SPEAKER_00: Welcome to City.
SPEAKER_00: My name's Mark.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the leaders here at the church.
SPEAKER_00: Very welcome to you if you're new or visiting, not as tall as him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's put that down slightly.
SPEAKER_00: We're concluding our series in the book of Genesis for now and moving into our Advent series next week, where we'll just be we'll we'll move from doing like a chapter a week to doing one chapter over three weeks.
SPEAKER_00: So again, much more focused study uh from next week.
SPEAKER_00: But why don't I pray and ask for uh for God's help?
SPEAKER_00: Uh Father, I pray that uh that as you um spoke, so now you would speak by the power of your Holy Spirit through your word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh may we be changed by it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh may our affections be stirred again for the Lord Jesus, the culmination of these promises.
SPEAKER_00: We ask it in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that one in five people in Ireland uh struggle with some form of anxiety disorder?
SPEAKER_00: For some of you here, you're like, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00: I'm surprised it's not higher, and you know, uh a low-level perhaps social anxiety, just a fear of new situations, meeting new people, that that first new conversation that can be that can be pretty pretty terrifying.
SPEAKER_00: I uh I I think it's really understandable.
SPEAKER_00: What's harder actually to understand is why people aren't more anxious all of the time, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's so much unknown.
SPEAKER_00: Uh everything there's so much uh that we move into any given day of the week.
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't we actually more anxious?
SPEAKER_00: We understand how fragile we are.
SPEAKER_00: The unknown is scary.
SPEAKER_00: The unknown person, the unknown place, the unknown experience.
SPEAKER_00: I find it reassuring that God, the God of the Bible, understands that about us.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that we're going to see as we go through.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we looked at the Tower of Babel, right?
SPEAKER_00: Guys get together, say, let's all stay together, let's build a big tower.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason for doing so that they state in 11 verse 5 is lest we be scattered over the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: So that we'll not be scattered, let's all stay together, right?
SPEAKER_00: Together is safe, and it's secure, it's unknown out there, it's scary out there.
SPEAKER_00: Let's all stay together.
SPEAKER_00: Am I the only one that understands where the Babel builders are coming from?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Saying, let's stay together where it is known, where it is secure, where it is safe and comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem with being governed by that sort of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem with being governed by that kind of low-level social anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: It actually begins to it actually begins to paralyze you.
SPEAKER_00: In Greek mythology, uh you have the character of the Medusa, right?
SPEAKER_00: The Medusa is the uh the the she's a gorgon, she's got snakes for hair, and one of the things that you do when you look into the Medusa, uh, if you just look into her eyes, what happens to you when you turn to stone?
SPEAKER_00: You petrify.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the word petrify means.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of you're stone-like.
SPEAKER_00: Looking into the eyes of the unknown and being dominated by our anxiety begins to kind of petrify us.
SPEAKER_00: We turn to stone so that we're unable to actually do anything, make any sort of decision, to enter into any new environment, any new relationship, any new conversation, and it gets worse and worse and worse.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of becomes like a downward spiral, this self-fulfilling prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: And it's made worse by the fact that you know deep down that you should do something, that you should move into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: There's part of you perhaps that even wants to.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do with that?
SPEAKER_00: The opening verses of Genesis 12, while they conclude our study in the book, they form a major turning point in the history of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: It's a major, major section of the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 12.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 12 is God starting again and unfolding his promise of redemption, that he would make a people for himself.
SPEAKER_00: And he's starting with this guy called Abram or Abraham, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's how you may know him.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll probably fall in, I'll probably use both names.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know whether I say yogurt or yogurt, I think I say uh both, depending.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I only say scon.
SPEAKER_00: I don't say scone, that's weird.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll probably fall into both Abram and Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: God begins with this one man, Abram, and through him he is going to bless the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: But how does that blessing of the whole earth begin?
SPEAKER_00: Like we're starting really, really small.
SPEAKER_00: How does it begin?
