The Promise to the World

This morning, we're going to take a big picture. We're going to get a glimpse of some major themes and and aspects of scripture that are extremely important. We're going to start out because the passage is so central and foundational to all of Christianity. We're going to go ahead and start the sermon this morning by asking the big question, what is a faithful Christian? Simply put, it's someone who believes in the Savior Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, and His resurrection. It's someone who takes up their cross, denies themselves, and follows the Savior. You see, Christianity, it doesn't make your life easier. It's not glitter. It's not magic. It's not all happiness and smiles. It doesn't take away pain and sorrow. It doesn't give you what your sinful heart desires. No, Christianity is when believers commit themselves to Jesus Christ because they realize there's no other salvation. It's when we are overwhelmed with our sin, when we are overwhelmed with what we have offended God with. Our own lives, our rebellion, our kicking against Him, our fighting against Him. We see that we have no hope apart from Christ. God's plan of salvation. God's way of reconciling us to Himself. It's us committing ourselves to His wise leadership and rejecting our own foolishness. It's trusting the one God who makes big promises, who continues to make amazingly large promises and then fulfills them in ways that blow our minds. It's us denying our sinful selfishness for the sake of gaining eternal life. It doesn't make our life easier, but it gives us peace and rest in the most essential way. It's a peace and rest with God. There's no fear in death. There's no guilt in life. It means we have the courage to fight against the sin that has become natural to us, but as opposed to God and the way he created us. Being a faithful Christian takes courage. It takes a courageous faith. That looks at who we are and see that things are not the way they're supposed to be. It's a courageous faith that looks at the promises God has made and realizes they're big. They're miraculous. And they're our only source of hope. Being a faithful Christian means you do not rely upon your own strength. But when circumstances go bad, and even though you do not see the right hand of God moving in your difficult circumstances, you know He is. You know His right arm is able, is wise, is strong, and is ultimately salvific. He will deliver us. This morning, we turn to Genesis 12. It's a major transition from Genesis 1-11 to Genesis 12. So far, we've seen God create all things good. We've seen man rebel against that good. We've seen God give a curse to man because of our rebellion. But in the midst of that curse, we saw a wonderful promise. Genesis 3 15. He will provide a seed of the woman who will overcome sin and death. And up to this point, God has been protecting his line. So that seed will come That promise of the seed will come through fulfillment. He's been protecting the line of Seth and then of Noah and then of Shem. He's only been protecting a line. But here in Genesis 12, we see him proactively creating a people to bring about the fulfillment of the great promise we have to believe in. So far, we've only seen him protecting one single generation line. A line of generations. But now we see him calling out of all the nations that he just spread, one particular man of Rome who will be named Abraham later. We see him calling out one person among all the nations to be his nation, his people that will bless all nations. We see him beginning his specific plan of redemption. He promised it in Genesis 3. He's been protecting it up until now. And now He is proactively beginning the plan of salvation. He is beginning to build His people. Now, what's interesting about this is why did He choose Avram? If you look at Joshua 24-2, Avram's family, they're all pagans. They all worship idols. What made Avram special? Nothing. God chose him out of all the nations, out of his own goodwill. There was nothing about Avram that made God more direct to him. There was nothing that drew God to Avram. It was only by God's good mercy that he chose him out of all the people to begin his nation. He was a pagan like all the rest of the world. If we look at Genesis 12, we're going to see that this is a foundational promise, a foundational passage for every promise we see in Scripture. And we're going to see that it's a foundation for our hope, because as we look at this beginning of God's people, we're looking for the Messiah. We're looking for that promised seed that's going to overcome sin and death. And here we just see that it's going to be a son of Abraham. But the qualifications for the one who's going to save us continue to get higher and higher. And if we look at the qualifications get more and more, even through being a son of David, we're going to see that it has to be a very precise, special Savior. This morning, the main point we will see is that we will see God is faithful to save us from our sins and faithful to us while we sin. God is faithful to save us from our sins and God is faithful to us while we sin. Let's turn to chapter 11 briefly before we get into chapter 12. We left off half of chapter 11 last week. And it's very simple. It's a genealogy following Shem, as we just discussed. God is protecting that line. And the genealogy simply takes you to Terah, who is Avram's father. Avram has two brothers, Nahor and Haran. And two major things need to be pointed out here. And it's very simple. Verse 28 should stand out. