SPEAKER_00: The reading today is from Genesis chapter twelve, verse one to nine.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, 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.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in all and and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran, 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.
SPEAKER_00: Now when they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moray.
SPEAKER_00: At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land.
SPEAKER_00: So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb, and so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_03: Please take a seat, everybody.
SPEAKER_03: Welcome uh to you if you joined us while we were singing.
SPEAKER_03: It is uh great to have you here.
SPEAKER_03: My name is Mark, I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.
SPEAKER_03: If you could have Genesis 12 open in front of you, that's where we're going to be.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, you can grab that up on your phone or if you've got a paper Bible.
SPEAKER_03: If you're looking uh on your phone, maybe on Bible Gateway or something like that, and wondering what version do we look at?
SPEAKER_03: We're looking at the English standard version of the Bible that'll help you track most closely to the version that I have uh in front of me.
SPEAKER_03: Uh we are starting this new series proper today.
SPEAKER_03: We kind of set it up a little bit last week, but now we begin.
SPEAKER_03: We're going through the gen the Abraham narrative from Genesis 12 to 24 between now uh and Christmas.
SPEAKER_03: And as we start something new, I want to ask you how you feel about starting something new.
SPEAKER_03: Do you like uh new things?
SPEAKER_03: Do you like new seasons?
SPEAKER_03: When you were when you were going to school or starting university, were you the person that was apprehensive, kind of standing at the back, not quite sure?
SPEAKER_03: Or were you the person that kind of ran in without looking back to your to your parents?
SPEAKER_03: What about when you uh moved here?
SPEAKER_03: Was that something that was filled with uh anxiety and nervousness, or was that something that you found uh exhilarating?
SPEAKER_03: Are you the person who is um confident and assertive when it comes to stepping out into the unknown, or somebody who finds that quite uh paralyzing and are apprehensive about it?
SPEAKER_03: Does the idea fill you with dread or excitement?
SPEAKER_03: Lots of people I suspect uh probably have a blend of both, the sensation of uh being nervous about what's uncertain, particularly on the run-up, but then maybe when you're in it, you're like, oh, that wasn't so bad at all.
SPEAKER_03: This is great.
SPEAKER_03: I love this.
SPEAKER_03: Brilliant.
SPEAKER_03: All of that comes because, well, human beings don't know the future.
SPEAKER_03: If you knew the future, then there'd be nothing to be nervous about, anxious about.
SPEAKER_03: But we don't.
SPEAKER_03: We can't see what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_03: We cannot look down the corridor of time and uh and perceive how all of the things are uh are going to play out.
SPEAKER_03: So maybe you're the kind of person that actually lies awake at night playing through the scenarios, you know, like the lawyer on the legal pad.
SPEAKER_03: You know, if this happens, then I'm gonna say this, if this happens, then I'm gonna do this.
SPEAKER_03: You run through all the scenarios in order to try and prepare yourself because you don't know what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_03: You don't know what's going to happen because you don't know the future.
SPEAKER_03: Human beings are made to move into that uncertain future.
SPEAKER_03: Human beings have always been made to move out into that unknown, that unknown future, right back from the garden.
SPEAKER_03: When God makes Adam and Eve, one of the things that he says to them, he says, he blesses them and says, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
SPEAKER_03: He says to Adam and Eve, don't stay in the garden, that place of comfort and security and safety.
SPEAKER_03: You've got to move out into the wild, into that which is unknown and cultivate the rest of the earth to make it like the garden, that place of peace and rest and shalom.
SPEAKER_03: But you've got to step out.
SPEAKER_03: And that's fundamental to who we are.
SPEAKER_03: We are people who are made to journey into the future, to step out into the known, the unknown, to progress, to develop, to have an adventure.
SPEAKER_03: Human beings aren't supposed to be static.
SPEAKER_03: A few weeks ago I watched uh the uh the new Brendan Fraser movie The Whale, uh, about a man called Charlie, who is uh is trapped in his uh in his obesity and in his uh dealing with mental health issues.
SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that's so tragic, without giving away the uh the ending, one of the things that's so tragic about the whale is that Charlie is so static that he cannot even sleep in his own bed.
SPEAKER_03: He cannot move forward in life.
SPEAKER_03: He's absolutely, literally stuck.
SPEAKER_03: And that arouses sympathy and pathos and sadness in us because we're made to step out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: Because we're made to move forward into a future that is uncertain.
SPEAKER_03: So, what do you get if you combine humanity's fundamental created need to move forward and humanity's inability to discern the future?
SPEAKER_03: What do you get if you blend those two things together?
SPEAKER_03: Well, that could be answered in one word.
SPEAKER_03: You get an adventure.
SPEAKER_03: It's an adventure to move forward into the unknown, not knowing what will happen.
SPEAKER_03: It's Neo as he takes the red pill.
SPEAKER_03: It's Elsa as she hears the spirit of the forest calling her out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to do any more of that.
SPEAKER_03: It's Frodo as he sets out on his quest to Mordor.
SPEAKER_03: It's Harry Potter in the living room of four Private Drive, as all of the invitations to take up his studies at Hogwarts all swirl around him.
SPEAKER_03: Why do all of those moments, well, why do we tell those stories all the time?
SPEAKER_03: And why do those moments, when the ring plops into Frodo's hand, when the invitations swirl, when Morpheus goes blue pill, red pill?
SPEAKER_03: When Elsa sings into the unknown, why do they make the hair on our arms stand up?
SPEAKER_03: Because we're made for adventure.
SPEAKER_03: We're made to step out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: Our series is called Being Human, because over the next 14 weeks, we're not giving simply a history lesson.
SPEAKER_03: Genesis is not merely a recounting of things that have happened in the past.
SPEAKER_03: It contains rather fundamental lessons for what always happens, for what human nature is foundationally and fundamentally like.
SPEAKER_03: And our journey through the Abraham narrative begins this morning with a call to adventure, with a call out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: And so as we look at these nine verses and as we consider them together, we're looking at two things this morning.
SPEAKER_03: The God who calls and the God who promises.
SPEAKER_03: And what is our response to that?
SPEAKER_03: Let me give you, let me run it right through to the end, just in case you're tired this morning.
SPEAKER_03: What's the application?
SPEAKER_03: Trust God's promises and obey God's voice.
SPEAKER_03: Let's start the other way around.
SPEAKER_03: Let's start with obeying God's voice or God's call, because that is what how we begin in Genesis 12.
SPEAKER_03: But first, we need to ask the question: who is this God that calls you, that calls Abram out on an adventure?
SPEAKER_03: What's he like?
SPEAKER_03: Who is this God who invites you to step out into the unknown?
SPEAKER_03: I imagine that's a pretty reasonable question because if you're if you're there and think, oh, I'm up for an adventure, and some so some random hobo comes along and says, right, let's go.
SPEAKER_03: Hold on, who are you?
SPEAKER_03: Why should I listen to that?
SPEAKER_03: So who's the God who calls Abram?
SPEAKER_03: Well, he, as we can see from this passage, is the God of grace.
SPEAKER_03: Who is the God who calls you out onto an adventure?
SPEAKER_03: He's the God of grace.
SPEAKER_03: What's grace?
SPEAKER_03: Well, grace is undeserved, unmerited, unearned kindness.
SPEAKER_03: It's God's unmerited favor and goodness directed towards you, though you've done nothing to earn it or deserve it or merit it.
SPEAKER_03: God is the God of grace.
SPEAKER_03: The God who is who is undeservedly kind to you is the God who calls you out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: Now, where do we get that from?
SPEAKER_03: Come with me.
SPEAKER_03: Abram is born of uh a man called Terra, and they lived in a place called Ur, Ur of the Chaldeans.
SPEAKER_03: Now the Chaldeans lived in modern day Iraq.
SPEAKER_03: And then sometime later, Terra takes his family.
SPEAKER_03: This is the end of chapter 11.
SPEAKER_03: Terra takes his family and they move then to a place called Haran.
SPEAKER_03: Now, Ur and Haran were not centers of the worship of the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: God of the Bible is called Yahweh.