SPEAKER_00: It begins with the call into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: The call to go into the unknown, and that's point one.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with the call of God into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: After the Tower of Babel, the rest of uh chapter 11 that we're not looking at, that we've kind of just skipped over, is a it's another genealogy, and it's getting us from uh from Shem, the son of Noah, through to Abraham's daddy, Terah, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's moving the narrative on uh and showing us the continuity with God's working in the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Abram and his kin, his daddy, Terah, they were, historically speaking, they were nomadic people, right?
SPEAKER_00: They're like bedouins that you get kind of in North Africa, and so they're they're moving from uh where there's water and good pasture lands through to another place when that dries up, where there's water and where there's pasture lands.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're doing at the end of Genesis chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Terra, his daddy, is down here in Ur of the Chaldeans, which is just north of Baghdad, so we're down in Iraq, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And there's good pasture lands, that all dries up, and so he takes his family and he moves in that nomadic way that nomads do up to Haran, which is in modern-day Turkey.
SPEAKER_00: So he's kind of doing that sweep from the from the uh the Persian Gulf all the way up to uh Turkey, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of geography that we're in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were a nomad, if the Gowin was good and there was lots of water, good green pasture lands, you didn't leave unless you had to, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so the Gowin's good for Terah, so he settles there and he dies there because obviously there's good water, good pasture lands, and so that's where he settles.
SPEAKER_00: But now, now with his son Abram, God speaks.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just kind of a consequence of natural phenomena.
SPEAKER_00: God speaks and changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed how he tends to do that, right?
SPEAKER_00: When he speaks, things change.
SPEAKER_00: God spoke, and the creation came into his existence.
SPEAKER_00: God spoke, the world comes into being.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 12, God's gonna speak, he's gonna change Abram's world.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Go.
SPEAKER_00: Go from your country, from your kindred, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: This is the call into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: It's the call to adventure.
SPEAKER_00: Uh in uh in mythology, in literature, in movies, there is a uh there's a there's a type of story called the hero's journey, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the hero's journey is very famous.
SPEAKER_00: You will recognize this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you some examples of the hero's journey, first of all, because at City Church we have to reference Tolkien.
SPEAKER_00: So the Hobbit, right?
SPEAKER_00: The Hobbit is a hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: What happens in the Hobbit?
SPEAKER_00: Bilbo Baggins receives the call to adventure.
SPEAKER_00: What is the call to adventure or the call into the unknown?
SPEAKER_00: It comes from Gandalf the wizard to join the company of Thorn Oak and Shield and the rest of the lads to head off to uh to the lonely mountain to reclaim, to slay the dragon, to reclaim the lonely mountain and the and the Ark and Stone.
SPEAKER_00: That's a hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: Get up from where you're comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get much more comfortable than a hobbit, right?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't like that everybody's coming in and eating his food.
SPEAKER_00: Go from where you're comfortable, go on this quest, slay the dragon, take the Ark and Stone, this eternal kingship thing, and then return victorious.
SPEAKER_00: That's the hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: Or uh Harry Potter.
SPEAKER_00: Harry Potter receives a call into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: It's another hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: What's his call into the unknown?
SPEAKER_00: It's when the letters start flying down the chimney of four privet drive to say that he's been enrolled as uh a student in Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.
SPEAKER_00: That's the call to adventure, the call into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he what does he do in the Philosopher's Stone?
SPEAKER_00: He has to confront the basilisk.
SPEAKER_00: He has to, uh, or it's not a basilisk, it's a um, anyway, I haven't written it down.
SPEAKER_00: He has to confront the, is he confront the the big three-headed doggy thing, fluffy, yeah, uh, and get the philosopher's stone, and then returns back to Hogwarts the next year, victorious, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so it unfolds over his time at school.
SPEAKER_00: Peter Parker.
SPEAKER_00: Who's Peter Parker?
SPEAKER_00: Spider-Man.
SPEAKER_00: Spider-Man does whatever a spider can, right?
SPEAKER_00: Spins a web any size, catches good baddies, just like flies, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's a call to the unknown, it's a hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: What's his call into the unknown?
