Tag: Abraham

Published November 28, 2018

The Sacrifice

There is a song that we sometimes sing in at our kids clubs called “Father Abraham”. If you’ve been a camp kid or if you grew up in the church, chances are good that you’ve heard it before. But if not, it goes like this: “Father Abraham had many sons – many sons had Father Abraham. And I am one of them, and so are you, so let’s just praise the Lord.”

And then there are some ridiculous actions that go along with that have nothing to do with song – but the kids love it – and believe it or not, the theology of the song is actually pretty accurate.

According to Paul in Romans 4:16…

“For Abraham is the father of all who believe.” Romans 4:16

Of course, Abraham is not likely your biological ancestor unless you happen to be Jewish, but Paul says Abraham is our father in a spiritual sense. If we have put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ – then Abraham is our Father. We are one of his many sons and daughters – because he is the father of all who believe.

And if you’ve been tracking along with us for these past couple months, I think it’s probably becoming clear why Paul would say that Abraham is the father of all who believe. We’ve spent the last several weeks looking at the life of Abraham – learn from Him as He learned to walk with God.

Today, we are wrapping up that series, but it has been incredible to see the amount of faith Abraham had in God. It’s no wonder we call him the Father of our faith. We read a bit of a summary of Abraham’s life last week from Romans 4:18 – which really emphasized Abraham’s faith in God. It said:

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Published November 20, 2018

The Joy of the Lord

We’re going to pick up our story today in Genesis chapter 21 – hopping over chapters 19 & 20 – but I would certainly encourage you to go back and read those chapters sometime this week – that will help you fill in the blanks of the story yourself.

Now while you’re turning to Genesis 21 in your Bibles, let me give you just a really quick summary of the story so far.

As I’ve pointed out before, the key issue in the whole story of Abraham is the issue of descendants. Namely that Abraham had none. One of the first bits of information that we read about Abraham was that his wife Sarah, had been unable to become pregnant. And of course, this is a big deal for any family, but it was particularly an issue for Abraham’s family because God had specifically promised to Abraham that his descendants would grow to become a great nation and they would inherit the land of Canaan or as we often call it “the Promised Land”. God was going to bless all of Abraham’s descendants and they in turn would be a blessing to every family on the earth.

However, through most of our story, Abraham has been childless. Several times God has appeared and reaffirmed his promise to Abraham – but by the time Abraham was 85, he still had no child on the horizon. So Abraham and Sarah decided to be proactive and help God out a little bit. They decided that Abraham should have a child with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. This was culturally acceptable – but was certainly not what God had in mind. The problems and the discord that this caused in the family became evident almost immediately. As soon as Hagar was pregnant, Hagar treated Sarah with contempt and Sarah treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away even before the child was born. Thankfully, God intervened and Hagar returned to Sarah and Abraham – and in due time, Hagar had her baby – little Ishmael.

Well, for many years, Abraham raised Ishmael as his dearly loved, one and only son – the son that he presumed was God’s promised child. But when Ishmael was 13 years old God appeared to Abraham and again reaffirmed his promise that Abraham would have a son – and that son would be born from Sarah – even though she was now 90 years old. God further clarified that Sarah’s son, Isaac, would be the one whom God would bless and would cause his descendants to grow to be a great nation – they would inherit the promised land, and they would be a blessing to every family on earth.

Of course, this was exactly what God had promised 24 years earlier – God’s plans had not changed even though Abraham and Sarah had not been careful to follow his plan. Despite their lack of faith, God remained faithful and today, we finally get to the part of the story where God finally does exactly what he said he would do for Abraham & Sarah. So in Genesis chapter 21, verse 1 we read:

The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. 2 She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would. Genesis 1:1-2

I love how this chapter starts: The Lord kept his word. He did exactly what he had promised. Despite the impossibility of it all – (considering that Abraham and Sarah were well past the age of having children – Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90) – despite the impossibility of them having children, God kept his Word.

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Published November 20, 2018

Getting Personal

A lot has happened to Abraham in the past 24 years as we’ve been looking at his life. And to clarify, those 24 years are not how long we’ve been in this sermon series – we’re actually only at week 7 – but at this point in our story, it’s been 24 years since God first appeared to Abraham and invited him on a journey that would forever change his life.

God first appeared to Abraham when he was 75 years old and God made a promise to Abraham that he would have all kinds of descendants, that those descendants would become a great nation, God would bless them, and that they would be a blessing to every family on earth!

And those promises are not unlike the promises we received when we first met Christ. When we first came to Christ (at whatever age that was for each one of us), we receive very similar promises. First of all, we would have a huge family. God promised to adopt us into his family (a family that is spread across the planet and across time – we would instantly have millions of brothers and sisters in Christ). These people that you’re sitting here with today are part of God’s promise to you.

Also, God has promised to bless us with all kinds of blessings – not necessarily physical blessings, but blessings of life, joy, and peace, hope for the future – which are certainly worth more than any amount of wealth or possessions. And in receiving those blessings, God has enabled us to be a blessing to the people around us. We have the opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus with friends and family, neighbors and co-workers – whoever happens to be in our circle of influence.

We really are privileged to have received all these promises from God. And that’s perhaps where we’re a little different from Abraham at this point in our story. At this point, Abraham has not received the fulfillment of any of God’s promises. Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is now 90 years old and is still childless – God has promised them a son, but so far, they have no descendants. And while they are now living in the Promised Land, they are still foreigners in that land – the land does not yet belong to them. They are still waiting for God – 24 years later – to come through on his promises.

