A sermon based upon Genesis 12: 1-20
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Disciple Series, 4 of 15, September 9,
2012
The word ‘covenant’ means promise. We rather use the word ‘promise’ because the
old word covenant has either gotten too big or too old. We might still know the definition of the
word---an agreement God makes with humans, but it just doesn’t have the meaning
and connection it once did. Covenant has
almost gone the way of dust like that old word in the marriage ceremony, “I pledge thee my troth”. “You do what?” Oh, you mean trust! And if you don’t like pledging your troth,
you might want to think about “plighting” your trust or truth? Maybe its just better we change these old
words for the new ones, like “agreement”, “contract”, or again, this word ‘promise’.
But the word Covenant is an old word for
a very good reason: it’s a very old idea.
Scripture says that whole idea of covenant started with God, not us humans. Many
of the contractual habits and legal standards of civilized life today can be
traced all the way back to God’s very first covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses
and David. If God had not made and kept his promises, I
doubt that anyone would have kept their.
Then also, there’s the new Covenant.
It is a covenant written in human blood, not just the blood of just any
human, but it was written with the blood of Jesus the Christ, who said, “this is the blood of my covenant, which is
pour out for the ransom of many” (Mark 14.24).
Even if we don’t make much of the word Covenant,
the idea promise making and promising keeping is still big for us. Not much of life can happen, and not much constructive
will happen, without the covenantal practices of people who make and keep their
promises to God and to each other. The
reason for this is that we not only make promises, but promises make us. And the very same thing can be said about
“breaking” a promise. Breaking promises
will also break us. You can’t be much of
a person or a people without being people of promise.
But who hasn’t made and also broken a
promise? Being a person of your word is
one of the biggest human challenges of all.
Who hasn’t failed at it, at least
once or twice, or more? But we must
keep trying, mustn’t we? We know that God
is the only one who can perfectly keep his promise. And we don’t even know everything about how
God’s promises will turn out until life
is over. So, then, this begs a question: Is it even
reasonable to make and keep our promises today, when so many of them have been
broken, when we so often fail, or when
so many of our promises are left unfulfilled?
Is it still important? What’s the
big deal about the promise?
Our text today, centers on this ‘second’
biblical promise of God. The first
biblical promise was made to Noah, when God promised never again the “flood”
the whole earth and he sent the rainbow as the sign of keeping his promise. But this second promise is even bigger. It may even be more foundational than any of
the promises yet to come. For as the
apostle Paul reminded us, the “blessing of Abraham” is the promise that fulfilled
to us by having faith in Jesus (Gal. 3.14).
Abraham was the very first person of the promise, who own faith filled
response to God’s promise still echoes in our own promising-making and
promise-keeping between God, Jesus and us. Abraham was the first, but not the last,
person of promise.
ANSWER
THE CALL
The promise first came to Abraham as a
“call” that Abram needed to answer. In
our text, the word says that “The Lord
Said to Abram, leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for a
land that I will show you.”
Let get right to the point. Already we can see why so many do not
experience the “blessing” in their own lives.
The problem is that they simply stay ‘home.’ You can’t experience the depth of the
blessing without hearing and answering some unknown. Sometimes you have to leave everything you
know to take hold of that cannot be known until once you let go.
I know this might sound strange to
“homebodies” or the unadventurous type, but leaving is part of learning and
experiencing the promises of God. I’m
not talking about “abandoning” your family; that is not what Abram was
doing. What Abram was doing was something
like ‘standing up on his own two feet’ and “answering the call” to go out and to
grow up from within his heart, but it was even more than that. This wasn’t just any call. It wasn’t a call to become a solider. It wasn’t simply the call to be his ‘own’ person. Nor was it a normal rite of passage, like
leaving and cleaving his new wife. All
these things may have been included in the call, but the special call to Abraham
was the “call” from his God; a call that he heard from the deepest part of his soul
and had to be answered with his whole life.