SPEAKER_00: He is bitten by the radioactive spider that opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
SPEAKER_00: And with great power become comes great responsibility, says Uncle Ted.
SPEAKER_00: Uncle Ted?
SPEAKER_00: Uncle Tom?
SPEAKER_00: Uncle anyway, it's Uncle.
SPEAKER_00: Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Anderson Neo receives a cryptic message from the Matrix and is introduced to the enigmatic figure of Morpheus, who invites him to take the blue pill to the red pill and to journey into the unknown to tumble down the rabbit worn with him.
SPEAKER_00: Final one.
SPEAKER_00: R2 D2.
SPEAKER_00: Star Wars.
SPEAKER_00: Star Wars is a hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: Look, Skywalker is there uh uh uh farming moisture on Tatooine, and R2 D2 arrives and shows him what shows him the message of Leah, crying out to Obi-Wan, come and help us.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the call into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: That's the start of the hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: One final one, I'll not give you any any spoilers.
SPEAKER_00: Frozen two.
SPEAKER_00: Haven't seen the movie, loving the soundtrack, uh, but that says that says more about me than it does about you.
SPEAKER_00: Um the the the the new let it go song is literally called Into the Unknown.
SPEAKER_00: It's a hero's journey.
SPEAKER_00: No, why have I just spent far too long talking about those sorts of things?
SPEAKER_00: Because the call into the unknown, it speaks to us.
SPEAKER_00: Why do why do people write books with this same idea, make movies with these same sorts of ideas because they resonate deeply with us as human beings?
SPEAKER_00: It's no accident that we keep on repackaging these same sorts of ideas because we're made for that call into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're made for.
SPEAKER_00: God says to Adam, what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1.28, God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first ever call to the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: Now he comes to Abram and he says, Go.
SPEAKER_00: God calls Abram to go, to move out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: And you need that.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that happens when you when you don't begin to move out into the unknown, when you stay in what is known and what is safe and what is secure, one of the things that happens to your life is it begins to calcify, it begins to solidify.
SPEAKER_00: You need just a little bit of unknown in your life in order to grow and develop as a person.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We'll expand that idea in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: God calls Abram to go, and in calling him to go, he asks him to leave certain things behind.
SPEAKER_00: Did you note it there in verse 1?
SPEAKER_00: Go from your country.
SPEAKER_00: So leave behind what is most familiar to you, what you understand the most.
SPEAKER_00: Leave it behind, Abram.
SPEAKER_00: Leave behind your kindred, those who you are closest to, and leave behind your father's house.
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, in leaving behind your father's house.
SPEAKER_00: Uh God has come to Abraham and saying, Grow up, Abram, you need to grow up.
SPEAKER_00: We read verse 4 that Abram was 75 years old when he finally left his father's house, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um one of the best things that young men can do is move out.
SPEAKER_00: And move out into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing for you.
SPEAKER_00: Wrapped up in country and kin and family is also in this ancient context the idea of worship.
SPEAKER_00: God is saying, leave your old gods behind.
SPEAKER_00: Abram's down here worshiping the gods of Ur and of Haran, uh, particularly the moon god, if you're interested in that, they worship the moon, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so he's there worshiping the moon as a god, and the God of the Bible, Yahweh, the one who is, comes and says, Turn from that, worship me now.
SPEAKER_00: That's a call that comes to us all, is it not?
SPEAKER_00: Turn from those things that you find most security giving.
SPEAKER_00: Turn from those things that you find most comfort giving and worship me alone.
SPEAKER_00: Turn from your old gods of success and family and comfort and security, and go and follow me to the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is completely reframing of what it means to follow God.
SPEAKER_00: When God encounters people in the Bible, there is always a call to go.
SPEAKER_00: Adam received it, Noah received it with the reiteration of fill the earth to subdue and subdue it, and now Abram is called to go.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Going is always costly.
SPEAKER_00: Following God where He will lead is always costly.
SPEAKER_00: Have you discovered?
SPEAKER_00: If you are someone who is trusting in the Lord Jesus, have you discovered that since you've done that, your life has actually gotten harder, but not easier?
