From the Start - Part 23 | The Covenant Inaugurated (A Genesis Sermon Series Part 24)

We will be in chapter 12 this morning.

In chapter 12 marks a transition in the Genesis story.

We generally divide Genesis up into two sections, 1st 11

chapters and then 12 through 50 after that.

So things will be a little bit different here from this point

on then what we what we covered earlier.

So I hope you're enjoying it. I am and I am learning a lot.

Yeah. It's amazing how many times you

can read something, you know, I don't know how many times I've

read Genesis over the years. And there's always something to

learn. When our family left the Bay

Area and moved to Iowa in January of 2011, in a sense we

made a move by sight. Sure, it was a huge step of

faith, but we had the luxury of the Internet.

We were able to look up and see what Eldridge and the Quad

Cities had to offer. We could see what kind of people

lived here. We could check rental prices for

homes. I was able to go online and see

if there was a Chipotle here. There wasn't, and I determined

the closest one was in Iowa City.

Then I asked people on Facebook what my options would be when I

needed a Chipotle fix and they said, oh, go to Pancheros and

Qdoba. Those are your best options.

Not great options. They do not satisfy when you

need Chipotle. Before ever visiting the Quad

Cities, we already knew a lot about it.

Leaving our family behind in the Bay Area was enormously

difficult to do, and it was a huge step of faith.

But in some sense, it was calculated.

We had a home lined up to live in for at least a few months.

I had my position as worship pastor at Cornerstone, and we

were beginning to develop relationships with people

through Facebook, all helping make things up just a little bit

less scary for the webs. Abram, He didn't have the luxury

of the Internet. He didn't have the luxury of

consulting Google. When he made his move, he first

moved 600 miles northwest with his with his father, Tara and

family. Now he was about to move another

400 miles southwest, not knowing what's and who awaited him

there. So this morning we'll examine

Abraham's move that was purely by faith and way out of his

comfort zone. If you're able, would you stand

as we read from Genesis chapter 12 verses one through 9?

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

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, 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 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, Abram passed through the

land to the place that shechem to the oak of Moray.

At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

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.

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. And Abram journeyed on, still

going toward the Negeb. You may be seated now.

Last week Genesis 1131 read Tara took Abram his son, and Lot the

son of Haran his grandson, and Sarah his Sarah his daughter,

daughter-in-law, his son, Abram's wife.

And they went forth together from ur the Chaldeans to go into

the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran,

they settled there. So they left ER, which is down

South of Babylon, and headed towards Canaan, but ended up

making a long layover in Haran. Why did they make this trip?

Well, it was simply because it was God's call to Abram.

Verse one read. 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.

God instructed Abram to go to Canaan.

And when we consider this strictly from the immediate

context of Genesis, the timeline of when God called Abram isn't

so clear. Had God called Abram while he

was in Quran? Or had God called Abram when

they were still in err, thus precipitating the move with Tara

and his family? Fast forward nearly 2000 years.

Stephen was being interrogated by the Jewish Sanhedrin.

The false accusers claimed that he was preaching against the

Temple and against the Torah. Acts 613 and 14 read.

They set up false witnesses who said this man never ceases to

speak words against this holy place in the law.

For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will

destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses

delivered to us. Stephen spoke with immense

wisdom as the Spirit moved in him and and they just couldn't

compete with his words, so they brought him to the Jewish

leaders. That is the Sanhedrin in Acts 7

one through 4, the high priest asked are these things so

meaning it? Is it true that Jesus said he

would destroy the temple? And Stephen said, brothers and

fathers, hear me, the God of glory appeared to our father

Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, that is when he was

in ER before he lived in Quran. And he said to him, Go out from

your land and from your kindred, and go into the land that I will

show you. And then he went out from the

land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran.

And after his father died, God removed him from there into this

land in which you are now living.

So Stephen gave us the timeline when Terrace family was still

living in UR. God revealed himself to Abram

and told him to go to the land that Yahweh would show him.

From the text it seems that they'd intended to make their

way all the way West to to Canaan, to the promised land

that we call it, but for some reason they got stopped in Quran

for a good number of years, possibly even 60 years.

When Tara Abrams father died at the age of 205, Abram continued

the rest of the journey to Canaan.

At the age of 75, God had called Abram to something unknown to A

to a land he'd never been to and where we had no connections or

relationships. Verse 6 tells us Canaanites were

in the land so there would be people Abram would have to

contend with. Also, the name of the place

Abram had been called to wasn't exactly flattering.

Canaan means humiliated and is from the word kana to bend the

knee, humiliate or Vanquish. They were cursed because of

Ham's behavior, would one day be servants of Israel and they were

despised by everyone else. That's who the Canaanites were.