SPEAKER_03: Rather, Ur and Haran were places of moon worship.
SPEAKER_03: They were places where human sacrifice was practiced.
SPEAKER_03: They were dark places far away from the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: Joshua at the end of Joshua and Joshua 24, if you're taking notes, 24 verses 1 and 2, talks about how before God came and made these promises to Abraham, Abram, in uh at this part of the narrative, that he and the rest of his family were worshiping other gods.
SPEAKER_03: Abram is not looking for the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: He's not searching or seeking for Yahweh.
SPEAKER_03: He's not Googling the nearest Bible study that he can come and be part of.
SPEAKER_03: No, he is very far from God indeed.
SPEAKER_03: He is steeped in dark pagan worship of the worst kind.
SPEAKER_03: And yet God calls him into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: God determines to set his grace, his unmerited, undeserved, unearned kindness on someone who is far, far from him.
SPEAKER_03: Why would God call someone who didn't deserve it in the least?
SPEAKER_03: And yet that is still how God works.
SPEAKER_03: If you claim to be a follower of Jesus, and you think that God has chosen you because of some inherent merit or goodness, then you fail to understand who God is and who you are.
SPEAKER_03: He is the God of grace.
SPEAKER_03: He calls those who do not deserve it.
SPEAKER_03: But on the other hand, if you're here this morning and you're listening to the songs and the prayers and thinking, I am so far away from what the rest of these people in this room believe.
SPEAKER_03: I'm so far, so far removed from this God that they pray to and sing to.
SPEAKER_03: And he's calling you to follow him.
SPEAKER_03: The God who calls us out of ourselves into the unknown is not just the God of grace, but a God who speaks and who speaks a word of command.
SPEAKER_03: Verse one, now we're really in the passage.
SPEAKER_03: Now the Lord, that is Yahweh, now Yahweh said to Abram, Go, go from your country and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_03: The God who speaks gives Abram a command, and that singular command is to go, get out.
SPEAKER_03: It's time to saddle your donkey, Abram.
SPEAKER_03: It's time to have an adventure.
SPEAKER_03: Go from where you are and step out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: And what he is stepping out into is certainly unknown because of what he is called to leave behind him.
SPEAKER_03: God begins by saying, Go from your country, that is, your land, your place, the place that you called home.
SPEAKER_03: Leave it all behind, Abram.
SPEAKER_03: Leave behind what is familiar and comfortable, and go.
SPEAKER_03: What is a Tesco?
SPEAKER_03: Like, why don't I have a Costco or whatever the equivalent is?
SPEAKER_03: All of those familiar things.
SPEAKER_03: God is calling Abram to leave behind.
SPEAKER_03: Your country, then he says, your kindred.
SPEAKER_03: So we're kind of moving kind of slightly closer to kind of concentric circles, moving in.
SPEAKER_03: Your country, that uh that familiar space that you call home, that familiar kind of cultural story that we tell one another, then your kindred, that is the people with whom you share common beliefs and and practices, that is your tribe, your culture, your subculture.
SPEAKER_03: Leave it all behind, God says.
SPEAKER_03: Says to Abraham, be a fish out of water.
SPEAKER_03: Leave your old worshiping ways behind you, your old national holidays, your old ways of doing things.
SPEAKER_03: Leave behind your name.
SPEAKER_03: Leave behind your reputation.
SPEAKER_03: Leave the people who like and respect you and start again.
SPEAKER_03: And then God really comes close.
SPEAKER_03: He says, Leave your country, leave your kindred.
SPEAKER_03: He says, Leave your father's house.
SPEAKER_03: Leave your blood behind, Abram.
SPEAKER_03: Leave your family.
SPEAKER_03: Those strongest ties.
SPEAKER_03: Walk away.
SPEAKER_03: Start something new.
SPEAKER_03: We cannot heed God's call to go if it comes with non-negotiables.
SPEAKER_03: If it comes with red lines that we have drawn for ourselves.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I will I will follow you this far, Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: But don't don't ask me to walk away from that.
