What in the World is God doing?
He Chooses a Person to Bless People
Gen. 11: 27-12:9
INTRODUCTION
Columbine High School; Oklahoma City, Waco, TX; AIDS; Adolph Hitler;
Ted Kazynski; Bosnia; Joseph Stalin; Rwanda; Pol Pot; Kosovo, Hurricane
Mitch, Chechnya, Rodney King; Jeffrey Dahmer.
The litany of human woe and misery is almost endless. To anyone paying
just a little attention it is obvious our world is screwed up. We don’t
even need to look at the headlines. We just need to look at our own lives
and families. Anger, emotional pain, depression, bickering, lying, abuse
and a host of other vices and suffering regularly raise their ugly heads
in even the best of homes. When we look at the world, it appears to be
more like a wasteland than a well-tended garden. Our lives seem more like
directionless occurrences of events and relationships than well-planned
journeys.
This reality raises two questions: What’s going on? More importantly,
what’s God doing about it?
The first 11 chapters of Genesis answer the first question rather bluntly.
Chapters 1 & 2 detail the perfect world that God created for humanity
to live in and use and take care of. Chapters 3 – 11 trace the descent
into evil which humanity dragged all of creation. In these chapters God
acts in cataclysmic ways to restrain the evil that humans perpetrate:
casting Adam & Eve out of the garden of Eden, banishing Cain, sending
the flood, confusing human language and scattering humanity over the face
of the globe. When you finish reading the story of the tower of Babel
in Genesis 11 you ought to feel the hopelessness of the situation we live
in. The only thing humans seem capable of doing is rebelling against God
and destroying the world he made.
Now when the careful reader comes to the genealogy in 11: 10-26, she
will be impressed with how similar it is to the genealogy of chapter 5.
Turn back to chapter 5 and you will see a list of 10 names, ending in
Noah. Immediately following the list in chapter 5 God acts in astounding
judgment (the flood) and salvation, preserving the life of Noah and his
family in the ark. Turn back to 11:10, here we are given a list of 12
names, the 10th one being Abram. The form used is part of the
message. God is going to intervene again in human history. How will he
do it?
Genesis 1-11 tells us that things are not the way they are supposed to
be. But, God has a plan to do something about it. He unfolds his plan
in the passage we are studying this morning.
His plan is not what one would expect, especially after reading Gen 1-11
and seeing his cataclysmic interventions. Here God acts by simply commanding
one ordinary person to leave home and go to another land and then promising
to work in and through him so that the whole world is affected. This is
one of the most important passages in the Bible. It’s the hinge upon which
the book of Genesis turns and key to understanding the message of Genesis.
It contains, in kernel form, the whole gospel of Jesus. In fact, the life
and teaching of Jesus are merely the outworking of this promise from God.
MAIN POINT
God chooses and blesses people…
I. Graciously (11:27-12:1)
The story of Abraham begins with such a plain and sparse description
of the basic facts of his family. We are tempted, in our reading of the
Bible to skip over verses like these at the end of chapter 11 as inconsequential.
Nothing could be less true. These verses are loaded with meaning. They
serve to introduce, to set the stage for what follows. They also serve
to heighten our anticipation of what God is going to do. Notice the people
and places we are introduced to:
- Terah the father of three boys, Abram, Nahor & Haran
- Haran, Terah’s youngest son dies, leaving behind a son, Lot
- Lot (Gen 13 & 14 & 19 are about him) now becomes a part of
Terah’s family and later, Abram’s family
- Terah and his boys are from "Ur of the Chaldeans", this is the country
of their birth
- Abram and Nahor marry
- Sarai, Abram’s wife we are told is barren and then oddly we are told
she has no children. Why the redundancy? Sarai’s barrenness is the central
problem of the next 9 chapters.
- Milcah, the daughter of Haran, sister of Lot and the wife of her uncle,
Nahor. She is the grandmother of Rebekah who plays a major role later
as the wife of Abram’s only son, Isaac.
- The chapter ends with Terah leaving the land of his birth along with
Abram, Lot, his grandson and Sarai, Abram’s wife. Their intended destination
is Canaan. However, when they get to the town of Haran, they settle
down. This is where Terah dies at the age of 205.