SPEAKER_00: That's normal.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are exploring whether or not you want to become a Christian, don't think I'll become a Christian and everything will be easier.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a tip.
SPEAKER_00: The first 60 or so years are the hardest.
SPEAKER_00: It gets easier after that, significantly so, right?
SPEAKER_00: Following God's call to go is always costly.
SPEAKER_00: It requires always being prepared to hold lightly to the things that we prize, to leave behind the comfort and security that we find so appealing.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps you're here and you're thinking, why would anyone want to do that?
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't sound particularly appealing.
SPEAKER_00: Why would anyone want to leave behind the things that keep them safe?
SPEAKER_00: Well.
SPEAKER_00: Ben pointed to the fact that the Babel builders are wanting to stay safe and secure, right?
SPEAKER_00: And God assesses that situation and he says that nothing now will be impossible for them.
SPEAKER_00: The idea behind God's statement there is that they will begin to destroy themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Staying together, clumping together, staying safe, isn't necessarily self-preservation, self-preserving.
SPEAKER_00: It can be destructive as well.
SPEAKER_00: It can be self-consuming.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how it's self-consuming?
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the things that not taking a step into the unknown does, after you kind of calcify and petrify and become unable to move, one of the things that it does is it makes you resentful of people who are doing it.
SPEAKER_00: And when you become resentful of people who are moving out into the unknown, stepping out in faith.
SPEAKER_00: When you become resentful of those people, you're right back where Cain was.
SPEAKER_00: It's murderous.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is good for you to move into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: However falteringly, however smallly.
SPEAKER_00: Not saying up sticks and uh and head off to the farthest flung uh part of the earth that you can possibly conceive of.
SPEAKER_00: It's what's the next unknown thing that you should do?
SPEAKER_00: And do that.
SPEAKER_00: And find that you get a little bit more courage, and you do a little bit more, and you find that you get a little more courage and a little bit more faith and dependence, and that's how you grow spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: You grow spiritually by continually moving into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that Ben pointed out is that while the call to go is scary, it is also filled with blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Filling the earth and subduing it was to go and to enjoy all of God's riches in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And this is my second point.
SPEAKER_00: God calls Abram to go, but secondly, he also is the God who promises to bless.
SPEAKER_00: First, the God who calls into the unknown, second, the God who promises to bless.
SPEAKER_00: Notice, notice here there is a contrast between verses one and two.
SPEAKER_00: Verse one, Abram has given one command: go.
SPEAKER_00: And then God makes five promises.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_00: And I, well, so at the end of verse one, to the land that I will show you, I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, uh, so that you will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse.
SPEAKER_00: And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Five I will statements.
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you where to go, I'll make you a great nation, I'll bless you and make your name great, I'll bless those who bless you, I'll curse those who curse you.
SPEAKER_00: God is saying, Abram, go and I've got your back.
SPEAKER_00: Go and I've got your back.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that is different to God saying everything will be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Everything in the Christian life is very often not fine.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that Abram confronts when he leaves his country and his family and everything that he holds dear, the first thing that he encounters is a famine.
SPEAKER_00: He moves from a place where it was good to be there because there was water and there was good pasture lands.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that he experiences is that he's hungry.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that he experiences is a tyranny.
SPEAKER_00: Goes down into Egypt where Pharaoh, where he's so scared of Pharaoh that he says to Sarai, his wife, pretend that you're my sister and go with Pharaoh, you know, being euphemistic with the go with, so that they don't kill me.
SPEAKER_00: God's promise is not of, is not for ease or for lack of suffering, but rather it is the promise of his presence and his sustaining each step of the way.
SPEAKER_00: There are scary things in the world.
SPEAKER_00: There are hard and painful things in your experience.
SPEAKER_00: And God does not say, stay at home, get on a big hoodie, the crowns on Netflix, stay put.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: Nor does he say, don't be scared.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's stuff to be scared of in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The world is scary and it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: And moving into the unknown is always scary.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, what God comes to you and He says, move into the unknown anyway.
SPEAKER_00: And know that I am with you every step of the way.