SPEAKER_03: And yet we must wrestle with the fact that that same Jesus is the one who says, leave father and mother and follow me.
SPEAKER_03: This actually links with this idea that God's call is gracious to you.
SPEAKER_03: That God's kindness to you is unmerited, that it's undeserved, that it's unearned.
SPEAKER_03: Because if you earned it, if you made God like you by virtue of who you were or the good things that you did, do you know what you'd have?
SPEAKER_03: You'd have negotiating power.
SPEAKER_03: You say, Well, I bring this to the table.
SPEAKER_03: You know, look at how great I am.
SPEAKER_03: Haven't you seen it?
SPEAKER_03: And so actually, if you want me, God, uh, these are these are my red lines.
SPEAKER_03: Uh I don't go over there.
SPEAKER_03: You don't get that part of me.
SPEAKER_03: But here's the really scary thing about grace.
SPEAKER_03: If grace, God's undeserved kindness to you, if it's really unmerited, if it has nothing to do with who you are in yourself or the things that you have achieved, or your virtue, or your merit, there's nothing that God cannot ask of you.
SPEAKER_03: You have no negotiating power.
SPEAKER_03: So God calls you to go and to step out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: To leave country and kindred and father's house.
SPEAKER_03: And many of you in uh in very literal ways have done that.
SPEAKER_03: You know what it feels like to leave kindred and father's house and to feel like a fish out of water here in Dublin where you can't find a place to live and everything costs too much money.
SPEAKER_03: Getting married's like that, too.
SPEAKER_03: It's a call to adventure.
SPEAKER_03: Leaving kindred and family, leaving the country comfort and security of the life that you've built for yourself as a single person.
SPEAKER_03: Moving to somewhere that you might not choose.
SPEAKER_03: Because you're heeding the call to step out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: It's also the call to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: To leave a formal life.
SPEAKER_03: It's a call into the unknown, it's a call to adventure, it's the adventure of your life to take up your cross and to follow him.
SPEAKER_03: Leaving behind your old ways, your old self, your old habit habits, your old gods.
SPEAKER_03: Abram is being asked here to exchange the tangible for the intangible.
SPEAKER_03: For the concrete, for the ethereal.
SPEAKER_02: The present comfort.
SPEAKER_02: For future gain.
SPEAKER_03: How would you respond?
SPEAKER_03: It feels kind of slightly tense in the room.
SPEAKER_03: You're like, yeah, slide me up.
SPEAKER_03: Let's go.
SPEAKER_03: That'll be the exhilarated people, all of the kind of slightly actually, oh no, no, thanks.
SPEAKER_03: What makes Abram go?
SPEAKER_03: Why does Abram go?
SPEAKER_03: What could make you go?
SPEAKER_03: And this is why we need the next verse.
SPEAKER_03: Because the God who commands you to go is also the God who blesses you.
SPEAKER_03: He's the God who makes promises.
SPEAKER_03: The God who gives commands to Abraham, to Abram, you're just gonna have to make your peace with the fact that I'm gonna interchange those until God actually changes his name in like five chapters time, but hey ho.
SPEAKER_03: He makes promises to Abram.
SPEAKER_03: Let's look at them together.
SPEAKER_03: So he says, and let's link it with the command, right?
SPEAKER_03: Because the command you're like, oh I don't really um go from your country, your kindred, your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_03: I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse.
SPEAKER_03: And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_03: What makes Abraham go?
SPEAKER_03: The promise of the blessing of God.
SPEAKER_03: Lots of ink has been spilt on these promises, and we'll circle back to them at various points through the series.
SPEAKER_03: Let's just note them, let's note the four of them here.
SPEAKER_03: God promises, first of all, to give Abram a new land, a new home.
SPEAKER_03: Go from this land to the land that I'm going to show you.
SPEAKER_03: And then if you cast your eye down to verse seven, after uh Abraham has gone on and uh he arrives in Canaan, verse seven, then Yahweh appeared to Abraham and said, To your offspring, I will give this land, your home, Abraham.
SPEAKER_03: This this year, this is what you get.
SPEAKER_03: It's what your offspring get.
