Abram

Now the Lord said to Abram Go from your country and our kindred and your fathers house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed So Abram went as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy five years old when he departed Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people that they had acquired in Haran and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem to the oak of Morch. AT THE TIME THE Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and sad to your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pithed 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. And Abram journeyed on still going towards Negeb Genesis 12:1-9 There are several things that have caught me off guard with Abram in this story. The first one is that he was a heathen or non believer and had no connection with God. Abram may have had connections or worshiped one or multiple gods or deities because of the polytheistic culture that he was in, but worshipping the Creator of the Universe may not have been on that list. Living in a polytheistic culture is like shopping the hair care aisle at Target or Wal Mart. You have multiple shampoos and conditioners for every hair style, color and scent to keep one cross eyed for a while. So for a random god to break through to and give the promise that God did, was probably just as weird if a bottle of shampoo spoke to us in the aisle of Wal Mart The other thing that has caught my eye about Abram is that he wasn’t a spring chicken anymore. According to our story, when he picked up and left to follow God, he was 75 years old and according to the Bible, he was a wealthy person with a lot of flocks of animals and servants to care for those animals along with his wife. I wonder if Abram ever thought of telling God that he was too old and to wealthy to be moving everything that he has to someplace he has never been, no matter how great Gods promises were. I wonder if Abram wanted to tell God no because he had money in the bank, his bills were paid and he was comfortable where he was at. To bring it a little closer to home and in this century, do we tell God no because we are striving to live in the comfort of the American dream. Its owning our own home, having a good job with some sort of retirement plan and a group of friends that we can go out and do things with. In this lifestyle, we wont get dirty for the wrong reason, getting uncomfortable is a sin and everyone we surround ourselves with either looks, thinks or acts likes us, or some combination of the three. So how do we be like Abram and say yes to God when He calls out of our comfort zone to a someplace new. My first thought is that when God calls us to some place new, we might not be making the move half was across town, the country or the world, but we get to stay where we are. Now, God does call people to move location for various reasons, and we need to be open to the leading of His Spirit, but before we change location, how often does our character our outlook on life need to change first. What if it is God calling us to develop one of the Fruits of the Spirit that is found in Galatians 5:22-23. These fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control. The beauty of this fruits is that there are no laws or rules against these and all of these fruits are suppose to be present in a believers life. Is God calling us to develop these fruits so they are more present in our lives. Here is an example, I can be rather snarky and most of the time I mean in fun, but I have come to realize that snark can not only rob the joy out of others, it can rob my joy also. So if I want more joy in my life and stop stealing the joy out of other peoples lives, I either need to limit or to get rid of my snark. God also might be asking us to change our approach to something. The definition of insanity is that we keep doing the same things the same way and expecting different results. What would it look like for us to change our approach to a difficult situation or relationship. How about in a relationship that is strained, seeing things from their perspective? Ot how about stop being so defensive or offensive and just listening? When we are in a tough situation, we have to know if it is a hill worth dying on or if we have to pack up and walk away. Sometimes winning the battle will cost us the war. My second observation is that when God gives us a promise, we need to respond in trust and obedience. Trusting someone is sometimes us giving up our rights to be right and to be in control. How often do we or control over to God and yet we try and take it back when we don’t like the way things are going or we want to do our own thing? Trust and obedience comes down to being a living sacrifice. In Romans 12, the Apostle Paul commands us to be a living sacrifice and to be holy and acceptable to God and that we are not suppose to be conformed or to take after this world. In essence, being a living sacrifice, or obedient and trusting is a form of worship. This form of worship is something that happens day in and day out and not just Sunday mornings or during a Bible Study. Obedience is not only a daily thing, but more often than not, it is moment by moment thing. Here is an uncomfortable, yet freeing truth, when we are a living sacrifice, this means that we are not our own anymore and that we belong to God. When we become fully Gods, our nature starts to change and we become more like what God created us to be, which is holy and blameless. Call it maturity, sanctification or being filled with the Spirit. The goal is that our nature reflects God in everything we say and do. Here is the problem with being a living sacrifice, is that the sacrifice lights to get off of the altar and do its own thing. How often do want to get off of the altar so that we can live a life that we deem a little more comfortable or not be ridiculed as much for holding to and sharing Godly principles on todays issues. Do we get off of the altar because it is to hard, or to uncomfortable. Being on the altar as a living sacrifice means that God has the keys to all the rooms in our life and we can hide things from Him. How often do we hide things from God or others because of shame and at times we enjoy keeping things a secret or two. Throughout Scripture, sin and secrets often are related to night time and darkness and the truth is often referred to as light. To be honest, the secrets we hold, will come out eventually and we often cant control when they come out or how they come out and even the damage they cause. So or best bet is that we become and stay a living sacrifice so that we may point other people to the truth and grace of Jesus Christ. My third observation is that when God wants to move and do things, is often either way to late or way to early in our book. We are either settled into our routine and don’t want to be pulled from our current lives, or that we are ready for God to move and He is rather silent. God has the big picture in mind and He sees and knows things that we possibly can not even dream of. This is what can make trust and obedience so difficult, but it is also remembering that if God can create the universe, He can handle our lives as well. A part of this waiting scenario really plays into the Abram story. Within the framework of the Old Testament, ones family and lineage is important. How one passed on their name, legacy and wealth is through their offspring, especially their oldest son. At the time of this story, Abram and his wife were still childless and they were not getting any younger. So Gods promise to make Abram a great nation had to of caught his attention, because that means he would have a son to further his legacy. I think there are several things that we can learn about Gods promises to Abram and about God, The first one is that even though He did create everything, after the fall and when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God did not have a group of people to make His name known to or for the people to reflect His glory to the world. With God providing Abram and Sarai a son, that God will have a people and a people will have their God The second idea is this idea of blessing and curses. Whoever blesses Abram, will be treated well by God, and who ever treats Abram poorly will be cursed. My initial thought is that you don’t mess with Gods people, or there will be trouble to pay. I don’t think its our job to exact Gods vengeance for Him because He is big enough to do it himself. I think how we treat others is a reflection of how we see God and what our relationship with Him is. The more we seek and experience Gods grace and truth, the more likely we are going to share it with the people around us. To wrap this up, I think that there are some similarities between Abram and this church. God is calling us out of our comfort zone and to move to reach out to our neighbors and friends. Sometimes moving is not so much about location as it is as mindset. The question is that do we get uncomfortable enough to move and to grow, or are we comfortable being where we are and wither becoming smelly and stagnet, or worse yet, regressing and becoming immature. I will close with this. I was in my first week of seminary and I was feeling that I was in over my head and that I was drowning. I had a friend tell me that I could do it and that God was there guiding me there and that He would get me through it. God did and I was reminded of the famous John 1 passage where the Word was God and the Word became flesh. This means that Jesus came to earth and but on skin and bones and he dwelt among His creation, showing us that there is a God and that He loves us and there is a better way.