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah. The son died before the father. That's not supposed to happen. That's abnormal. And Haran had a son himself named Lot. So Lot is left without a father. Then you look down at verse 30, the second observation. Sarah was barren. She had no child. Now, that puts together a good situation for Avram and Lot because they've practically become father-son at this point. That's why Lot leaves with Avram. Lot is acting like he is put under Avram's responsibility. Lot doesn't have a father. Avram doesn't have a child. And so, when God calls Avram out, that's why Lot comes with him. But we will talk more about Lot next week. Let's read our passage in Genesis 12. Now, the Lord said to Avram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's 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 make him who dishonors 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. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarah, 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, Avram passed through the land at the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Avram and said 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 pitched his tent. With Bethel on the west, and I on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Evam journeyed on, still going toward the Negev. Now there was a famine in the land. So Avraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there. For the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarah, his wife, I know that you are a woman beautiful in presence. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake. When Avram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the prince of Pharaoh saw her, they said, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house for her sake. He dealt well with Avram. And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys and camels. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Avram's wife. So Pharaoh called Avram and said, What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister? So that I took her for my wife. Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had." As we look at this, we can see there's quite a few steps taking place here. First, Avram is called to believe God's Word and obey His instructions. God calls out, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. This is a courageous step of faith. This is a courageous step of faith because leaving one's family was leaving protection and provision. Leaving one's family meant that you were going to be out on your own without those around you who would come and help you in times of need. He was trusting that God was going to provide that protection and that provision. He left the unfamiliar world that he was raised in, the comfort of his own family, to trust and obey God's Word. There's two major emphases here. There's one is Abraham's courage, I think. The other one is how dependable God's Word is. Next in verse two is the great string of blessings that God gives him. I will make you a great nation. 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 will all the families of the earth shall be blessed." First we see, he's promised a great name. Now this is very intentionally read with Genesis 11. The builders of Babel were trying to build up a great name for themselves and God stopped that. But here God says, I will bless you with a great name. God is the one who gives great names. We do not give names to ourselves. God is the one who makes men and women great. We are dependent upon Him for our namesake. Next, He's promised that He will become a great nation. Here's a man without a child of his own. Here's a man leaving with his wife and a few servants and some animals and a nephew. He receives a great promise. I am going to send you into this land, the land that's inhabited. I'm going to make you a great nation there. for Abraham to believe that was against all odds for God to do this. The next thing we see is really sweet. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. This shows that God is blessing Abraham with a relationship, with a friendship. He's got his back. He's caring for him. God is blessing Avram with a special, unique friendship. It's only a few chapters later that God declares to him more specifically. He declared Avram, Abraham at that point, his friend. But here you already see the foundation of that declaration. Avram is blessed with a special relationship with God. Finally, in that particular stream, we see that he will be a blessing to all the world. What do you think of Rahm's thought that was going to be? He's going to build Disney World? What's he thinking the blessing is going to be at this point? Here's this one man called out of a pagan lifestyle who just follows and believes God. He says, you are going to bless every nation. These are all just packed as we look throughout Scripture. We'll look at that in a moment. The other blessing