2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Elaine York, Commissioned Pastor
Genesis 12: 1-9; Romans 4: 13-25
Being Blessed and Trusting God
Good Morning, I am delighted to be with you once again. Since I was last here, I have done three Memorials, and a few more Worship Services. I have been recently invited to be the Pulpit Supply at Truckee Lutheran Presbyterian Church. That ought to be a new learning experience since I have never attended a Lutheran Church. However, my Grandmother was a Lutheran but married a Presbyterian and thus we were all Presbyterians after that.
I have been attending your Presbyterian Women’s Bible Study lead by Elaine Noble and have gotten to know several of your members better which has been wonderful.
Today we are going to talk about Being Blessed by God and Trusting in Him. In our Genesis scripture, we hear about the Call to Abram from God. God tells Abram to go from his country with his family to the land that God will show him. According to Jim Kane, our main text for this morning is about a man who illustrates the ability to trust God when told to make a big change and move to a new location. Why? Because God has a plan!
What would it be like for Abram to relocate if God told him to do so today? Now, to get us thinking in the right direction. God says, “Resign your job.” What are the implications and feelings of resigning your job? God says, “Sell your house.” What are the implications and feelings of selling your house? God says, ” Move to where ever__________.”
What are the implications and feelings of moving to a new location? My husband says moving is a hostile environment especially we have always moved ourselves. Abram faced all of this. At age 75, according to the Genesis 11 text, God told him to relocate.
Why? Because God had a plan!
But why should Abram follow God and do what He asks? And what does this have to do with us, this morning? First of all, God has a plan for Abram – fatherhood. God says in verse 2 “I will cause you to become the father of a great nation.” Abram knew that God was going to make him the dad of a great nation! But he was 75 years old! How would that be possible? He was not even the father of one child let alone a great nation. But God had a plan! And that plan included Abram.
So, as we read in Genesis 12:4 “So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed him.” Then, moving on to the end of verse 5 we read, “and finally arrived at Canaan.” Abram trusted God. He did not argue with God, he did what God said to do – move.
What makes it hard to trust? Fear of the unknown, past circumstances and experiences, and the desire to be in control are some of the reasons that we find it hard to trust. Several years ago, James Eads built the first steel bridge in America. It spanned the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri. No one believed that it would support its own weight. Eads ordered 14 locomotives to stop on the bridge at the same time. The people then trusted the integrity of the bridge. But it’s builder already had faith that it would stand and remain standing.
God has a plan for us. And like Abram, it requires us to walk by faith and not by sight. But God also has a plan through us. Abram was part of a larger act of God. This great nation that God said that would come into being would come through the life of Abram. This great nation would be known as Israel, through whom God would bring the salvation of all humanity into a reality.
God’s plans for us, as a congregation, and as individuals, go beyond our own circumstances and surroundings. When Jesus told the twelve in the opening chapter of Acts to be witnesses his map was the entire world! Where do we fit in to this massive plan? Where God places and directs us. And we have to trust God in that work. God also has a plan for each of us.
What does it mean to be blessed? One meaning says that as a believer as being in an enviable position of receiving God’s provisions or favor – as being an extension of grace. Another definition says being blessed is to be made holy, or consecrated, endowed with divine favor and protection. I like that a lot.
So, Abram left and journeyed to Canaan and Shechem and Moreh toward Negeb. Remember Abram is 75 and he is with his wife Saria and his nephew Lot. Abraham, Abram’s new name that God had given him, never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. He was absolutely convinced that God was able to do anything he promised. I hope and pray that that all of us are also convinced of this. And because of Abraham’s faith, God declared him to be righteous.
By: Ken McKinley
Abraham is probably one of the most important characters in all of history. All three monotheistic religions (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) revere him as the father of their faiths. National Geographic magazine credits Abraham with the idea of monotheism (that’s the belief in one God, rather than polytheism which is the belief in many gods). They say that he’s the one who came up with the whole idea, and that’s why he’s such an important figure in history. But what we see in Genesis isn’t that Abraham came up with this idea, it’s that God showed him the truth. And the reason that we as Christians see Abraham as such an important figure in our faith, is because first of all, Abraham is given to us in the New Testament as an example of someone who had faith. Paul tells us that Abraham was justified by faith, not by works, and so, he’s an example of true, saving faith. But, also, it’s through Abraham that God is going to reveal His purpose and goal for all mankind. In his promises to Abraham, God revealed that He had a plan to save us.
