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Going to Claim the Promised Blessings of the Lord
Preached June 23, 2010 at a Mission in Downtown Birmingham, AL by Jake Hanson. Click here for audio of the sermon.
This past weekend, we celebrated Father’s Day. Tonight, I want us to look at one of the fathers of our faith, Abraham. As I look at the life of Abraham more and more, I see in Abraham a man much like me. A man filled with the blessings and promises of God, but still one who struggles and wrestles with how these promises will be fulfilled. And certainly, Abraham is a man with very real flaws, much like my own. Even so, this man Abraham was used by the Lord to accomplish some amazing things, not least of which was to be an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ, the descendant that was promised to him in our passage tonight.
Read Genesis 12:1-9
Going to Claim the Promised Blessings of the Lord
In this passage, we meet the man we have come to know as Abraham. But when we meet him, his name is not yet Abraham, it is Abram. The Lord will change his name to Abraham in chapter 17. But when we first meet him, his name is Abram. Abram means, “Exalted Father.” But when we meet him, he is not a father at all. We meet Abram as a seventy-five year old childless, quote unquote ‘exalted father.’
He is from the city called Ur which is in modern-day Iraq. Ur was a bustling city on the banks of one of the most important rivers in the ancient world, and there Abram and his family had acquired much wealth. But there is a darker side of the city of Ur. It was a city that was dedicated, not to the Lord God, but to a moon god, and was a center in the ancient world to worship the moon. It was a city that worshipped the god of the moon rather than the God who created the moon, the sun, the stars and the earth. Still, Ur was home for Abram. So when the Lord came to him in verse 1 of our text, He was calling on Abram to ‘leave,’ to ‘get up and go’ from everything he knew, from his relatives, from his “father’s house” and from all of his known comforts. To go from the place where he is already known. But more than that the Lord was calling him to leave a place where he and his family were in real danger of worshipping gods other than the Lord God Himself. The Lord is calling Abram from his way of life.
Just like Abram the Lord calls us from our way of life as well. When we are born, we are born in sin as children of Adam. We are born enemies of God. But not only are we born in sin, we also live lives of sin. We depend on our own strength, concerned about only ourselves, living in the comfort of our sinfulness. We are born dead in our sins.
But the Lord Jesus Christ calls us out of ourselves. In Luke 9, Jesus calls on us to “follow” Him and He says this: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself [that is, he must give up his old life, with its comforts, and self-reliance, its self-centeredness], and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” Just like Abram, we are called to leave our old self which is being destroyed by its deceitful lusts.
But the Lord does not just call Abram from his relatives and his father’s house, he calls him to His blessings. Look again at verse 1 thru 3.
“ 1Now the LORD said to Abram,
‘Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father's house,
To the land which I will show you;
2And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
3And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’”
In these verses, the Lord makes some important promises to Abram. First, in verse 1, He promises him land. This is the land we know today as present day Israel, as well as Lebanon, parts of Syria and other countries. But Abram had never seen this land. It was land that the Lord would show him, only if he obeyed and went. Second, in verse 2, the Lord says He will make Abram and his descendants into a great nation, or a great people. And to add to that, Abram’s name would be great. / There are only three people in the whole Bible have the privilege of having quote unquote “a great name”—Abram, King David and Jesus. This is a choice and select promise to Abram.
And finally, this land, this people and this fame, would be used, not to get rich, or to stay locked up comfortably in a little piece of land on the earth, but the Lord promised that Abram and his descendants would be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. But all this is only if Abram leaves his people and his land in faith. If he does not respond and obey the Lord, all these blessings go out the window. But as we see in the next few verses, Abram does obey.
And because he does obey, all of these promises are fulfilled. His descendants received (and lost) this land, the Jews are a great people, Abraham’s name is indeed great, and all the peoples of the earth are being blessed through his descendants—in particular in his descendant we know as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself: “It’s great for this guy Abram and his descendants that they get these promises, but Abram lived 4,000 years ago, and I am not so sure this has much to do with me.” And on its surface, it seems you would be right. But did you know that the Bible also tells us in Galatians chapter 3, that “If you belong to Christ [that is, if you have put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ], then you are Abraham’s descendant [through Jesus Christ],” and therefore these promises are for you.
But you might be thinking, “Ok, so I will be honest. I am not really all that interested in moving to Israel to claim my land.” And I will be honest, I am not really all that interested in starting World War III trying to claim that much disputed piece of land. I will let the Lord God work that out.
But if you look at Abram’s life, even he wasn’t going to receive this land. Sure, he would go to live in it, but he lived as an alien and a stranger in a tent. What he longed for, and was promised, was not simply a piece of land, but a heavenly country, Hebrews 11 tells us. Yes his descendants would claim the land, as was promised, but there is a greater promise. The promise for Abram, and for us, is for a country that the Lord will show us—a heavenly country—a country where love, truth, justice, joy, peace and mercy fill the land. / But first, we must leave our lives of sin, and step out in faith to follow Him just as Abram did. As 1 Peter 1 tells us, our inheritance as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will not perish, will not be defiled, and will never fade away “and is reserved in heaven for you.”
And because of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, like Abram’s promise says, Christians are according to 1 Peter 2, a great people, the people of God, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God’s own possession that we might declare the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. And as Christians—as true and real Christians—we bear the great name of the Lord Jesus Christ and live and act as a blessing to this world that dwells in darkness. Christians, those who have really and truly put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are the light of the world, bringing light to ever corner, every dark crack and crevice near and far throughout this world. Indeed, these promises to Abram, are not just to a man who lived 4,000 years ago, they are promises to you as descendants of Abram through faithful obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But these promises can only be claimed by those who respond to the call to “Go.” And this is just what Abram did. Look at verse 4.