of the promise is in verse 7. The Lord appeared to Abraham and said, to your offspring I will give this land. So he built there and altered the Lord who had appeared to him. The redundancy is particular. I'm not sure if it's pointing out that before Abraham just heard a voice, but now God is appearing to him. Kind of like an Adam and Eve situation where he's able to actually see some part of God. He's actually able to look at him and relate to him. And here's that promise, I will give this land to you, a land inhabited by others. Avram responds in the only appropriate way. He builds altars and praises God and he continues to travel. And verse 9 really ends with a happy note. But then circumstances happen. Then life gets complicated. Look there in verse 10. This is a major turning point in the story. Now there was a famine in the land. This changes everything. Up to this point, Avram has heard God. He's obeyed Him. Everything's been going well, but now something isn't working right. Something's not according to what Avram thinks the plan is going to be. There's a famine in the land. Avram gets scared. He doesn't ask God what to do. He doesn't turn to God. He doesn't wait upon God. He doesn't trust God. So what does he do? He goes to the next great power. Next door, he goes down to Egypt. And there it just gets stickier. This is how sin leads to more sin and more sin and more sin. He doesn't trust God and therefore things get very complicated. He looks at his wife, who is his half-sister. He sees how beautiful she is and says, why don't we lie? Or tell us the half-truth? Don't tell them you're my wife. Tell them you're my sister. Tell them you're my sister because I'm afraid that they'll kill me. What a failure of a husband this is. He's looking out for his own neck. He's trying to protect himself and putting his wife in danger. He's putting his wife at the mercy of another man for his own benefit and his own blessing. He's a failure of a husband. He seeks his own comfort and enjoys the gifts and the comfort of Pharaoh, while his wife is in the arms of another man. Ultimately, this points to a failure to trust God. Again, he's not looking to God to see how he should continue in Egypt. He's not looking to God to protect him and his wife. He's not looking to protect the promise. His wife is the one who's supposed to bear the son who's going to reverse the curse. But here he's put her in danger and he's put the promise in danger because she's in the arms of another man. Avram is about to mess up the entire plan of salvation. Avram has lied because he didn't believe God's Word. He failed to trust God's Word. And then we see in verse 17, those three great words, but the Lord, but the Lord, God comes in and he stretches out his mighty right arm and he fixes everything Abraham messes up. This is how every story in scripture basically goes. This is what we saw in the Tower of Babel. They're all building the tower up. Then God comes down. But, what a powerful word. It changes everything. The Lord afflicted Pharaoh. Because of Sarah. Avram's wife, in case you missed it. Not his sister. His wife. Notice how many times it mentions that it's his wife throughout that passage. Now, let's think about this. Avram was given a blessing, or a promise, that he would be a blessing to all nations. Because he failed to believe God. Because he failed to trust God. He's not being a blessing here. He's being a curse. Because he failed to trust God, he lied about his wife. He was more worried about his own neck. And now God has afflicted Pharaoh. All things are going awry here for Avram. All things in the kingdom of God are going awry because Avraam has not obeyed God. And instead of being a blessing to Egypt, he's a curse. So, Pharaoh, who really looks like he has more fear of God in him than Avraam does, he casts Avraam out of Egypt, including all the gifts that he gave to Avraam, one of which is Hagar. If we look at this passage, I believe we can learn two things about God. First, God is faithful in keeping His covenant promise. God is faithful in keeping His covenant promise. Again, going all the way back to Genesis 3.15, I will crush sin and death. I will crush the enemy. God is keeping that promise. And He's now established a line after Noah, after Seth. Now He's called a man out. The redemptive history is getting clearer and clearer as to how God is going to fulfill His promise. He separated off peoples after the Tower of Babel, and now He's calling one out to bless all the people. Why did God choose Avram? Again, it's not because he's great. It's not because he had the most faith. It's not because he was going to be the most reliable. We're going to see him fail and fail and fail again. And we're going to see his children following his failure. He was not a great man. He was chosen not because of anything in him. He was chosen not because he deserved it or because it was his right. God chose him because he chose him. Or in the words of Deuteronomy 7, he loved him because he loved him. There was nothing attractive about Avram. If we think about this, we need to realize our own calling to be Christians. You do not deserve God's love. We do not deserve God's love. We should not look at it as something that we have a