So, what we’re seeing here in our text is the commands to the covenant and the promises of the covenant. The first command that God gives to Abram is to “GO!” the Lord says, “Get out from your country, from your family, and from your father’s house…” That’s the first command required in this covenant God is making with Abraham. The second one is found at the very end of verse 2. Now most of our Bibles say something like, “and you will be a blessing.” But in the Hebrew that’s an imperative. For all you who struggled with English out there, an imperative is an expression of a command. So, basically what God was saying to Abram was, “Go… and be a blessing.”
And, so from Genesis chapter one until now, God’s focus has been funneled to a point and a person. It started off with the vast universe and then narrowed down eventually to Noah and his three sons, and specifically his son Shem. Then it narrows even more by focusing on Terah, one of Shem’s descendants, and now it’s zeroed in on Abram. The best way to describe it is like a funnel, and Abram is the very end of that funnel. But while God’s focus is zeroing in on Abram, we’ve also seen a separation going on in the first 11 chapters. And this call of God to Abram begins with a separation, he’s supposed to come out from his father’s house and from his country. But again, it’s not a removal like some people think, because look… God says to him, “You’re going to be a blessing TO THE NATIONS.” So, on one hand, Abram has to separate from the world, on the other he is called to be a blessing to that very same world.
Jesus was basically calling us to the same thing in the New Testament when He says we are to be salt and light, or a city on a hill. We are to be different from the world in order to be a blessing to the world. Do you feel different? I do!
Who were the promises made to? Abraham and his seed. Who is the seed of Abraham? Christ, and if you are in Christ, and if YOU ARE CHRIST’S then YOU ARE Abraham’s seed!
In verse 4 it says, “So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him…” Abraham is called the father of our faith for a reason. Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone. There are always corresponding works that go along with it. Here in the United States, in the the Bible Belt, we have all grown up knowing about God, maybe not in faith, maybe not in Christian homes, but we’ve known about God, we’ve known about the Bible, we’ve known about Jesus. Everywhere you go in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Alabama, Tennessee, you name it… everywhere you go in the South, the Midwest, or the Southwest, there are churches, and there are people who profess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Abram didn’t have that. He had grown up around idol worshipers, in a family of idol worshipers, just south of Babel, but God calls him at 75 years of age… and he goes. He even sets up an altar next to his tent. How’s that for imagery? A tent is a temporary dwelling place; the altar however, is a permanent testimony of God’s promises. Lord, let us be more like Abraham. Help us to be more like Abraham.
And finally, we hear from Marilyn Murphree, about accessing your faith for Sslvation: We can call Abraham the father of faith not because he got God’s attention by living “like a saint” but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody while he was still on the “outs” with God.
Many people say, “I’ve got to get my life straightened out first before I come to God or come to church. I’ve got to quit this habit or that habit first. I’ve got to quit first and then I will come.” No, you do it the other way around. When you come to God by faith, then he will begin to take care of the problem. Sometimes we try to “help God out” too much.
Abraham shows us that we are brought into right standing with God not by our works or by anything we try so hard to live up to but by faith. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own. This is hard for us to grasp because we always think we have to DO something or LIVE UP TO something. From his example, we can start the process in the same way today. Verse 23 says, “the words, ‘it was credited to him’ were written not to him alone but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness (right standing) for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
What would it matter to you whether a right relationship with God is a GIFT to be received or a PRIZE to be earned? For one thing we would never know if we had done enough to earn it.
Ephesians 2:8 tells us that our salvation is A GIFT rather than a prize to be earned. “For it is by grace [unmerited favor] you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves. It is the GIFT of God not by works so that no one could boast.” Paul wrote these words years later, but they were the same thing that Abraham had learned years earlier.
The starting point for Abraham was faith + nothing. Same for us today. We are saved through faith in Jesus + nothing else. Anything we receive from God is accessed by faith–Abraham our “father of faith” ENTERED INTO what God was doing for him and that was the turning point of his life. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own. You might wonder, “Where is MY starting point?” Same as with our father of faith, Abraham. We come to God just as we are–sin and all — and let Him do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Abraham’s part was ACTIVATING the spark of faith that was ALREADY WITHIN HIM. Abraham entered when he believed. That was what opened the door to God.
Today, ask yourself in what areas of your life do you need to take a lesson from Abraham and focus not on working but on believing?
In Summary, I believe God is telling us to heed his commandments and then accept His blessings in order to be a blessing to others. Amen.