It's good to remind ourselves that when Abram was called, his

understanding of Yahweh was was quite limited.

Joshua 24 two reads. Thus says the Lord, the God of

Israel, long ago your father's lived beyond the Euphrates.

Euphrates terror, the father of Abram and of Nahor, and they

served other gods. Tara and his family served in

the NA and other false idols of UR.

This was their natural tendency and if they if they knew

anything of Yahweh at all, it was probably in the context of

throwing Yahweh into the mix with the with their false idols

that they worshipped. Yes, somehow, likely in

Abraham's youth, Yahweh had called to Abram and said go to

Canaan. This was a pivotal moment for

Abram, as God called him to a place that he didn't know to

worship a God he didn't yet fully know, so that he could be

part of the story of bringing God's redemption to the world.

Yahweh had called Abram to reject those other gods and to

worship him alone. That's the call that went out to

Abram. Leave your country and and home

and go to a place that I will show you.

So next we look at the Abrahamic covenant.

As we begin looking at the covenant, we first want to

consider what a covenant is. Now, a covenant was a formal

contract in the ancient Near East.

It involved two parties, usually a superior, and that superior is

referred to as a suzarin and the subordinates as a vassal.

This contract was legally binding.

There are two basic types of covenants.

There's a promissory covenant and an obligatory covenant.

A promissory covenant unilaterally boundless sovereign

to the vassal. In this case the the sovereign

or the OR the suzuron was committed to taking care of the

vassal and to meet the vassals needs.

An obligatory covenant bound a vassal to the suzuron in a in a

servant like role outlining the vassals obligations to the

suzuron. Should the vassal not uphold his

side of the covenant there would be consequences or or curses as

it's sometimes called and the covenant would become null and

void. In the Old Testament we see four

primary covenants. As some people will say, there's

other covenants. Yes there there are other forms

of covenants, but there are four primary covenants in the Old

Testament. First of all is the Noah

covenant. This was a one way covenant

where Noah and his and the rest of humanity didn't need to do

anything. God had made a promise the earth

would continue to be evil and filled with sin, but God made a

promise to not destroy it again. Then there was this one, the

Abrahamic Covenant. It governs God's unique

relationship with Israel, giving them a home and a special place

in God's eyes. And 3rd is the Mosaic covenant.

This is the covenant Yahweh established with the nation of

Israel declaring that if they would obey His laws then they

will receive blessing for it, but if they don't obey His laws

then they would experience curses.

Then lastly is the Davidic covenant.

One day one of David's sons would reign on the throne and

and establish God's peace and blessing over the nations and

for the rest of eternity. Now normally when two parties

wanted to establish a covenant, first they would set the terms,

then animals would be sacrificed and their carcasses would be

arranged on a ground, on the ground in a manner that created

a a path through them. So 1/2 on one side, the other

half on the other side. Creating a path passing between

the halves of the animals was a sign that each party swore to

uphold their end of the covenant.

This was the norm when establishing a covenant.

But this isn't what happened with Abram in chapter 15.

Here, in a few chapters, we'll see that Abram prepared the

animals and and made the path. But when the moment came to

ratify the covenant, God put Abram into a deep sleep.

And then only God, only God in his glory, passed between the

animals. God was the only one to ratify

the covenant, meaning that God's people, that is, the vassals in

this covenant, couldn't break this promissory covenant.

There were no stipulations for Abram to keep, and God was

forever committing himself to Abram and his descendants.

That's what a covenant is. But now let's look at

specifically at the three promises of the Abrahamic

covenant. Some will say, oh, there's 3.

Some will say there's four promises.

Some will say there's seven promises made here.

Yes, you can find all these things, but we will distill it

all down to three promises that are made here.

The first promise begins in verse 1 and culminates in verse

7. God said to Abram in verse one,

go from your country and your kindred to and your father's

house to the land that I will show you.

And then verse 7 says, then the Lord appeared to Abram and said

to your offspring, I will give this land.

God promised Abram land. So what was the land that was

promised to Abram and his descendants?

Well, we can see a representation of that on this

map here. The purple section outlines

everything that God had promised Abram and his seed, and this is

outlined. We'll come back to the map in a

moment. This is outlined in Genesis 1518

through 21. It says on that day the Lord

made a covenant with Abram saying to your offspring, I give

this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the

river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenozites, the

Cadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Raphaim, the

Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites

Parasites. No, I no, all the, all the

sites. So the southern border, if we

look at at the map again, the southern border, the river of

Egypt, some people say, oh, the river of Egypt, that must be the

Nile River. No, it is not generally

understood to be the Nile River. The river of Egypt is generally

understood to be Wadi al Arish, which is a dry riverbed that

that floods during the rainy season and and it it's there in

the Sinai Peninsula and it flows N to the Mediterranean Sea.

