The Story Of Abraham

Introduction

As you know, our family focus for this year is rooted and built up. Taking from Colossians chapter 2, verses 6 and 7, and as a way to help us to be rooted and built up, the shepherds have implemented some programs for us this year. One is our Bible classes that we’re doing, our adult Bible classes that we’re doing online. We’re doing the history and geography of the Bible story. And if you haven’t joined us with that, I want to encourage you to join the Zoom meeting, or you can watch that on Facebook Live as well. Another thing that attempted to help us be rooted and built up is our Bible reading program. We’re reading through the epistles this year, from Romans through Jude, with an attempt to not just read, but to meditate and study and spend some time in the letters that God wrote his children.

As they do this week. In our study of the history and geography of the Bible story, particularly the Old Testament Bible story, tonight’s lesson will be on Abraham. And coincidentally, in our Bible reading, in the book of Romans, we’ve been reading about Abraham. That Abraham stands as the father of the faithful. And Paul gives him as the example of one who was justified by faith, but also by grace. Such that Paul would say in places such as Romans chapter 4, in our most recent reading, in Romans chapter 4, he says of Abraham’s journey of faith, Romans 4, verse 16, therefore it is of faith, that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

Abraham is our father. In what sense is Abraham our father? Abraham was the father, I believe, in multiple senses. Number one is he was the father of the Jewish nation. We’re going to talk about the promise that was made to Abraham, and a part of that promise was that God would make of him and of his descendants a great nation. And so in that sense, he was the father of a nation. But as Paul here in the book of Romans and also in the book of Galatians will point out that Abraham was not just the father of those who shared his Jewish lineage, but he was the father of the Gentile Christians as well, because of their faith.

I believe Abraham is the father of us all in another sense as well, because those promises made to Abraham did not simply include the fact that he would be the father of a great nation, but that through him all peoples would be blessed through his seed. And so we are his father, either if you have Jewish lineage, you’re his father, he is your father genetically, whether you are just a Christian who shares the faith of your father Abraham, and in another sense, he is our father because we are reaping the blessings of this promise made to Abraham. And so as our two studies collide here in the story of Abraham, I thought it would do us well this morning to talk about Abraham and to try to draw some lessons from Abraham’s faith and of his journey of faith.

1. The Story of Father Abraham

As we start this story, I want to remind you, as we’re going to study tonight again in our Bible class, the story of Abraham takes place in the book of beginnings, the book of Genesis, chapters 12 through 25. Tell the story of Father Abraham. And in a very reader’s digest condensed kind of way, let’s remind ourselves of that journey of Abraham that starts in Genesis chapter 12. We’re introduced to a man by the name of Abram, he’s first known. And he’s about 75 years old when we’re first introduced to this man Abraham. He is the son of Terah, and while he is residing with his family in the Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham receives a call from God. And God’s simple instruction is to leave and to go somewhere.

And I’ll tell you later where you’re going. And so with much of his immediate family, Abraham leaves Ur of the Chaldees and makes their way to Haran. And they stay there until his father dies, and then they make their way further under God’s guidance. But while in Haran, in Genesis chapter 12, God gives Abraham a promise. Sometimes we refer to it as the promise singular. Sometimes we refer to it plurally, promises of Abraham. It’s really one promise that has multifacets to it. We simplify this many times for memorization’s sake, don’t we, to three major components. That he would make of Abraham’s descendants a great nation, and to that nation he would give them a land. And that through his seed, all peoples of the earth would be blessed.

Nation, land, and seed are the major components of the promise that God makes to Abraham. Now, promises have been made before. And sometimes promises can be just fulfilled almost instantaneously, but other times promises such as this one need some work.

And that his seed would be a blessing to others, then something must happen first. Abraham and Sarah must have children. But at the age of 75, they have none. All they have is a promise. And so Abram journeys to Canaan, and he is told there that this is the land that you or your descendants will possess. But a famine overtakes the land, and so they leave and they go down into Egypt, and we learn why Paul would point out in the book of Romans that even Abraham had to be saved by grace, because like Abraham and like all men, all have sinned, and Abraham ends up lying to Pharaoh while he is in Egypt. After the famine is over, Abraham and his nephew Lot begin to return back toward Canaan.