right to. It's not something that God has to give us. But it's something he has given us by his grace and his mercy in Jesus Christ. It's something that is ours inherently now that we have faith in Christ. It's ours now that we are sons and daughters and we will never remove his love from us. But before we were Christians, we had the right to be judged by our sin. We don't look at God and tell him to love us. We look at God, we praise him and we thank him for his love. And we praise Him and thank Him for not giving us what we deserve, which is His wrath. By grace, we get love. How did God fulfill His promise to bless all nations through Israel? How does God fulfill this promise to bless all nations through Israel? Well, first, Israel was supposed to Go into Egypt, grow, be mighty in numbers. But then they were supposed to go and establish themselves and they were supposed to be a light to all nations. They were supposed to be a society, a nation, a race and a kingdom that was supposed to be so well ordered according to God's Word. They were supposed to be ordered by God's wisdom that the other nations would look at them and they would say, what's so different about them? It must be Yahweh. They were supposed to be able to look at the nation Israel and see God's Word in action. They were supposed to see God's people following Him. And it was supposed to be attractive. They were supposed to be light in darkness. All the nations were supposed to be drawn to Israel. But they never were. They looked at Israel. They saw nothing but people just like them. There was only a few faithful, a remnant of faithful, but the nation at large continued to go after other gods. The nation at large did not order themselves according to God's word. The nation at large was foolish. Friends, we're supposed to be a shining light. We're supposed to be God's people, no longer a race, no longer a nation, but God's people, not united by race. Not united by nation, not united by our social interests. We're supposed to be united under the headship of Christ. And when visitors come, when people look in, they're supposed to see the love of Jesus Christ. They're supposed to see something different about us. Not that we dress nice on Sunday, but that we love one another every day. We care for one another. The second way God fulfills His promise to bless all nations through Israel, well, it comes very particularly from Romans 3. God brings His word to all people through Israel. The Israelites provided us the Old Testament. That was a great blessing that Israel got to have. They have the oracles of God. They have all the promises. And they present the promises and proclaim the promises. So, Israel is used to bring about God's truth. But third, and most importantly, Israel was a nation from whom God would produce the Savior of all the world. This is the great blessing. This is the blessing that trumps those other two blessings. Because Israel failed to be obedient, God sent His own Son to be obedient. Jesus Christ was born a son of Abraham, a son of David. It is through Jesus Christ and His work that Avram is a blessing to all nations. It's the one seed of Avram, of Abraham, that blesses all people. It's that one seed, Jesus Christ, who is perfectly God and perfectly man, who came to die on the cross for our sins, who came and rose again to give hope of eternal life. That's the blessing to all the world. One man was called out of every nation and given great promises. And from that one man came another man. And he was obedient. He did not fail. He was obedient to death on the cross so that his obedience, his righteousness could be bestowed upon us when we believe in him. And our disobedience could be bestowed upon him so that wrath of God would be removed from us. Jesus Christ is the one who reverses the curse, who takes our judgment and gives us life. How do we participate in this blessing? How do we participate in this blessing? Just like Abraham, we believe God's promise. There's nothing new in the way you were saved in the Old Testament and the way you were saved in the New Testament. There's nothing new at all. Avraam is saved from his sins. Avraam is declared righteousness because he believed. He heard God's word and he believed it. We're saved the same way. We hear God's word and we believe it. Now, the difference is Avraam was hearing a small promise that would blow up into great fulfillment. We get to look back and see promise after promise after promise and fulfillment after fulfillment after fulfillment. We get to see the greatness of God's entire promise and all the promises that He makes in the Old Testament. And we get to watch Him throughout all of the Old Testament history, be faithful to that promise. We get to see the great fulfillment in Jesus Christ. We get to read the New Testament and see over and over again, especially Matthew, this was done in accordance with the Old Testament promises over and over again. We have more of a foundation to believe in. We have more reason to believe because we know the fulfillment. We can participate in the blessing by believing in His death on the cross and His resurrection. We must believe God's Word. We are true believers. We must see ourselves as true Israel, which means we are