But in that wait, God has not been silent – nor has God been absent. In fact, God has used those 24 years to grow their faith, to help them learn to trust Him, and to teach them who He is and what He’s like.

And in our passage today, although God is still waiting to fulfill his promises, we see God once again taking the opportunity to reveal more about Himself to Abraham and Sarah. So let’s take a look. We’re in Genesis chapter 18 this morning – and we will start at verse 1.

The Lord appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day. 2 He looked up and noticed three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground.

3 “My lord,” he said, “if it pleases you, stop here for a while. 4 Rest in the shade of this tree while water is brought to wash your feet. 5 And since you’ve honored your servant with this visit, let me prepare some food to refresh you before you continue on your journey.”

“All right,” they said. “Do as you have said.”

6 So Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, “Hurry! Get three large measures of your best flour, knead it into dough, and bake some bread.” 7 Then Abraham ran out to the herd and chose a tender calf and gave it to his servant, who quickly prepared it. 8 When the food was ready, Abraham took some yogurt and milk and the roasted meat, and he served it to the men. As they ate, Abraham waited on them in the shade of the trees. Genesis 18:1-8

Now there are just a few things that I’ll briefly mention here before we keep reading.

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Published November 20, 2018

New Names – New Promises

Last week was a big week for Abram. As most of you know, we’ve been going through the life of Abram over these past few weeks – learning from him as he learned to walk with God. And the focal point of pretty much the entire story of Abram revolves around God’s promise to give him a son.

Abram and his wife Sarai had been unable to have children together – even though God had specifically told Abram that his family would become a great nation. In fact, God had promised that Abram’s descendants would inherit a huge chunk of land which we’ve come to know as “The Promised Land” and they would be as numerous as the stars!

Well, last week Abram & Sarai found themselves, at the ages of 85 & 75 respectively, to still be without child. And so they came up with an idea of how to finally get a son for Abram. Sarai gave her servant Hagar to Abram as a wife in hopes that she could have a child with Abram. Of course, having a child through a servant back then was fairly common practice and was certainly social acceptable, but as we pointed out, it didn’t seem to line up with God’s established design for families – that being one man and one woman.

Well anyways, their plan worked…. Sorta…. Hagar did indeed become pregnant and have a son. But this whole scheme was not what God had in mind when He told Abram that he would have son, and so instead of this pregnancy being this great blessing from God that would bring joy & delight to this family, their scheme instead brought conflict and hostility and resentment. And that really shouldn’t come as a surprise, because anytime we act outside of God’s design and God’s will for our lives, there are always negative consequences.

However, as we pointed out last week, this in no way derailed God’s good plans for Abram and his family. God would take this mess and he would use it for good and as a showcase of his love & mercy.

And so that’s where we pick things up today. We’re in Genesis chapter 17 this morning, and we will begin at verse 1.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life. 2 I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.” Genesis 17:1-2

And let’s just stop here for a minute. These two verses are the setup for the rest of the chapter, so I just want to point out a couple things that you’ll want to remember as we go forward.

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Published September 17, 2018

First Steps of Faith

The Christian life is often described as ‘walking with God’ and I think a three-legged race is a good illustration of what that can look like. Walking with God can be a thrilling journey when we keep in step with Him – following His lead. But when we get out of sync with God and try to do things our own way, very quickly can we find ourselves flat on our face.

I think it’s a fairly common experience among Christians – especially new Christians – that in our attempts to daily walk with God, we struggle to stay in sync with Him and often we find ourselves tripped up and discouraged in the fact that we mess up so often.

But the fact is that no one just jumps in and walks perfectly in sync with God for the rest of their lives – it’s a learned process. It takes time to learn to walk with God.

Sometimes we read those incredible stories in the Bible of these heroes of the faith like Paul or Elisha or Daniel and they just seem like they’ve got it all together. But I guarantee you, there was a lot of practice and a lot of failures as they learned to walk with God.

I think Abraham is a great example of someone who had to learn to walk with God. I don’t know how much you know about Abraham, but aside from Jesus, he’s probably the most central figure of the Bible. He was the father of the nation of Israel – the father of Christianity really. It was through Him and his family-line that Jesus our Saviour born. And He wasn’t just a physical ancestor of Christianity – the Bible often points to him as our spiritual ancestor as well – the first of those who were saved by faith.

But even heroes of the faith (like Abraham) had to learn to walk with God. Abraham had his ups and downs. He stumbled just like we do. But over time, and through a wide variety of experiences, Abraham learned to walk with God – to stay in step with Him. And as a result, Abraham had an incredible journey with God, and his life has left a lasting legacy even for us today several thousand years later.

That kind of journey and that kind of legacy is possible for us too, as we learn to walk with God. So over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at Abraham’s life – watching as he learned to walk with God, because I think there is so much that we can learn from him and apply to our own journey with God. I’m calling this new series “Learning to Walk” and I trust that we will do exactly that as we study the life of Abraham – that we will learn to walk in step and in close communion with our God, just like Abraham did. So let’s jump right into it!

Now as I mentioned earlier, Abraham is one of the most significant characters in the entire Bible. In fact his story is the first biography in the Bible. Up to this point, the Bible has been telling us about certain events – events like creation and the flood and building the tower of Babel – but when the Bible introduces Abraham, its not to tell us about a particular event – it’s to introduce us to a particular person and his family.

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