But a problem arises because they are so wealthy, the blessings of God have already started to flow. Because they’re so wealthy, they have so many flocks and people that they cannot stay together and they have to separate. And Lot chooses an area of land, and Abraham moves back to where he was before, toward Shechem, where he had built an altar to the Lord and where God had given him the promises that we know so much about. When we get to chapter 14, a war breaks out. And a war that doesn’t affect directly Abraham, but it direct it affects directly his nephew Lot. Because Lot is captured during this conflict, and Abram, not surprisingly, goes to his rescue. Because he is so powerful in the people and the servants that he has amassed, and because God is blessing him, he is able to rescue his nephew Lot.

And famously and curiously, on the way back from rescuing Lot, he runs into a man by the name of Melchizedek, who is both a king and a priest. And who the New Testament would tell us would be a foreshadowing of our king and priest, our high priest Jesus Christ. In chapter 15, Abraham, Abraham has received the promises, but in chapter 15, a covenant is made. Abraham asks about the promise. The promise that through his seed all people would be blessed, that his descendants would become a great nation. And at this point, he still has no children. And so he questions God. And God seals that promise with the giving of a covenant. Abraham and God join in this covenant that seals the promises. But Abram and Sarai are still a little concerned that this promise is not yet being unfolded.

Not to their satisfaction, at least. And so Sarah concocts a plan and she gives her handmaid Hagar to Abram to have children through her. As unusual as that sounds to us today in our culture, it wouldn’t have been that uncommon in those days. So they thought maybe, maybe they thought God needed help in fulfilling this promise. And so a son, Ishmael, is born from the union of Abraham and Hagar. But God reminds Abraham and tells him that I will fulfill the promise. This is not the son. This is not the son of promise. That’s about 86. Abraham’s about 86 when Ishmael is born. Eleven years have transpired approximately, and the promise has not started to unfold yet. In chapter 17, God seals this promise again, but through not a covenant, as in chapter 15, but now through the rite of circumcision.

He commands Abraham at the age of 99 and Ishmael and the other participants in the household of Abram to be circumcised, to show their commitment and their relationship to God. But still, no son. At least not one through whom God said he would fulfill the promise. But in chapter 18, something happens, a strange encounter. Three men come and visit Abraham, two of which we’re told later are really angels. These people have a message for Abraham. They have really a dual message, kind of the proverbial good news and bad news. The bad news is the territory of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot, his nephew, had chosen to live, is going to be destroyed because of its wickedness. But about this time next year, you and Sarah will have a son.

Abraham famously bargains with God to try to spare Sodom and Gomorrah, but is unsuccessful because of its pervasive and rampant wickedness. But Lot and his family are given the opportunity, we remember, to escape the destruction of those cities of the plain. And Lot is saved. And initially his family is saved, but in another way, his family is lost. His wife looks back and we remember is turned into a pillar of salt. And maybe, just maybe, because of the influence of where they lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, his daughters are lost. They commit incest with their father, and from them is born two sons, Moab and Benami. Become the fathers of great nations themselves, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Abraham pulls his old trick again as he lied to Pharaoh in chapter 20.

He’s going to lie to Abimelech, really the same lie. Deceives Abimelech and Abimelech sins because of that. But then in chapter 21, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, certainly the moment that Abraham and Sarah have been waiting for, maybe much of their lives, certainly since God had given them the promise, and that’s the birth of their son Isaac. Finally, almost 25 years after God initially made this promise.

Problems, as not surprisingly, they would arise between Hagar and Sarah and Isaac and Ishmael, and so Ishmael and Hagar are sent away. With a promise that he would become a great nation as well. But just not the nation that God had promised. And so here it is. The promise has been given, the promise is starting to be fulfilled, to be fulfilled, that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky, the sand on the seashore. They would be a great nation, possess a great land, and some special seed would be a blessing to all of God’s people and of all of mankind. But then God issues a challenge to Abraham to take his son, his only son, the only son of promise, to offer him as a sacrifice.

