop your current job for benefits like these? Your family a great nation, earthly riches, fame, blessing and protection from cursing? It sounds good…but

Abram was already wealthy. He was successful. He had a wife, possessions, servants and flocks. He had what he needed and more!

Was there a guarantee? Every promise that God makes is guaranteed because He is faithful. Even though Abram didn’t know the extent of the blessing, the LORD promised him blessings.

Moreover, none of these blessings were dependent upon Abram. God didn’t say, “If you do this or that I will make you a great nation.” The LORD didn’t say, “If you do this for me I will make your name great.” God’s Promises aren’t like His Law which demands obedience in exchange for blessing (cf. 4th Commandment).

All of this was dependent upon God’s promises and His faithfulness to those promises. Abram trusted God and acted in faith. He believed God and the LORD credited him with righteousness (Genesis 15:6).

When Abram came to Canaan, the LORD made yet another promise to him and to his future family:

So they came to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

When Abram came to the land of Canaan, it was inhabited. He found cities and farms and fields. He found false religions and idolatry. The LORD promised to give his descendants the lands inhabited by the Canaanites. It was to be the Promised Land. Abram believed God and built an altar there and worshipped the LORD who appeared to him.

God asked nothing of Abram. He only promised to bless him and his descendants.

So maybe you are thinking: “Well, good for Abram, I guess, but what does this have to do with me?” What God promised Abram…also includes you and me. What God promised Abram didn’t only concern his descendants and a dusty land in the middle east, it prefigured a place for me and you in the Ultimate Promised Land, Heaven.

The biggest and best part of the promise God made to Abram…is the last part. God promised that people from every place and every family on earth would be blessed through, in connection with Abram…but not in the man himself. When God promised –

“And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

The LORD was looking past the son of Terah and the 10th generation after the Flood to another of his distant relatives. It was in and through that man all the families of the earth would be blessed…not with earthly blessings or fame…but with something far more valuable.

In fact, God repeated the same promise to Abram and later to his son Isaac and his son Jacob. When he restated the promise to Abram later in the book of Genesis, God used another important word to help us make a connection to the very beginning and the very first promise of made in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 22:18):

18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed…”

The Greatest Blessing that God gave to Abram (besides faith itself) was the promise that the Seed of the Woman, the Savior of Humankind would come from his family…but not only for his family. This is the golden thread that runs through the whole of the Old Testament – God’s promise to send the Savior for sinners. This blessing would come to the world not through the many, but through one particular descendant of Abram.

God didn’t have to bless Abram in this way. Abram wasn’t deserving. He didn’t earn it. In fact, like his father before him he was a sinner, worthy only of death eternal.

God didn’t have to bless you by revealing Himself and His Son to you in the Scriptures. God wasn’t required to offer you heaven through faith in Him. God didn’t ask for something from you in return. He just lavished His grace upon you.

It’s just the way that our Gracious God deals with sinners. He doesn’t demand we measure up…because we can’t. He sent His Son to do the work and through Jesus God has promised you forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. He owed you nothing, still He promises you that if you apply water and his word – that He washes away sins and adopts your children into the family of God. He promises that when you come to His Supper, and in faith take and eat the bread and wine you also receive His own body and blood to confirm your debt is paid.

But with the eyes there is nothing to see. There is no guarantee, no proof…save God’s Word of Promise. We see nothing at baptism. We feel nothing at the Lord’s Supper. God works and blesses us through His Word of Promise.

We pull up stakes and follow Him in life wherever He leads…trusting that when this earthly tent is destroyed (2 Corinthians 5:1-7), we have an eternal home in the heavens. We have earned none of it, but received it all by grace through faith, communicated to us in God’s Promises in Christ.

“Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent,
to be well pleasing to Him.”

To God alone the Glory…now and then.
Amen.

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