“4So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him…” Abram did not know what was in store for him, but he was going in faith to claim the promised blessings of the Lord.
The text gives us an interesting detail. In the previous chapter, chapter 11, it tells us that Abram left Ur with his father, with his wife and with his nephew Lot, and then settled for a time in a city called Haran, which was closer to the Promised Land, but still not in the Promised Land. Notice that Abram does not stop there. There is no half obedience with Abram here. The Lord commanded him not just to go from the land of his birth, but to go to the land that He would give Abram.
Some of you have responded to God’s call on your life to leave your life of sin—your drunkenness, your drugs, or other vices. You know that they have hurt you and hurt your relationships. And you are finding help with keeping from alcohol and drugs and other sin here in this place. You have responded by trying to leave that dark land where you have been living in sin. / But I fear that some of you have stopped there—stopped short of the promises of the Lord for you. You must not stop there. You must press on to receive the promises of the Lord for you by stepping out in faith to this land which the Lord wants to show you, by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. And you must not stop this journey—long though it may be—until you receive the promised blessings of the Lord. As we will see in the life of Abram, his journey was a long one with many trials, some failures, but many confirmations and encouragements from the Lord God. And so your journey of faithful obedience, should you choose to go on it and remain with it…it too will have its trials. You will have your failures, but rest assured you will also receive confirmations and encouragements from the Lord along this journey.
We see the tension with Abram and the promised blessings of the Lord right from the get-go in our text. Abram would have many trials and struggles ahead. His life, and how he responds to these trials, gives us a pattern for how we ought to face trials and temptation, for as Jesus has warned, “in this world you will have trouble.”
The first sign of Abram’s trouble is found in verse 6. “Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. [And then we get this important piece of information] Now the Canaanite was then in the land.” The land was already taken. It was claimed by other people. Can you imagine how Abram must have felt as he came to the Promised Land? “Lord. I thought you were going to give me this land. But there are people here already!” And then there is another tension. “Lord” Abram may have prayed, “Lord, you said I would be the father of a great people. But I have no children and I am seventy-five years old! And my wife Sarai, she can’t have children! We have tried and she is now too old!”
I can’t imagine the tension that Abram must have felt between the promises of God and his very real circumstances and the obstacles before him. How would God fulfill His promises? How could the Lord fulfill His promises?
And not only this, but the timing of the fulfillment must have been extremely difficult. Some of these promises were not even for him, but were for his descendants whom he would never meet in this life. / You and I live in a day where we want things now. We are upset when we wait more than a minute and thirty seconds at McDonalds for our hot fries and hamburger with no pickle and extra ketchup. But Abram would have to wait years to receive some of the promises of the Lord. This is a far cry from the instant gratification we Americans have grown to expect.
So what does Abram do with this struggle between his trials and and the timing of the promised blessings of the Lord? Look at verses 7-8. “7The LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ So [Abram] built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him. 8Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.”
How does Abram respond? He responds to these trials and this tension with worship of the Lord God. The text tells us that the Lord appeared to Abram and made this promise. So palpable, so real was Abram’s encounter with the Lord that he would never doubt these magnificent promises. Indeed, by setting up altars to the Lord for worship, Abram was declaring to the world, that when the Lord makes a promise, it is as good as done—no matter how impossible or unlikely it seems. The fact that the land was filled with other people was not an issue. The fact that he and Sarai were old and without children, was no matter. The Lord God, the One who spoke the world into existence, He would sort that out. Indeed, the Lord is faithful to fulfill His promises, and for that He is to be worshipped and glorified.
But I think there are two other things going on here as Abram builds altars to the Lord in the Promised Land. First, it is almost as if Abram is like a dog that discovers a new property. Dogs love to mark their territory and claim it as their own. Abram goes and claims the land for the Lord in faith. “This land is not mine yet…[he seems to be saying] but it is as good as mine because the Lord God promised it to me.”
But the second thing about this worship is in verse 8. Abram “called on the name of the Lord.” We saw this as we looked at chapter 13 a few weeks ago. Abram was taking opportunity to proclaim to the world the goodness of the Lord his God. The Lord had commanded Abram to be a blessing to the world, and this is Abram’s first step in being a blessing—he would declare to the world. He would declare to all who would listen that his God is faithful and true.
What do you do when the promised blessings of the Lord seem too impossible, too far off, too strange, and too wonderful? In short, what do you do when the promises of God seem to make no sense? Do you quit your journey and turn back to your land of sin? Do you stop half-way and mope and complain? Don’t fall short of the blessings the Lord has promised. Do as Abram. First, Go. Leave your life of sin and comfort in obedience and faith. Second, do not stop, but press on until you claim the promises of the Lord God for you. And finally, when things don’t make sense, and difficulties arise, and they surely will, Stop and worship. Look for a place, any place, to build an altar to the living God who has spoken to you. Praise His name for His goodness and for His promises. It need not be in a chapel or a church. It might be in your bed, in the dining hall, even on the street. Worship the Lord for His wonderful promises, and proclaim His name to all who will hear.
Where are you? You might still be in that distant land of sin and self-reliance. Leave that country. You may have left that country, but you got stuck somewhere along the road. You are, as Scripture says, “an almost Christian.” Don’t stop short of the blessings that the Lord has called you to. And finally, you may have entered into the land the Lord has called you, and things don’t make sense, Turn your eyes upon Jesus in worship, look full on His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.