He’s old enough to carry wood for the sacrifice, to carry enough wood that would have burned up an animal that would have been offered in sacrifice. And so Abraham obeys God.

And again starts on a journey. A shorter journey this time, but a much more difficult journey. He comes to the land of Moriah and Isaac.

Says, Father, we have wood. And we have a fire. But where is the sacrifice? Abraham says, God will provide. And Abraham’s faith, as Paul would point out in his letter to the Romans, faith is demonstrated so powerfully as he begins to obey God and to offer his son as a sacrifice upon that altar. But God stops him. And he’s told that his faith has been demonstrated. And that again the promise would come through him and through his son. Chapter 23 of the book of Genesis records at the age of 127, Sarah’s death and burial. She’s buried in the cave of Machpelah, the burial plot that Abraham owned in the land of Canaan, which really was the only real estate he himself would ever own in that land of promise, though his descendants would own it all.

2. Abraham Had a Willing Mind

And then his story concludes, where all stories conclude, with his death and his legacy. And Abraham’s story ends in Genesis chapter 25. That’s a quick synopsis of the story of Abraham, which is a story of faith. And he is the father of a nation. And he’s a father of a spiritual legacy of those who by faith would walk like Abraham. And so let’s talk about the walk of Abraham. Let’s talk about the mind of Abraham. What about Abraham makes him the prototypical example of faith and the father of the faithful. One thing we notice about Abraham is that Abraham had a willing mind. We could phrase this a lot of different ways. We could just say faithful. We could say obedient, but I like the phrase willing mind.

Abraham was willing to do what God asked him to do no matter what. Go back with me at the beginning of that story in Genesis chapter 12. In Genesis chapter 12, it says, beginning in verse 1, the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your kindred and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Verse 4, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.

And Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Abraham did what he was told. That sums up the life of Abraham, doesn’t it? He willingly obeyed God. We need to have the same willing mind. That whatever God asks of us, no matter how challenging, no matter how confusing, no matter how contrary to what myself and my own selfish desires might want for my life, I need to be willing to submit and to obey God. Another thing we notice about Abraham’s willingness, that so many times in the story, when Abraham is told to do something, even when he’s told to do something like sacrificing his own son Isaac, that is extremely unpleasant and contrary to what he himself would want, the text over and over again emphasizes, I think intentionally, that when Abraham did that, it says he arose early in the morning.

3. Abraham Had a Worshipful Mind

I don’t know about you, but many times if I have an unpleasant task, I put it off. And I wait. But Abraham accepted the challenge and was willing. And started his day with the willingness to obey God. We need to be willing to step out in faith. We need to be willing to let God make us what he wants us to be. We need to be willing to grow in our faith and to accept the challenges. Abraham had a willing mind. Abraham also had a worshipful mind. I started to put up the map. We’ll look at that tonight in our class, the map of Abraham’s journeys. Abraham, for the most part, was a no-man. You could trace Abraham’s journey not just by a line on the map, but if you were one of his contemporaries, Abraham would have been easy to find.

Because he always left behind him a trail of altars. Look with me. Start in Genesis chapter 12. We read verses 1 through 4 where God called him to leave his homeland and family. Look now in chapter 12, verse 6. It says, Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the Terabinth tree of Morah, and the Canaanites were then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, To your descendants, I will give this land. And there he built an altar to the Lord who appeared to him. Then look in chapter 13. He went on his journey, verse 3, chapter 13 of the book of Genesis, verse 3. He went on his journey from the south as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and I, to the place of the altar which he had made there at first, and there Abraham called on the name of the Lord.

Just two examples of Abraham building altars, calling upon, worshiping him. And then, of course, famously in chapter 22, the altar that he built to sacrifice his son Isaac. In fact, in Genesis chapter 22 and in verse 5, Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. The lad and I will go yonder and worship. And we’ll come back to you. That’s the first time the word worship appears in our Bible. Now I’m not saying that’s the first time people worshiped, obviously that’s not the case. It’s not the first altar that was built, not the first time people called upon the name of the Lord and are worshipped, but isn’t it interesting that the first time the word worship is used, it involves Abraham. Abraham was a man of worship.