The call of God is not always easy to
decipher. We don’t know what caused
Abraham to answer the call. Other texts,
such as Hebrews suggest that Abraham answered to “go without knowing” (Hebrew 11.8) because he was “looking for a city with foundations, whose
architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11.10). Perhaps Abraham was able to answer because
there was something missing in his own world.
He was looking for more; a “city
with foundations” which only God could build. The call Abraham answered is also called the
answer of faith. It was not just “belief”
that God could do more in his life which enabled his answer, but it was the
gift of faith which God gave him. It was
not just a call from beyond, but the call from above.
Have you ever answered that kind of
call? Have you ever believed that God
could do more with you and with your life than you can do for yourself? To get to the level of faith Abraham had requires
something few people are lucky enough to know anything about. We can imagine that perhaps all the people in
Ur heard the same spiritual call in their world, but that all of them stayed
home, except Abraham. They did not go
looking for more. They did not find more. They did not receive the blessing, and they
were unable to give it. As the
Scriptures say, “many are called, but few are chosen” and could also just as
well say, “most have grown too cold and many are already deep frozen”. Only the chosen and ‘unfrozen’ are able to
hear or to answer.
BE
A BLESSING
Part of getting “unfrozen” and being
“chosen” out of an empty life and getting off a dead-end street begins with a
promise. Answering the call for Abraham depended
not just upon answering, but it also depended upon Abraham making and keeping a
promise himself. But of course, as we
see in this text, God made the promise first.
He told Abraham: “I will make you
of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great so
you can be a blessing.” (Genesis 12.2).
We must understand that the promise that
stirs Abraham’s heart is not some romantic blessing of getting some 15 minutes
of fame, getting his name up in lights, or making a mark in history. The drive for Abraham’s answering the call
comes at the very end of God’s promise, “….and
I will make your name great so you can be a blessing.” Whatever the core motivation of Abraham
was, it was not just a desire to “get”, but it was also, foremost and finally,
a desire to “give”. Blessings are not
something you can make. Blessings are
something you get. And you don’t just
“get” a blessing for the sake of getting it, but your get a blessing to pass it
along.
Think of it like the in the Movie, Pay It Forward, where a young boy, who
lacks a blessing in his own life, decides for his school project not to go out
and make something for himself, but he makes a plan to give something to
others, who also lack the blessing in their own lives, so they too, can have it
and also pass it further along to others.
I don’t know the whole motivation behind that movie, but the idea sounds
completely “familiar” and as Jewish, even deeper and more Jewish than the roots
of Hollywood itself. To get the blessing
Abraham knew that it depended, not just on the promises of God, but it also
depended upon his keeping his own promise and to “be a blessing” for the world
around him.
I don’t know what kind of stuff we’ve
been putting into our children’s head lately, but I worry that not enough of
our children are being taught these “Abraham-size” dreams. These are dreams for the world which are not
just for ourselves, but are also blessings for the world. I can remember a time, when very little in
life was focused upon oneself, at least not in the public language, but the more
proper focus was understood as finding a way to serve and bless those and the
world around you. But today’s focus is
turned more toward the self and getting the blessing we so desperately feel
ourselves to be missing. We see it in
families that have to have more and more.
We see it in churches that dwell on the church they want, rather than be
the church they are. We see it in
individuals, where the focus is more on finding the next “best” thing for ourselves,
still discontented, still dissatisfied with so much, always trying to feed our
empty and hurting souls from without, rather than finding the blessing we most desperately
crave which can only come from within, and which we can never, ever give as a
gift to ourselves. The blessing we seek
always avoids, until we can give it.
I came across a remarkable story about a
high school football game that was played in Grapevine, Texas. The game to be played was between a Christian
School, Grapevine Faith Academy and Gainesville State School, which is located
within a maximum security correctional facility. Here is how some of the story
goes:
“Gainesville State School has 14
players. They play every game on the road.