the children of God because of our faith. And we must see that God calls us out now to be a blessing. We are now the children of Abraham because we believe in the promises. We are now children of God. We are sons and daughters of God, because we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And we are now called to be a blessing to all the world. How are we supposed to do this? Well, it could be we're supposed to be a blessing to all the world by being the nicest people in the world. We're the hardest workers, the people who smile, the people who greet, the people who say, God bless you when people sneeze. We try to help people and care for them. That is a good way to be a blessing to all the world, but that's not the blessing the world needs. Our lives should not be a distraction from the gospel. Our lives should be an attraction to the gospel. But the blessing the world needs is the one that they're going to most resist. And it's telling them about their sin. It's telling them about the great Savior. The great blessing that we need to give to the world is proclaiming the Gospel to the world. That's our great commission. That's what should define us. That's what must define us. Nothing else. We must be marked by those who are so committed to Jesus Christ that we're going and we're teaching others what He taught us in the authority of Christ. We must be evangelists. If you want to follow and you want to participate in this grand plan of God that we can see beginning now and you can follow throughout all the Old Testament, if you're a part of God's plan of salvation, believe in Jesus Christ and then proclaim Him faithfully. Do you realize what a great opportunity and privilege this is? To be able to bless the world, to tell them the one thing they must know? We're supposed to be evangelists. We're supposed to be so moved by the love of God that we want to love others. We're supposed to love them so much that we need to tell them what's wrong, so we can tell them about the righteousness of God. We need to be committed to evangelism. Well, what does evangelism look like? I pray that we will be a church committed to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, first and foremost, in our immediate spheres of influence. That's our children. That's our parents, that's our siblings, that's our neighbors, our friends and our co-workers. Are we sharing the gospel? Well, I've come up with five basic steps to make us, I believe, more faithful in our gospel proclamation. This is what it should look like. One, pray for opportunities for evangelism. That's bedrock. If you're not praying for opportunities for evangelism, it shows a heart that's content in your own religion and content to let others die and go to hell. If you're not praying for opportunities to show the gospel, are you really believing the gospel? Secondly, focus on those who are closest to you. Don't go out and look for just cold contact evangelism. Pray about those who are in your immediate sphere of influence. Pray for those that you talk to every day. Pray for those who you already have a relationship with. Third, commit to the long term relationship. Commit to the long process. I have some friends here and a couple of them or all of them were involved with a couple named Zhang and Long. They're from China. And they were baptized while I was out of town. And I feel like I was robbed by that. I'm glad they were baptized. But they came to UofL to be students. And I believe through Riley and others, the gospel was shared with them over and over again. And it was a year-long process of having Bible study, having conversation. You just saw the zeal continue to grow in these evolutionary atheists. communist. But after hearing the word of God over and over again, after being invited into home after home after home, the entire church, the entire church of Third Avenue Baptist, where I came from, was committed to these two who were open to the gospel. And after all those relationships, all the hearing of the gospel, we've got to celebrate in their baptism. What a glorious work of God, what a glorious opportunity. Now, somebody would have said, they're not hearing the gospel, not believing it quickly. We're going to move on. That celebration would have been lost at Third Avenue. Friends, that's the kind of relationships, that's the kind of evangelism we need to be committed to. See, there's a beauty in you inviting your friends in and letting the church participate in your evangelism. And it may take a long time. It may take lots of hours. How glorious a celebration. God is patient with us in our sin, we must be patient as he works in others in their sin. Four was it may take a long time, be patient. Five, trust the power of God's word. Don't make Christianity sound fun. Don't make Christianity sound easy. Don't weaken the message. You're a sinner. You've offended God with your entire life. God's wrath and judgment will be upon you. But He has sent a Savior to take your wrath away and to give you righteousness. You must believe in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, and that He will return. You must commit your life to taking up your cross and following Him. The power of God's Word, not your cleverness. As I walk through