SPEAKER_00: My presence isn't leaving you.
SPEAKER_00: My commitment to you is unwavering.
SPEAKER_00: My fervency, the fervency with which I feel the desire to bless you won't diminish.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where you get your confidence from.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the confidence to move into the unknown comes from.
SPEAKER_00: You don't think, ah, there's nothing scary here.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's all scary.
SPEAKER_00: Confidence comes from the promise of God, from who he is.
SPEAKER_00: Is he trustworthy?
SPEAKER_00: Is he true?
SPEAKER_00: Abram starts very fearful.
SPEAKER_00: But he trusts God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: And God's promises aren't thwarted by Abram's foolishness or by his sin.
SPEAKER_00: But as he moves forward, do you know what happens to Abram?
SPEAKER_00: He becomes braver.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes more courageous.
SPEAKER_00: A couple of chapters later, a couple of chapters later, he's leading everybody in the battle.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's getting braver and braver and braver.
SPEAKER_00: That's spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual maturity is not being less scared.
SPEAKER_00: But it's having more confidence in the promises of God and moving forward anyway.
SPEAKER_00: When we feel intimidated by the unknown, the answer is not to do nothing, nor is it to wait until we are less scared.
SPEAKER_00: The answer is to trust the promises of God and allow them to give us courage.
SPEAKER_00: In the Arthurian legends, the legends of King Arthur, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's popularized in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
SPEAKER_00: This, what I'm about to reference, isn't in that, but I commend that movie to you nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00: In the Arthurian legends, they're all in search of what?
SPEAKER_00: They're all in search of the Holy Grail.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Grail is the it that's the Arkansas, that's the philosopher's stone, that's the elixir of life, it's the Holy Grail, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's another hero's journey, do you see?
SPEAKER_00: And as they are called to go after in search of the Holy Grail, they all stand on the border of a great forest.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Arthurian legend, we are told that each knight of the round table enters into that forest at the point that is most terrifying for them.
SPEAKER_00: Not easiest, not safest.
SPEAKER_00: They enter in at the point that is most terrifying for them.
SPEAKER_00: What as you sit here terrifies you about moving forward in the world?
SPEAKER_00: What step terrifies you to take?
SPEAKER_00: And how can the promises of God give you comfort?
SPEAKER_00: Not comfort, but courage to move forward into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: What happens is that as you move forward, you begin to trust God's promises all the more.
SPEAKER_00: You find that you become more courageous, you find that you become stronger and more mature and more willing to take the next step and the next step and the next step.
SPEAKER_00: That's what maturing in your faith is like.
SPEAKER_00: It's continually pressing into the unknown, trusting the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: God makes three promises, and they map on to what he's had to leave behind.
SPEAKER_00: God calls Abram to leave a country behind, but promises that he'll give him a land, a new place, God's designated place.
SPEAKER_00: He says, leave behind your family, and I will give you offspring.
SPEAKER_00: I will make you the father of many nations.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Leave behind your father's house, that place of security and of peace and of rest and of blessing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: You do that, Abram, and you're going to bless the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: Not just your land, not just your tribe, not just your family, the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: And those three promises, a place, people, a nation, and blessing, land, offspring, blessing, they build throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: These are major promises in your understanding of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Because those promises of people, place, blessing, they come together in the personal mark of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: All of the blessings of God that he gave to Abram, focus in on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the true offspring of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: Abram in his life, he longed for a son.
SPEAKER_00: We've already read that Sarai, his wife, couldn't have children.
SPEAKER_00: And so the rest of the unfolding chapters, they're all about where's the child, where's the son of the promise?
SPEAKER_00: And then Isaac arrives.
SPEAKER_00: But the New Testament shows us another angle, another facet of that where Paul says, No, that Jesus is the true offspring of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: He is the true offspring of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one in whom all of the nations of the world will be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: And curiously, Jesus is also the place of God.
SPEAKER_00: How can a person be a place?
SPEAKER_00: You see, the place of God was the place of peace, the place of rest, the place of security, the place of life, the place where God's presence particularly dwelt.