4. Abraham Had a Sacrificial Mind

The word worship just literally means to bow down before. And Abraham did that. And we need to have the mind of Abraham, our father. And to worship. We worship God because He is worthy of our worship. We affirm, this is what worship does. We affirm Him as our superior. We show honor to one who is deserving of that honor. And we pay our deep reverence and respect, like Abraham did. And lastly, Abraham. He had a willing mind, a worshipful mind, and Abraham had a sacrificial mind. Now that ties in with worship, obviously, but sacrifice really goes beyond worship. And really, if we think about it, if it’s the way it ought to be, both old covenant and new covenant, worship goes beyond worship itself. Do not confine the concept of worship to what is done in this building collectively.

Yes, it is worship. But if we truly and fully bow down before our God, our worship goes beyond this building. That mind stays with us. That mind of reverence and awe and respect is not confined to the walls of any building or to the stones of any altar. It becomes a part of who we are. It was a part of Abraham. Abraham was a man of sacrifice. His life was a life of sacrifice. His journey, the journey that we know about, begins with a sacrifice. Leave your home and your family and go. That was a sacrifice. And that mind of sacrifice reaches its pinnacle on a mountain. Outside of Jerusalem, of what would become Jerusalem. When Abraham sacrifices his son. And although God would stop his hand and the sacrifice would never really take place, it was still a sacrifice, wasn’t it?

A sacrifice of his faith and of his willingness. And we’re to be people of sacrifice. Look with me in the book of Hebrews, chapter 13. When we think of sacrifice, we think probably of Old Testament sacrifices. And when we think of Old Testament sacrifices, we think of worship services. That was the way they worship God. They went to church, so to speak, at the temple, and they offered up sacrifices. And that’s certainly a key component of the idea of sacrifice, but really the idea of sacrifice went beyond just fulfilling some obligation in some kind of religious rite and service. The whole concept behind a sacrifice was that it was to cost them something. They were condemned for offering the lame and the blind in the book of Malachi.

In fact, they were commanded to offer up in these religious services to offer up their best, something that would cost them something. If you see a lesson was being taught. A lesson that went beyond the tabernacle in the temple and the altar and the church building. That we’re to be people who are willing to sacrifice. In Hebrews chapter 13, notice the Hebrew writer’s use of sacrifice in at least two senses. Hebrews 13, verse 15 beginning. Therefore, by him, that’s our priest, Jesus Christ, by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. I believe the idea of sacrifice there in the fruit of our lips, whether that’s talking about our singing praises to him, or if it’s just by glorifying God by our speech, that there’s the idea of some offering to God.

But then in verse 16, sacrifice takes on a deeper meaning when he says in Hebrews 13, verse 16, but do not forget to do good and to share. For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. This isn’t a sacrifice that’s offered in some religious service. Doing good and sharing. It’s another form of sacrifice in which I truly give of myself. And if we understand anything about the concept of sacrifice that pervades the scripture, that the doing good and sharing cannot simply be from my excess. I have too much. Take some of the extra that I won’t use. That doesn’t really fit the definition of sacrifice, does it? But do good and share. For with such sacrifices speaks to the essence of sacrifice. That it is giving of self.

Self truly selflessly that we see in Abraham that makes us one of his children. And more importantly, one of God’s children.

Conclusion

And a sacrificial life. To be like Father Abraham. And to be blessed as he was blessed by his seed, who is Jesus Christ. Would you come to him this morning and begin your journey? As far as we know, Abraham’s journey started about the age of 75. At what age will your journey of faith begin? It can start today.

But will you step out in faith? Come to him, obeying his gospel, believing in him, repenting of your sins, and to be baptized for the remission of your sins, offering a sacrifice to God this very day. If we can help you, why not come? As together we stand and as we sing.

What a glory.