Genesis 11:27 – 12:9 (ESV)
11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot.
28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah.
30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.
32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.
12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
2 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.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5 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,
6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he moved to the hill country 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.
9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
This is one of the most fundamental texts for understanding the rest of what happens in the Old Testament. Here we read about Abram being called by God and being promised this threefold blessing.
So we see that Terah, the father of Abram, goes towards the land that God would ultimately give Israel, but stalls halfway through and stops in the land of Haran. Ultimately, God calls Abram out of that land and into the land of Canaan.
Now, God gives a promise here, which is really a threefold promise. He promised that he would give land, that he would make Israel—or Abram—into a great nation, which would ultimately become the nation of Israel, that his name would be great and that he would be a blessing to all people. So all nations would be blessed through him.
These three promises of nationhood, of land, and of being a blessing to all the nations around them would form and shape the rest of the Old Testament narrative. In fact, you cannot understand the Old Testament unless you understand this covenant promise that God makes to Abram.
Now we also have to understand that when Abram responds to God here, he is choosing to make a radical break with the security of home. He left his country. He left his kindred. He left his father's house. And in some ways, these were the ancient person's three favorite safety nets. But God says to him, drop these things, trust in God instead. And that's what Abram does.
And as he goes, he marks his journey with various worship signs. So he worships at Shechem and at Bethel well before a single brick in Jerusalem has been laid. So he builds this altar to worship God in response to what God is doing and will one day do.
And so this passage lays the foundation for what is to come, but it also hints at all the families of the earth that will one day be blessed through Abram and his offspring. Paul mentions this in Galatians chapter 3, and so we see that even here already God has in view that the Gentile nations of the earth would come into his blessing ultimately through Jesus.
So what does this passage mean to us? What does it matter to us?
Now generally I'm not one for saying that we need to follow the example of this great hero of the faith in the Bible because I think most often scripture is filled with pictures of people who we really shouldn't be following and shouldn't try to emulate because they are terrible examples. But in this case, we do see something worthy and admirable and something that is good for us to try and be like.
So here, Abram responds in faith to God's call on his life. He follows and leaves behind the security of his past life. And so faith for him meant that he had to move. He had to move from who he was so that he could become who God was calling him to be.
Following Jesus today looks a lot like that. It looks like stepping out of our comfort zones often, leaving behind our securities in many ways in order to obey the calling that God has on our lives. Maybe that means we have to move to a different country, to move to a different friendship group, to move to a new job, perhaps even to challenge a friend with a hard conversation that you need to have with them. Faith and trust in God means that sometimes we have to be willing to take the step that God is calling us to take.
At the same time, we also have to recognize that this text shows us that there is weakness that isn't a deal breaker in God's promises and God's plan. We read of Sarai's empty womb, and the text hints at the fact that God will one day do a miracle in her and through her. But her empty womb, her barrenness, was not an obstacle to God.
Often we think that our capacities, our abilities, stand in the way of us doing what God calls us to do. But really, in faith, that often is not the case. Now, of course, we have to be wise about this. We shouldn't tackle things that we are not called to do. But if God has a plan and a calling on us with a particular skill or something like that, he will equip those that he calls.
And I think this passage challenges us in two additional ways.
One, it reminds us that worship is part of our walk with God. Worship is not something we do while we sing songs to God on a Sunday morning. No, worship is a thing for every day of life. Abram chose to worship God as he traveled. He built this altar as soon as he got to the place he was to go. It's a way of saying thank you to God for keeping you safe on the journey and for walking with him.
Worship was built into his life and worship also should be built into our lives, our work environments, our families, even perhaps the way we drive to and from school is a chance and an opportunity to worship God. The reformers famously take the position that all of life is worship and that should be our attitude as well.
The second thing that this passage challenges us in is a reminder, really, that hope is for the entire divided world. There is actually a global promise here that all nations will be blessed through Abraham's offspring. Ultimately, we see that come to its fruition in Jesus Christ our Lord. That is why Paul can write, there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free. Everyone is equal before God, equally in need of salvation and saving, but also equally capable of being saved by Jesus when we put our faith and trust in him.
Now in the passage before this, we were reading about the Tower of Babel and how language had divided the people of the world and caused them to spread over everywhere. The fact that all nations will be blessed through Abram's offspring hints at what happens in Acts chapter 2, where the first gospel message is preached by the Apostle Peter, and everyone hears the message in their own language. There's this gift of miraculous tongues that comes, and the tongues that are spoken are human languages there. And so God miraculously almost undoes the work that happened at Babel because of what Jesus has done.
Let’s Pray
Lord, you called Abram to leave behind the things that gave him safety, to trust you instead. Through him you launched your rescue plan for every nation, of which we are the beneficiaries even today. We pray that similarly you will again help us to see how you are calling us today to step away from our safe idols and help us to be obedient to your calling on our lives. We thank you that we can trust in you through the power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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