Having just read the first 11 chapters of Genesis we would expect some
great and powerful intervention from God, but what we get is a brief family
history of an apparently ordinary family. There is nothing to mark these
people out as in any way unique. We are given no reason for God’s interest
in these people. In fact, there is one piece of information that would
seemingly make this family especially unlikely to be recipient’s of God’s
special interest and favor. They are from Ur of the Chaldeans. Remember
that Moses wrote Genesis for the people of Israel when they were preparing
to enter into Canaan to take it over some 500 years after these events
occurred. What Moses’ audience would have automatically known that we
do not know is that the Chaldeans were idol worshippers of the worst sort.
Listen to Joshua 24: 2 (Remember, Joshua would have been one of those
to whom Moses wrote this story.), "Joshua said to all the people (These
were the same people Moses wrote the book of Genesis for.), ‘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. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River
and led him…"’"
Please don’t miss this. God freely and graciously, according to the pleasure
of his own will and purpose called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans.
He did not choose Abraham for any reason in Abraham. It was simply because
he graciously decided to bless him. Abraham was not seeking God. He was
worshipping false gods. God could have justly ignored Abraham and left
him in his idol worshipping ways and among his idol worshipping family
and friends. But God has a plan that involved Abraham being rescued out
of his sin and rebellion and so God saved him. Abraham and his family
were probably simple farmers, living in a very fertile part of the world,
near the Euphrates River. Their lives were taken up with the concerns
of farming and being a part of a family and a community. They were a religious
people. They worked and played and loved and sang and drank and looked
at the moon and fished in the river. They were ordinary, sinful people,
just like us. The only thing unique is that God, freely and according
to his own purposes, spoke to Abraham.
This is how God always saves people. In Ephesians 1:4 the apostle Paul
says it this way, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world
to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be
adopted as his sons, according to his pleasure and will." Then in v. 11
he says, "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according
to the plan of him who works out everything according to the council of
his will." Before God made the world, He decided to call Abraham out of
Ur of the Chaldeans and save him out of his life of idolatry. While the
details of Abram’s life seem so ordinary and random, yet there is a divine
purpose in it all, including the most painful part of Abram’s life, Sarai’s
infertility. There is no randomness here. All is working out according
to the plan of God. In this ordinary life there is glory because God is
at work.
This is the story of every person who is a Christian. I was a 21 year
old junior in college, living like every other college student. Concerned
with going to class, studying, going to parties, playing sports, trying
to win the attention of girls. I rarely thought about God and never talked
about him. I loved getting good grades and being liked by people and listening
to rock ‘n roll music and getting drunk. But suddenly, out of the blue,
I was confronted by Christians to consider the person of Jesus. I talked
and listened and thought about the command to come follow Christ and suddenly
found myself believing and seeking God and praying and reading the Bible
and going to church. My whole way of living and thinking was transformed
by God. The only explanation for this radical transformation is God graciously
saved me. He not only gave me Christ to believe in but gave me the faith
to believe in Christ. This is true for every Christian, else why do you
thank God for saving you?
The free grace of God in saving people ought to affect us in two ways.
First, it ought to humble us. There is no reason that God should look
with favor upon any of us. We are no different than Abram. He would be
entirely just and fair if he left us in our sin and rebellion and allowed
us to perish forever in hell. There is nothing in any of us that will
call God’s favor down. We are a completely and hopelessly lost and sinful
people. We love everything but God. We find our happiness and look for
our security in people and things rather than in the God who made us.
We have no natural desire to be different in any way.
Second, the free grace of God should fill us with hope and joy and gratitude
and confidence and courage. If you are confident today that you belong
to God because you have faith in and love for Christ, then delight in
God is the outcome. How can it be otherwise? When we understand that God
could have left us in our ignorance and sin and with complete justice
have allowed us to perish but instead he has come to us in the preaching
of the gospel and saves us out of the destruction we so richly deserve,
how can we not be full of joy? What better thing could you receive? What
worse fate could befall you? Everything we fear on this earth is infinitely
less terrible than an eternal hell. Everything we long for on this earth
is infinitely less pleasing than the joys of heaven. When we have escaped
such a fate and gained such a salvation, how shall we live in sadness
and misery any longer?
God chooses and blesses his people…
II. Extravagantly (12:1-3)
First we need to pay attention to how it is that God speaks to Abram.
He gives him one command and then follows it with 5 promises. The structure
of this passage in the original is hard to capture in English. The promises
are connected to the command as purpose clauses.