Their record was 0-8. They've only scored twice. Their 14 players are teenagers
who have been convicted of crimes ranging from drugs to assault to robbery.
Most had families who had disowned them.
They wore outdated, used shoulder pads and helmets. Faith Academy was
7-2. They had 70 players, 11 coaches, and the latest equipment.
Chris Hogan, the head coach at Faith
Academy, knew the Gainesville team would have no fans and it would be no
contest, so he thought, “What if half of our fans and half of our cheerleaders,
for one night only, cheered for the other team?” He sent out an email to the faithful asking
them to do just that. “Here’s the message I want you to send,” Hogan wrote.
“You’re just as valuable as any other person on the planet.”
Some folks were confused and thought he
was nuts. One player said, “Coach, why
are we doing this?” Hogan said, “Imagine you don’t have a home life, no one to
love you, no one pulling for you. Imagine that everyone pretty much had given
up on you. Now, imagine what it would feel like and mean to you for hundreds of
people to suddenly believe in you.”
The idea took root. On the night of the
game, imagine the surprise of those 14 players when they took the field and
there was a banner the cheerleaders had made for them to crash through. The
visitors’ stands were full. The cheerleaders were leading cheers for them. The
fans were calling them by their names. Isaiah, the quarterback-middle
linebacker said, “I never in my life thought I would hear parents cheering to tackle
and hit their kid. Most of the time, when we come out, people are afraid of us.
You can see it in their eyes, but these people are yelling for us. They knew
our names.” Faith Academy won the game,
and after the game the teams gathered at the 50-yard line to pray. That’s when Isaiah, the teenage
convict-quarterback surprised everybody and asked if he could pray. He prayed, ‘Lord, I don’t know what just happened so I don’t know
how or who to say thank you to, but I
never knew there were so many people in the world who cared about us.’”
Football sure seems like a game of
the flesh! But this coach was on to
something big. Chris Hogan showed signs
of the Spirit as he put the need to win aside (Yes, they did end up winning but
that is not the point!) and gave priority of showing love to the unloved. He showed that even in this fleshy game the
Spirit is present when we work to keep God’s promise and to bless others in his
name. (Story from Shelby Owen, http://www.trinitystaunton.org/Sermons/2011/02-13-2011SOO.htm).
This where the promise gets both its
fuel and fire: We make and keep promises
to God and to each other because we know those promises we make and keep are
the source of the blessings we need.
Again, notice what the text says next, “Abram went, as the LORD had told him.” Abram’s life was now motivated by the promise
of the blessing; and it was a blessing he got when his goal was to give it
away. That’s what God’s promise is
about; receiving a blessing and then giving and being a blessing. As Jesus is quoted to have said, “It is much more blessed to give, than it
is to receive” (Acts 20.35).
PASS
THE TEST
With the call and the promise of blessing,
also comes the test. For a while, due to
“famine in the land” Abram had to “go down and reside in Egypt as an alien.”
(12.10). The “test” was also part of the
deal, whether Abraham wanted it or not. After
Abram arrived in Canaan, pitched his tent and build his altar to God at Bethel,
trouble comes. As with Abram, also with
us, life comes not just with a blessing, but also with its tests. This is Abram’s first test of faith, but it’s
not his last. Besides this, Abram fails this
“test” dreadfully.
When Abram and his wife Sarai arrive in
Egypt to reside during the famine, Abram deals his fears by planning a
lie. It’s just a little lie, and he
hopes it will keep them out of trouble. “I know you are a woman beautiful in
appearance; and 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, so it may go well with
me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.” (12.11-13).
It’s a good plan. It
is reasonable and understandable. No one should blame Abram for fearing for
his life, for taking matters in his own hands.
Fear does all kinds of things to people.