SPEAKER_00: And that's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the place of rest.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, all who you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't go to a geographical land anymore, nor do we go to a temple.
SPEAKER_00: We go to a person.
SPEAKER_00: All of these promises laid down thousands of years before Christ culminate in him, the true offspring of Abram, the true perfect people of God, the one who will bless the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what's remarkable about it?
SPEAKER_00: Abram saw none of it.
SPEAKER_00: And he trusted it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how much land at the end of Abram's life he owned in the promised land?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how much land he owned?
SPEAKER_00: He owned the grave of his wife, and that was it.
SPEAKER_00: He bought a piece of land to bury his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 23.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the only piece of God's promise in terms of land that he saw.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't see a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: He looked into the eyes of his son.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't see the culmination of those promises, and yet he trusted them anyway.
SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: You do that by placing your faith in the one who makes the promises.
SPEAKER_00: And that's my third and final point.
SPEAKER_00: There's the call of God to go, to go into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: There's the promise to bless, and there's the response of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 says, So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot with him.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.
SPEAKER_00: Abram heard the call of God and he trusted the promises of God, and so he left.
SPEAKER_00: He trusted that God would be good for his word, that God would keep his word.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that God is trustworthy?
SPEAKER_00: That his words are true.
SPEAKER_00: Abram had faith that God would bring to pass what he promised.
SPEAKER_00: And how did Abram express that faith?
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't read in the text, Abram had faith.
SPEAKER_00: We'll read that later in Genesis 15.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham believed God, but we don't see that here.
SPEAKER_00: There's no faith doesn't appear in the narrative.
SPEAKER_00: What's the evidence that Abram is trusting God?
SPEAKER_00: It's that he went.
SPEAKER_00: It's his obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is the marker of true faith.
SPEAKER_00: It is how faith expresses itself.
SPEAKER_00: If you say you love Jesus but you don't want to follow any of his commands, the question must come: do you really love him?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really trust that he is good?
SPEAKER_00: Our faith is expressed in our obedience to God.
SPEAKER_00: How do we move into the unknown?
SPEAKER_00: How do we have courage to confront whatever God would lead us into?
SPEAKER_00: We trust his promises.
SPEAKER_00: And we stand in a better position than Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham was straining with the eyes of faith to see what God would finally do, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what the writer of the Hebrew says.
SPEAKER_00: He said that he was looking to a better city whose architect is God.
SPEAKER_00: He was straining to see it.
SPEAKER_00: But we, as Duncan Pray, we look back.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen the fruition, the culmination of the promises in the face of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who is Abraham's true offspring.
SPEAKER_00: He is the true place of God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who blesses the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He is the light who by his crucifixion dispelled the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He is the life who through his resurrection defeated death.
SPEAKER_00: He's the new Adam who's building a new humanity.
SPEAKER_00: He is the God who calls us, who calls us to go, and yet who says, Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: Did Abram ever waver?
SPEAKER_00: Did he ever doubt?
SPEAKER_00: Did he ever question?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he did.
SPEAKER_00: Even with the call to go and the promises of God to guide us.
SPEAKER_00: Our courage often still fails and our faith still wavers.
SPEAKER_00: Is it okay to be here this morning and have questions?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Is it okay to be here this morning and still have doubts?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to move you through from a place of doubt to a place of certainty and of trust in who He is.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might think, well, I'll not give my, I don't, I'll not take, I'll not take this, I'll not take the plunge because I don't have all my questions answered.
SPEAKER_00: We want to talk about your questions.
SPEAKER_00: Your questions are legitimate, right?
SPEAKER_00: Can I caution you though?
SPEAKER_00: You'll you'll probably not have all of your questions answered.
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, becoming a Christian is never really like that.
SPEAKER_00: Very few people go, okay, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
SPEAKER_00: Where do I sign?
SPEAKER_00: Christianity doesn't work like that.
SPEAKER_00: Because becoming a Christian isn't actually an intellectual exercise.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about having all your questions answered.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a moral exercise.