SPEAKER_03: First, a new land, a new home.
SPEAKER_03: Second, offspring, verse two, and I will make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_03: Now that is hugely significant, and actually that's what what the rest of the narrative is going to focus in on.
SPEAKER_03: And if you have a Bible open or you're able to scroll just back up, when we read about Abram's family back in 1130, the writer has already given us a little clue as to where the narrative is going.
SPEAKER_03: Look at verse 29 of chapter 11, if you can.
SPEAKER_03: Scroll up or uh or grab a Bible.
SPEAKER_03: And Abram and Nahor had took wives.
SPEAKER_03: The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milka, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milka and Ishka.
SPEAKER_03: Verse 30.
SPEAKER_03: Now Sarai was barren and had no child.
SPEAKER_03: Sarai can't have children.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, God's coming in verse 2 and says, You know what, Abram?
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_03: You're gonna be the father of a multitude.
SPEAKER_03: That's what Abraham means.
SPEAKER_03: The third promise is that God will make his name great.
SPEAKER_03: I'll make you a great nation, I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_03: If we had uh started Genesis 1 in this series, we have done it before, uh, but if we were running straight on from chapter 11 and you still had the Tower of Babel kind of ringing in your ears slightly, one of the things that you might remember from the Tower of Babel narrative is what motivates the Babel builders to uh to build the tower in the first place.
SPEAKER_03: They all come together uh and they say, Come, let us make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_03: Come let us make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_03: Let's make our own name great by our own efforts in building this tower to the heavens.
SPEAKER_03: God comes in Genesis 12 and says to Abram and says, No, no, no.
SPEAKER_03: Human beings don't make their own name great.
SPEAKER_03: I did it.
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna make your name great, Abram.
SPEAKER_03: You're gonna be world renowned.
SPEAKER_03: And so he is.
SPEAKER_03: And the fourth promise is that he would be blessed to be a blessing to the nations.
SPEAKER_03: That the scope of these promises is not merely individual, but global.
SPEAKER_03: That incidentally is a movement that happens all the time in the biblical narrative.
SPEAKER_03: God starts with the individual and the particular, and then he moves to the many.
SPEAKER_03: So I'm starting with you, Abram, but I've got the world in view.
SPEAKER_03: Four promises.
SPEAKER_03: New land, offspring, great name, blessing.
SPEAKER_03: And notice who is at work here.
SPEAKER_03: Five times in these promises, you get God saying, I will, I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, I will bless those who bless you, I will curse, I will, I will, I will.
SPEAKER_03: God is pledging himself, because he is the God of grace, to be at this work regardless of Abram's merit.
SPEAKER_03: And we will see even next week that if it was dependent on Abram actually achieving some moral uprightness, that all of these promises would lie cold on the floor.
SPEAKER_03: But God pledges himself to work because he is the God of grace.
SPEAKER_03: Notice also that God's blessing to the nations, that final promise, God's blessing to the nations, does not flow unless Abram leaves.
SPEAKER_03: He's gotta go.
SPEAKER_03: If the nations are to be blessed.
SPEAKER_03: Perhaps it is worth considering that if you are feeling comfortable or fearful about hearing the command and call of God in your life to consider what blessings could be given if you stabbed out.
SPEAKER_03: What blessings to others.
SPEAKER_03: What are you denying others by your comfort?
SPEAKER_03: The nations don't get blessed unless Abram leaves.
SPEAKER_03: Each of these promises form the backbone of the entire Old Testament.
SPEAKER_03: And really the rest of the book of Genesis is focusing in on that offspring one.
SPEAKER_03: Where are the children of promise, the ones through whom God will work to bless the nations?
SPEAKER_03: The book of Exodus is the uh is what focuses primarily on the land uh portion of the promises.
SPEAKER_03: But all of them find their ultimate fulfillment and consummation in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: It is he who brings us into the land of rest by making peace with God because of his death on the cross.
SPEAKER_03: The land that we look to, the land of rest, the land of peace and the land of shalom, is not a physical part or portion of real estate somewhere in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_03: No, it is to that heavenly shore, to that new creation existence, in part realized now in the church.