And when things go just as Abram planned, he gets all kinds of gifts and
merchandise for trading his so called “sister” to Pharaoh. It all goes off so well. All is well for Abram, but it is not going so
well for the promise. The promise was
given, not just to Abram, but also to his wife and for the world. Now it is only Abram who is trying to hold
on to life, all based on living a lie, rather than on trust in the God of promise.
The promise demands trust and God’s
power or it will not come. It almost
didn’t. When Pharaoh finally realizes that
Abram traded his wife rather than sister, Pharaoh is outraged. It was the lie and lack of “faith” that
nearly got Abram killed. Now, it is only
God’s promise which keeps him alive.
Abram didn’t pass this test very well,
but there were more to come. And the
biggest one came after Abraham’s son was born, and God put Abraham to the big
test, the biggest “test” of his faith in the promise and his faith in the God
of the promise (Genesis 22, Hebrews 11.7).
You and I remember that test as one of the most difficult in the Bible;
as God asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son.
Perhaps it was the failure in the smaller test that got Abraham ready
for the big one. What we do know is that
even as Abraham passed the test of faith, God would not make him go through
with the sacrifice. But amazingly, though what God stopped Abraham
from doing, God himself did for us, by sending his own son, to be the “lamb” that
got stuck in the thicket and couldn’t get away.
I can’t say, nor can you, how the “test”
will come to you or to me. But the days
of testing and trials do come. “Let know one think that when he is
tempted, he is tempted of God….for God tempts no one”, says the book of
James (1.13). That is a needed
corrective to remind us that God does not send the “test” to watch us fail, but
God allows the “tests of life” to show us too, how we can succeed and receive
and give the blessing. Even before the
“day of testing” comes, says Paul, it is important that already, right now, we
“Test ourselves.” We should constantly “examine ourselves to see whether or not we are living the faith?” “Do we
not realize Jesus is in us?” He is in us, says Paul, “unless we fail the test.”
Paul is saying with call onfidence: Jesus will enable us to pass the test
that comes (2 Cor. 13.5). So, here,
with the test, is the story of Abraham becomes most real, most like us, here, at
the very moment of the test. The
promise will always be tested, but people of promise, keep living the promise. It is the promise that gives them strength to
pass the test.
LIVE
THE JOURNEY
One final word, about Abraham, and about
every life of faith. Abraham’s life was always a journey. His life was never about the destination, but
it was always about the journey. We can
see the words of truth about his life written all over this text: “go from your country” (12.1); “So Abram went” (12:4); ‘and they set forth’ (12.5), “Abram passed through…” (12.6), And Abram journeyed on in stages….(12.9),
and he also “went down to Egypt”
(12.10), and he also, “went up from
Egypt” (13:1), as if the story of the journey never ends.
In the book of Hebrews, once more we
read these powerful words, which speak of Abraham and of others how lived and
died “by faith.” “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but
from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were
strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it
clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that
they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as
it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is
not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
(Heb 11:13-16 NRS). Don’t miss those
last, but most important words of commentary on the life of Abraham, which is
also meant for the life of everyone who lives and died “without having received the promises”. Because “they desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one, therefore, God
is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them (Hebrews
11: 16).
Need I say more about what the Christian
life, and the life of a disciple of Jesus is supposed to be? The Christian life is about what life is
about. Life is not about “receiving all the promises” here and
now, but it is about making and keeping our promises to God and to each other,
and about letting God be our blessing now, and letting his promise find
fulfillment later. When you have the
“blessing” and you give the “blessing”, the life you give to God becomes the
promise itself. Your life becomes more a
journey than the destination. Your life
is more about who you journey with, rather than what you have. Your life is more about where you are going,
than where you have been. Such are the
blessings that keep pointing us toward the final fulfillment of all promises of
God. They are the kinds of promises the
world cannot give. They are blessings
which every human craves. They are
blessings which find their source in answering, promising, passing the tests,
and staying on course with God. Amen.
(C) All Rights Reserved by Charles J. Tomlin. No use for profit without permission.
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