SPEAKER_00: It's a matter of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's a matter that says, Will I trust the promises of God?
SPEAKER_00: Will I trust what he says?
SPEAKER_00: Or will I continue to trust myself?
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: God persists with Abram, and He persists with us.
SPEAKER_00: His promises aren't thwarted by Abram's foolishness, nor are they thwarted by ours.
SPEAKER_00: And nor is his goodness diminished by the circumstances that we find ourselves in.
SPEAKER_00: Abram faced a great deal of suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And he never once doubted the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever found yourself in a season of difficulty, of trial, of doubt, or of suffering, and you've wondered, is God good?
SPEAKER_00: If he's good, why will he have done this?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the moon is always rind.
SPEAKER_00: The moon is always rind.
SPEAKER_00: You might only see part of it.
SPEAKER_00: You might some nights not see it at all.
SPEAKER_00: But it is always rind.
SPEAKER_00: God is always good.
SPEAKER_00: You might only see it in part.
SPEAKER_00: And some seasons you might not see it at all.
SPEAKER_00: But just as the moon is always rhined, God is always good.
SPEAKER_00: What the story of Abram points us towards is that Abram ultimately isn't the hero that we're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, back to Star Wars, these aren't the heroes that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00: Three people getting that reference, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Abram isn't the hero.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the hero of the Bible story, and neither are we.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the hero of our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: To think that you are is to not put your trust in God, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're not the hero.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the hero?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the hero.
SPEAKER_00: He is the he is the uh the one to whom all the hero stories point.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who voluntarily heeded the call of God to leave his heavenly throne and to step down into the darkness of this earth.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who willingly confronted sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: He entered the abyss of the grave to slay the dragons of sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who emerges victorious on the third day and who ascends as king to an eternal throne and who calls us in turn to go with the transforming power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He's the victorious hero who encourages us, more than encourages us, equips us to press on into the unknown for his glory and our good until when?
SPEAKER_00: Until we see him face to face.
SPEAKER_00: He is with us in this room by the power of his Holy Spirit to teach and to guide, to love and to console.
SPEAKER_00: He is with every broken heart, with every anxious mind in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
SPEAKER_00: Cling to me, no matter how feeble your fingers cling to the ledge of his great grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what does it look like for you to heed the call of God this morning, this afternoon, I should say?
SPEAKER_00: What does moving into the unknown look like for you?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps for some of you, it is actually taking that step of faith and saying, I am going to trust God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put my trust in Jesus, the culmination of all these promises.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the hero of my own life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have all my questions answered.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have all my doubts gone.
SPEAKER_00: It's a scary thing for me to do, but I'm taking that first step.
SPEAKER_00: And God will be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Not only will God be with you, but you will find that you have a family of journeymen, a fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the thing that you need to do is to begin to relinquish those things that keep you from maturing in your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Those false gods that are beguiling you.
SPEAKER_00: Those things that are keeping you comfortable but captive.
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing about comfort, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's actually stifling.
SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that's the that's the that's the old woman in the gingerbread house, Hansel and Gretel, right?
SPEAKER_00: Gingerbread house.
SPEAKER_00: Lots to eat, sweets, good times, but the witch is gonna eat you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing about staying in the same place in comfort and security.
SPEAKER_00: It's not comfort, it's captivity.
SPEAKER_00: You need to move from the known into the unknown.
SPEAKER_00: And surely for all of us who trust in Jesus, there is a there has to be a call to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: All the way through our studies in Genesis, God has had the nations in view.
SPEAKER_00: He loves the peoples of the world, he loves the different races, the different ethnicities, languages, skin colors.
SPEAKER_00: He loves them all, and he calls us to go.
SPEAKER_00: To go with the transforming news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That all the earth might be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthen our faith, O Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That we might heed and obey that call to go, to press on in maturity and faith until that day when we see you face to face.
SPEAKER_00: Give us grace for today, for the challenges that we face, and may we be strengthened in our trust of you.
SPEAKER_00: We ask it in the name of our great hero, the Lord Jesus.
unknown: Amen.