SPEAKER_03: That is what is ultimately fulfilled by this land, this place of blessing and of rest, to have our sins forgiven, and to reside no longer under the dominion of idolatry and sin, but under the dominion of the risen Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: It is He who is Abram's seed who draws people from every tribe and tongue into one glorious nation, blessing them with his grace, blessing them with the forgiveness of sins, blessing them with adoption into God's great family.
SPEAKER_03: So who calls you into the unknown?
SPEAKER_03: The God of grace calls you into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03: He calls you no matter how far off you feel him to be.
SPEAKER_03: Who calls you into the unknown, the God who has all authority to call you from what is safe and secure, and to bring you onto the adventure of your life?
SPEAKER_03: Who calls you into the unknown, the God who promises to bless.
SPEAKER_03: Who promises to be with you even unto the end of the age?
SPEAKER_03: Where is he calling you?
SPEAKER_03: What is he calling you to walk from?
SPEAKER_03: And what promises is he inviting you to cling to as you go?
SPEAKER_03: Obey God's call.
SPEAKER_03: Come and trust his promises.
SPEAKER_03: That is our second point.
SPEAKER_03: Trust God's promise.
SPEAKER_03: This is how Abram responds.
SPEAKER_03: And actually the narrative flips very quickly.
SPEAKER_03: From verse 3 into verse 4.
SPEAKER_03: Verse 4, so Abram went.
SPEAKER_03: Just as the Lord had told him.
SPEAKER_03: And Lot went with him.
SPEAKER_03: Now we'll come back to Lot in chapter 13.
SPEAKER_03: But he goes, he heeds the call of God, and he steps out in faith.
SPEAKER_03: How do we know it's faith?
SPEAKER_03: Because he's going just as the Lord had told him.
SPEAKER_03: That's what faith is.
SPEAKER_03: Faith is taking God at his word.
SPEAKER_03: It's not about believing in things that have no evidence, it's about trusting the promise, keeping, speaking God.
SPEAKER_03: And Abram steps out.
SPEAKER_03: He goes in spite of all the ties keeping him home.
SPEAKER_03: He goes in spite of his age.
SPEAKER_03: What do we read from verse 4?
SPEAKER_03: He was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.
SPEAKER_03: If that's not old age, it's certainly late middle age in the Bible's lifetime chronologies.
SPEAKER_03: He's not quite the spring chicken that he once was.
SPEAKER_03: And yet he goes just as the Lord commanded him.
SPEAKER_03: There's an elegant simplicity to verse 4 that I think teaches us a lot.
SPEAKER_03: Abram takes God at his word.
SPEAKER_03: His faith is beautiful and it's challenging.
SPEAKER_03: Why is Abram's faith challenging?
SPEAKER_03: He didn't have a Bible.
SPEAKER_03: He had no temple, no place of worship, no prophet, he had no songs to sing or prayers to pray.
SPEAKER_03: He didn't get to gather with us on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_03: No, he had God commanding and promising.
SPEAKER_03: And he trusted.
SPEAKER_03: There's a beautiful simplicity, a challenging simplicity, to Abram's obedience, to his faith.
SPEAKER_03: Not only does Abram obey by going in verse four, but as he goes, he worships.
SPEAKER_03: The rest of the passage recounts his his journey.
SPEAKER_03: We'll skip just a little bit through it quite quickly.
SPEAKER_03: But he is he's descending south if you can imagine.
SPEAKER_03: So he's uh if Iraq is here, he's coming up over uh the uh the Jordan River, Sea of Galilee, he's coming up over that crescent, up here to where kind of Turkey comes into uh to Syria and Jordan, and he's beginning to journey down into what is modern-day Jordan and Israel.
SPEAKER_03: So he's coming down, down, down, and he comes to a place called Shechem.
SPEAKER_03: And in Shechem, there's a place there's a place called the the Oak or Oaks of More.
SPEAKER_03: More means the oak of teaching or the oak of wisdom.