The northern border is the Euphrates River all the way up

in Syria and Turkey. Then there are all sorts of

other markers in the text to help us understand the borders

of the land God was promising to Abrams descendants.

The green is the the land Joshua's generation actually

settled. That is what they settled when

they came into the promised land.

And then the red outline is the modern states of Israel.

Of course with the West Bank cuts out of it.

Now Yahweh had promised Abram that he would receive all of the

land in purple, yet at no point in its history have Abrams

descendants ever occupied all of this territory.

So that's the the first promise. And the second promise was to

make Abram a great nation. The second promise is to make of

Abram a great nation. Verse 2 says, And I will make of

you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name

great. Remember Genesis 1130 told us

Sarah I was barren and she didn't have a child.

However, in chapter 15 God tells Abram his descendants will be as

numerous as the stars. It must have been hard to

imagine that coming to be, and it would still be another 25

years before Yahweh would fulfill this promise to Abram.

The 1st 11 chapters of Genesis showed humanity determining

right and wrong for themselves, exercising their own wisdom to

seek their own fame. The builders of the city and the

tower or ziggurats and Babel sought to make a name for

themselves. Yet here God said that He would

make Abram's name great. Chapter 12 is a demonstrable

shift. A follower of Yahweh received a

name simply by divine grant. A great name points not only to

Abraham's reputation, but also to the fact that God would

literally change Abraham's name. His name was changed from Abram,

which is high father, to Abraham, which is father of a

multitude. One day there would come a

literal fulfillment of the promise to make of Abram a great

nation. But the promise didn't stop with

physical descendants. Galatians 3, seven through 9

says this. Know, then, that it is those of

faith who were the sons of Abraham.

And the scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the

Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel was beforehand to

Abraham, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham,

the man of faith. The true sons and daughters of

Abraham aren't just those who are physically descended from

him, but are those who share in his faith.

Romans 416 says Abraham is the father of us all.

The third promise in the Abrahamic covenant was that he

and his posterity would be a blessing to the world.

They would be a blessing to the world.

Verse 3 reads In you all the families of the earth shall be

blessed. This is the spiritual component

to the promise and and it centers around the fact that

Yahweh had chosen Abram and his future family to be the ones

through whom God would bring salvation to the world, the ones

through whom the seed of the woman would come.

The blessing lies in the fact that freedom from the curse that

was this freedom was prophesied in Genesis 315.

It was to come through Abram and his family.

A couple thousand years after Abram, a new covenant would be

established by Jesus the Christ, the Messiah.

Jeremiah spoke of the new covenants being the ultimate

fulfillment of this blessing. Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through

Jeremiah 31:31–34

34. There's a number of slides here,

but I have it all on the screen. Behold, the days are coming,

declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the

House of Israel and the House of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the

day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of

Egypt. My covenant that they broke,

though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of

Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their

hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor, and each his

brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from

the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember

their sin no more. This is the blessing, God

forgiving sin and putting it out of His mind one day when when we

realized the ultimate fulfillment of that blessing,

we'll have full knowledge of Yahweh.

Now let me read verses 2 and 3 again, 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.

Now there's a lot that I can't necessarily go into this morning

about that blessing, but but the use of this word bless or a

derivative of it is mentioned five times.

The text is communicating something new to us.

This is a new sentiment, something different than than

what we primarily saw in the 1st 11 chapters.

There were a few times where where God would bless His

creations, but now God was imparting blessing through this

particular family line. And the repetition of the verb

bless reverses the predominantly negative experiences of chapters

3 through 11. Now through Abram, people

everywhere can experience God's favor.

This is a profound turning point within history and the book of

Genesis. God had called out to Abram, had

told him of the promises to come.

And so now we look at Abram's response.

First of all, Abram had a response of obedience, verses 4

through 6 read. So Abram went as the Lord had

told him, and Lot went with him. 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.

Abraham's responsive obedience meant that he took his whole

entourage. It wasn't just Abraham, Sarah

and Lot making the journey. By this point, after some

probably 60 years in Quran, Abram and Lot had acquired a

pretty large retinue of people. Yahweh had materially blessed

them and and they had many belongings and people who worked

for them helping take care of the animals and all their

property. Everything that needed to be

done. Abram responded to God in

obedience. He could have chosen to not

obey, instead staying in the comforts of Quran.

It was a nice city with a number of beneficial amenities,

especially since it was at the crossroads of an important trade

route. Instead, Abram chose to step out

of his comfort zone. He heeded God's call and opted

for a life of nomadic tent dwelling.

Abram responded in obedience to Yahweh.

He also had a response of worship.

Verses 7 and 8 said 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. 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.

Building these two altars was a response of worship.