Leave your country, your people and your father’s house for the land
I will show you….
- So that I will make you into a great nation
- So that I will bless you
- So that I will make your name great and you will be a blessing
- So that I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse
you
- So that all peoples on earth will be blessed through you
God puts before Abram this choice: "you can stay in your comfortable
home and live among your people and live out your idol-worshipping days
or you can leave it all behind and go where I tell you to go and experience
a future that is so grand and glorious that you cannot even begin to understand
it."
Does this language sound at all familiar to you? In Luke 9 Jesus says,
"If anyone would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross
daily and follow after me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose
it but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it to
gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit your very self?" In Matthew
he tells a parable describing exactly what God is doing here for Abram.
He says that the kingdom of God is like a man who is a tenant-farmer who
is plowing the field when his plow catches on something. He stops the
oxen and gets out from behind the plow and digs into the earth and discovers
a chest full of treasure. He quickly covers up the chest, runs home and
joyfully sells everything he has so he can get enough money to buy the
field and so obtain the treasure. He cannot have the treasure without
selling everything he has but he does it with joy because the treasure
is infinitely superior to everything he has.
This is God’s command to Abram. Look at what God promises Abram if he
will leave and go where he tells him: He will receive a land for himself.
God will make him into a great nation. God will spread his fame far and
wide so that his name will become equated with living a blessed life.
God will become so aligned with Abram that Abram’s friends will be God’s
friends and his enemies will become God’s enemies. Finally, every people
group on the face of the whole planet will find God’s blessing through
Abram.
Since when does going on a trip result in all this stuff? When God says
so. Since when does a person escape the power and penalty of sin, go from
being an enemy of God to being a friend of God, inherit eternal life just
by obeying the command to believe in One who died on a cross 2000 years
ago? When God says so. This is the gospel. God promises to Abram enormous
happiness if he will follow his command. What else could Abram possibly
want? This is how God always appeals to human beings. We are so wrapped
up in pursuing our petty little plans to be happy we cannot hear the extravagance
of what God wants to give us. Does Abram leave his father and home and
head for a place yet to be disclosed reluctantly? He leaves with great
energy and anticipation for He believes the promises. He is overwhelmed
with the magnitude of what God is going to give him.
What we see in this command is true of every command of God. God does
not command us because he needs our obedience or because we somehow earn
his favor. God commands us so that he can bless us. Every act of obedience
shows that we believe God is able to care for us, that his will is what
is best and will result in the greatest happiness in our lives. Obedience
always comes from faith and faith always produces obedience.
Consider the obedience of children. Anytime any child has obeyed a parent
it is because they believe that to do so will result in greater happiness
than disobedience will. Sometimes it is because they know that mom or
dad loves them and has their best interests at heart and is wiser than
they are. Other times they know that mom or dad are just and will keep
their promise to punish and their promise to reward.
When children disobey they are declaring their unbelief in the goodness,
love and wisdom of their parents. So it is when we disobey God, when we
refuse to turn from our sin and trust in Christ to save us. We are simply
declaring that we do not believe that he is good and wise and loving.
We declare, with every act of disobedience, with every refusal to come
to Christ, that God is unable and unwilling to care for us.
There is no person here by accident. God has sovereignly brought you
here and is now speaking to you. He is commanding everyone and making
extravagant promises to everyone. There are some here who continue to
live in Ur of the Chaldeans. Your faith and hope are not fixed on Christ
and his work for you but you are vainly trusting in your own efforts to
find happiness and make it to heaven. You are determined to find life
through some other means. You rebel at the thought of abandoning all the
things that are so necessary for your happiness right now to cast yourself
upon Christ alone and his bare promise to give you life. Others of you
know there is an act of obedience that God is calling you to but you are
afraid that you will not be cared for, that your life will end if you
obey. Let me plead with all of you. God calls us to himself by commanding
our obedience. He does this so that he might bless us. Your strength is
so slight compared to his omnipotence. Your resources are so meager compared
to his abundance. Your wisdom so inadequate compared to his omniscience.
Leave your plans and dreams and fears and go follow Christ to that glorious
home with God where all his fullness becomes yours.