SPEAKER_03: And that might have been a place where uh were kind of tribal elders, pagan tribal elders might have come together to give judgment.
SPEAKER_03: But I think more likely is that the oaks of Moray were a place of pagan worship and of divination.
SPEAKER_03: But like the oracle at Delphi, if you know your uh your Greek mythology, it's okay if you don't.
SPEAKER_03: It's fine.
SPEAKER_03: But a place of seeking the pagan gods and asking them to give messages, and it's there, it is right in their faces, it is public.
SPEAKER_03: It is there that Yahweh speaks and confirms, I'm gonna give you this land.
SPEAKER_03: And Abram responds with shameless public worship.
SPEAKER_03: Notice that we're told that Abram built an altar, and that's significant.
SPEAKER_03: Why?
SPEAKER_03: Because it's not though Abram goes, guys, could I get a turn on your altar before I head off?
SPEAKER_03: Could I use your one?
SPEAKER_03: Could I just blend my religious convictions and systems with yours?
SPEAKER_03: Could I do a little retrofit, a little upgrade, a little glow-up to your gods?
SPEAKER_03: No, no, he builds an altar.
SPEAKER_03: He refuses to enjoin the worship of the Lord, the worship of Yahweh, with the worship of idols.
SPEAKER_03: He builds something brand new and he does it right in their faces, and he calls upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Presumably, he offers a sacrifice as well.
SPEAKER_03: He then moves further south to uh to Bethel, and he builds an altar there and unashamedly testifies to Yahweh's promises there.
SPEAKER_03: That is, he calls upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: And then finally, in verse 9, we read that he moves even further south, now towards the land of Egypt in a place called the Negev, which is that kind of Sinai peninsular area, if you can picture it.
SPEAKER_03: On the face of it, the story seems doomed to failure.
SPEAKER_03: God has called a moon-worshipping pagan whose wife cannot have children, and told him that he's going to be a great nation.
SPEAKER_03: And as he travels, the writer is at pains to point out that the Canaanites are still in the land.
SPEAKER_03: The land's not empty.
SPEAKER_03: Though those other people there are going, oh what?
SPEAKER_03: This is no, no, sorry, this we live here.
SPEAKER_03: Are they just going to roll over?
SPEAKER_03: How will God bring that about?
SPEAKER_03: And yet, in the face of these apparent impossibilities, Abram trusts the promises of God.
SPEAKER_03: He goes and he lives a nomadic life.
SPEAKER_03: He lives by tent and he lives by altar.
SPEAKER_03: He is a pilgrim worshipping along the way.
SPEAKER_03: And so are we.
SPEAKER_03: Similarly, we must see ourselves as people of tent and altar.
SPEAKER_03: This land is not our home.
SPEAKER_03: This present reality is not our place of comfort or security.
SPEAKER_03: We are pilgrim people, people of tent and altar, journeying towards that promised land, worshiping on the way.
SPEAKER_03: We are people of tent and altar, calling on the name of the Lord wherever he has placed us, to whomever he has placed around us, without shame, without blending or compromising, but taking God at his word.
SPEAKER_03: We are people of tent and altar, trusting Jesus, the descendant of Abram, Abram's seed, in whom the blessings to the nations would be given by the forgiveness of sin and the offering of new life.
SPEAKER_03: It is he who tells us now to go, to go to the nations, trusting in his promise.
SPEAKER_03: His promise that he would be with us always, even unto the end of the age.
SPEAKER_03: Brothers and sisters, you are made for the adventure of your life.
SPEAKER_03: Would you not heed that call?
SPEAKER_03: You are called to that adventure by the risen Lord Jesus who calls you to place your trust in him.
SPEAKER_03: Having done so, he calls you into that adventure, that all of your decisions might be shaped by his priorities, though they seem so counterintuitive, where friends and family think that you are cracked.
SPEAKER_03: But you know at some deep part of you that you are trusting the call of God.
SPEAKER_03: You're made for adventure.
SPEAKER_03: We are a pilgrim people, people of tent and altar.
SPEAKER_03: Step out into the unknown, trust his promises.
SPEAKER_03: Be a blessing.