Now, you might be wondering, what exactly was an altar?

What did it look like? Well, throughout history there

have been varying versions of altars.

They could be something from a single simple large stone,

perhaps a pile of unworked stones, or or something much

more elaborate like the temple altar.

Something like you see there on the on the right altars were

erected out of devotion to God and were a place to offer

sacrifices. They also served as a claim on

the land and A and a testament to future generations of what

God had done. So Abram built these two altars

at Shechem and near Bethel. Now Shechem is in Samaria or the

West Bank and is about halfway between Jerusalem and the and

the Sea of Galilee, and it becomes an important location.

It's not just the the scene of Abraham's first altar built in

worship to Yahweh, but Shechem is strategically located in the

past between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim.

This is where, hundreds of years later, Joshua calls the people

to recite the blessings from Mount Gerizim and the curses

from Mount Ebal. Joshua also built an altar on

Mount Ebal to renew the covenant that had been given to Israel.

Abram's altar at Shechem near the Oka Mori was the first of

four altars that he built. The second altar he built, by

the way, the altar that Joshua built there.

I just saw this. This just happened to be had an

e-mail sent to me that showing where it was and the remnants of

it. Kind of amazing to see something

like that. The second altar that that he

built was between Bethel and AI. The label Bethel actually is is

a later edition because at the time when Abram was there, when

Abram built the altar, this was actually called loose.

And this place is just 20 miles South of Shechem.

Now there's speculation that that this might be Abram's altar

at loose. We don't know for sure, but it

seems to be quite old, so perhaps that's it.

And that looks much more like 1 of the larger altars.

Loose eventually becomes important in the story since

loose is where Jacob has has a dream of a stairway to heaven

and and he renames the place from loose to Bethel, meaning

House of God. So Abram's building an altar was

a Worshipful response and in a sense it it laid claim to the

land that Yahweh had promised them.

Abram's responses of obedience and worship were also

expressions of faith. So his responses of obedience

and worship were expressions of faith.

Hebrews 11, verses 8 and 10 read by faith Abraham when when he

Hebrews 11:8

Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that

he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not

knowing where he was going by faith he went to live in the

land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with

Isaac, and Jacob airs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations

whose designer and builder is God.

As I mentioned earlier, when Abram arrived in the land that

the Canaanites were there. These were the descendants of

Ham, the recipients of the curse after Ham humiliated his father

Noah in the tent of. These were cruel, corrupt people

and and they become quite problematic in in Israel's

history and in the biblical story.

Abraham had left all the comfortable environs of UR and

Quran. Now here he was roaming around

the wilderness, living in a tent and hoping for the best as he

attempted to occupy this land that God had promised, but which

was already inhabited by problematic people who no doubt

would not have wanted him in the land.

But Yahweh was with Abraham and his entourage.

It was in this setting that God issued the covenants, the

promises of land, a nation and and to be a great name and also

to be a blessing to the world. And this is the first

significant covenant in Israel's history.

How would Abraham respond? How would his descendants

respond? God promised the land to them.

Would they go in and take it? They certainly become a great

nation of people and and we have become recipients of the

blessing promised to Abraham. As we close, it's good for us to

consider our own lives. Yahweh's first call is first of

all, for us to receive the blessing that comes through

Abram, to receive victory over the curse, victory that comes

through Jesus Christ. Beyond that though, the question

is what's your response when God calls you to something great and

perhaps even fearful or daunting?

Do we respond in obedience? Or does your obedience take a

long time, possibly looking more like disobedience, just as Abram

was in Quran for 60 years after he had received the call?

When you respond, is it begrudgingly or is it in the

spirits of worship and submission?

Yes God, I will do what you say. Lastly, where's your faith?

Do you struggle to believe that God will do what he said he'll

do? Or do you boldly step into that

calling, knowing full well that God will provide for what he has

called you? 2 When God calls, he provides.

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes as we approach this

time. We look at our our own lives and

and you may have something before you that looks daunting.

These can be all sorts of things from maybe work a new position

that is you feel like you're in over your head.

Maybe things are difficult at work and you're hoping you can

just stick it out. Raising children to be followers

of Christ. Influencing people around you.

There are a number of things in our lives that could be

potentially daunting, but God has called us to influence and

to reach those around us. So the question is, how will we

respond? Do we lack faith or will we

respond in faith, trusting that God will work when we step out?

God will work in the parenting of our children.

God will work in the situation at our job.

God will work and whatever it is that that seems daunting and and

nearly impossible, trust in him. He's great.

He's greater than anything that we face so trust that he will

work. God, we thank you, thank you for

your presence in this place this morning, Your word to us, the

model of Abram stepping out into something that would have seemed

quite daunting and then his faith to trust that you would

work as you said. May we follow his example.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.