God chooses and blesses his people…
- Graciously
- Extravagantly
- And…
III. Obscurely (12:4-9)
Have you ever had someone invite you to go somewhere with them and they
described all the fun you would have but when you actually went, it was
totally boring and maybe even miserable? I invited a friend of mine to
go deer hunting one year with me. He had never gone and had heard me talk
about hunting with great enthusiasm. So he bought a license and borrowed
a gun and we drove about two hours to our spot. When we arrived it was
pouring rain. Remember, it was November. We met some other friends there
and pitched our tent in the rain. There wasn’t much else to do but go
to sleep. We both woke up in the middle of the night soaking wet, because
the tent leaked. By morning the temperature had dropped and all the water
on the floor of our tent had turned to ice. We got dressed in the dark
and after a cold breakfast of pop tarts and half frozen orange juice we
went into the woods to stand. We stood in the cold, frozen woods for about
4 hours. I saw several deer, he saw nothing. In fact, after two days of
standing in the cold and tromping through the woods, he never saw a deer.
I asked him on the way home how he felt about hunting. He said, "I enjoyed
spending time with you and our friends but I will never go hunting again.
It was an incredible waste of time."
If you pay attention to Abram’s experience in these verses, you wouldn’t
blame him if he had a similar reaction. At the age of 75, he leaves a
comfortable & secure life with his father, who is 145, in Haran and
sets out on a journey to a place he has not been told about. He heads
for Canaan because that’s where he and his father had originally been
headed when they stopped in Haran. God has told him that he will make
him into a great nation. You need two things to be a great nation, land
and people. He has no idea what land God has in mind and his wife cannot
have children. There is nothing remarkable about Abram. He is a nomad
in a world that is full of nomads.
When he gets to Canaan, God appears to him and says, "This is the land
I will give to your descendants." This is helpful. At least now he knows
what land God is going to give to him. But, don’t miss this, he’s going
to give it to his descendants, of which he has none and no possibility
of obtaining any. In addition, we are told that "the Canaanites are in
the land." The land that God is going to give him is already possessed
by someone else! So he cannot settle down. He moves three times in these
few verses.
Here are these massive, extravagant promises that God has made and yet
his actual experience is so pitiful. There is no evidence that these promises
are going to come true, in fact, all that can be seen are obstacles to
God’s fulfilling his promises. This is the Christian life. God makes enormous
promises to us in Christ. He tells us our sins are forgiven. We are his
children. He promises to supply all we need to fulfill his will on earth.
He gives us his Holy Spirit and promises that we now have the ability
to not sin. Heaven is our home. Yet, when you look at our lives, they
seem so ordinary. There seems to be so little that distinguishes us from
the world around us. The fullness of this life that God has promised seems
to escape us. Suffering and sin plague us. Where is the fullness of the
promises? Where is this abundant life that God promises?
How are we to deal with the seeming disparity between the promises and
our actual experience? I want you to see what God did and what Abram did.
This is a pattern we’re going to see repeated throughout the life of Abraham.
The reason for the repetition is to show us how to live between the promise
and the reality. Notice first of all that God appears to Abram. Here is
the promise of Jesus, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the
age." While we live between the time the promise is made and the fulfillment
of that promise, we have this most precious reality, God is near and he
speaks to us. He does this in many ways but primarily through his word
and his people. He directs us and encourages us in our life of faith.
I have often experienced this in my life with God. (Describe time that
we were short of support and I had no idea where it was going to come
from. I was overcome with fear and then I read Psalm 66: 10-12, "For you
O God tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went
through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.")
Notice how Abram responds to God’s appearing, he builds an altar. Then
notice in v. 8 he builds a second altar and "calls on the name of the
Lord." How does Abram live between promise and fulfillment? He worships
God and calls on God for help. Here is the thing that sets us apart. We
respond to God’s promise by calling on his name to fulfill what he has
promised and we worship him for his graciously including us in his promise
in the first place. Christian’s look a lot like the people they live among.
The thing that distinguishes them more than anything else is that God
reveals himself to them through his word and they respond by worship and
prayer. We praise him for his promises and we trust him to make them come
true for us in his time and in his way. This is the life of faith.
God chooses and blesses people graciously, extravagantly and obscurely.
Have you abandoned all hope of finding life here, on planet earth? Have
you heard the word of command and the word of promise that God makes in
Christ? Have you left Ur of the Chaldeans? Are you living, now, worshipping
him for including you in his promise and patiently waiting for him to
fulfill them in your life? There is a glorious future for all who will
come and follow but only misery for those who refuse.
© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
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