that, and I've walked through that a number of times in my own head, I want to confess, I feel hypocrisy all over me. I have not shared the Gospel individually with anyone since I've moved here. I have been able to share the Gospel in this context, That's just half of my responsibility. My responsibility as a Christian is to share the gospel with other non-believers in my day-to-day. And I have many excuses. I haven't met a lot. I've shared the gospel here to non-believers every Sunday. I have lots of excuses. It's been a busy transition and a hard transition. But none of them excuse my duty, my responsibility. The joy I can actually have in sharing the gospel individually with non-believers. I have not led you in sharing the gospel with individuals. And so let me now lead you in repenting of our not sharing the gospel with individuals. Let us repent of that. Let us repent of our not committing ourselves to full gospel work. I praise God for His forgiveness. I pray that you will forgive me. I pray that we will work together for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, as I thought about it, it's a failure to pray for evangelism. It's a failure to pray for opportunities. I have not committed to God, trusting His word, trusting Him to bring the people into my context, trusting Him to give me opportunities. That's where I failed. And I pray that we will not fail there together. Our second main point that I think we can see from Genesis, and this focus is more from 10 to 20. God is faithful when we are faithless. Amen. God is faithful when we are faithless. This comes straight from 2 Timothy 2.13, which is just a great summary of this passage. If we are faithless, He is faithful. This is a true and trustworthy statement. He has provided all the promises to Abram, knowing that he's going to fail. He has stayed with Abram. He saves him from himself. Friends, when we fail, it does not mean we've lost our faith or God's good favor. When we fail, it's not you being removed from God's love. When we fail, it's us thinking of ourselves too much and not God enough. When we fail, it's taking our eyes off of the cross and the resurrection and the return and thinking about the circumstances. When we fail, we're overwhelmed with what's happening around us and to us. And not trusting that God's mighty arm is moving, even though we can't see it moving. with us not believing that God is ultimately good, that he has declared us as children, and that he will deliver us in every circumstance. My friends are with me, and as always, they want to take care of Lisa. They know what kind of a person I can be. So they asked, how's your marriage? And I said, well, I'm less of a failure than I was when we first got here. And one of them wisely said, well, isn't that the way it's supposed to be as a Christian? Yeah, profoundly simple. You're supposed to be failing less. You're supposed to fail. If anyone's not failing, we need to have a conversation, because you're not realizing your sin. But the point is to fail, and fail well. Fail in the Gospel. When you fail, you don't get overwhelmed with guilt. You get overwhelmed with the love of God that He loved you anyway before you ever failed. When you fail, turn to other brothers and sisters in Christ and let them counsel you with the Gospel. We're going to fail. If you don't realize your failure, you've built self-righteousness all around you that you're blind. We confess we're all sinners. We confess we're all completely depraved. We confess Jesus Christ and his forgiveness in our failures. Do not let failure be an opportunity for Satan to kick you while you're down, but for Christ to prove to you his faithfulness, for Christ and the church to pick you up and show you who stands in the right hand of the Father, to love you in your weakness, Friends, expect failure. Don't live in it. Expect failure. But fail in the gospel. Fail and take your failure to the cross and let Him comfort you. Let Him remove your guilt and your fear. Have courage in the gospel. Christianity is not for the weak of faith. Christianity is not for those seeking an easy life. Christianity is for those who want to courageously follow and trust the great and reliable and dependable Word of God. Let us commit to being courageous, faithful believers who proclaim Him. Let's pray. Father, we praise You that You are faithful to us. You are faithful to Your promise. You are faithful to those of us who have been fighting against You. You called us out from fighting against You. And then even in the midst of our failures, Lord, You continue to call us back to You. What great love. What a steadfast love Lord, let us not take it for granted as an excuse to sin. Let us not take it for granted as an opportunity to fail and not recognize it, not repent of it, not to receive counsel for it. Pray that we be a church that loves one another as failures. And those failures are an opportunity for us to come together and glorify You more in the midst of our weakness. And that we be a church that goes out and proclaims Your great victory over all of us who have sinned against You. Your victory over sin and death. Your victory that we can participate in by faith. Spirit, grant us that courageous faith. And let me pray. Amen.