Genesis: Needing Constant Outcomes or Knowing His Constant Nearness

So we've been going through different stories in the book of Genesis, just jumping our way through, not hitting every story, not hitting every verse, but hitting a lot of different stories.

What we've been discovering, what we've been seeing, is that these stories are so rich.

They're layer after layer of truth, and they're also pointing forward.

All these stories are pointing forward toward Jesus and the coming Messiah.

So this week we're going to be looking at the story of Abram, which means exalted father.

Later his name becomes Abraham, father of many.

And so we're going to be looking at the story of Abram.

And maybe you aren't from church, you don't remember it, but most of us you hear the name Abraham, and right away you think, what do you think of?

Father Abraham had many sons.

Had many sons had Father Abraham.

So the Sunday school song sort of makes it feel like this just was so easy, right?

Like, I mean, he was promised to be a father of a whole bunch of people and a great nation, and Jesus would come out of this nation for the world, and just Father Abraham, just hey, here it is, nice and easy.

But the reality, the story, the story is one of a lot of confusion, disappointment, huge mistakes, unfaithfulness on his part.

It's a story of life.

And yet, through this guy, through this guy, Abraham, God gives his covenant to a nation and then gives his covenant to the world and to us.

And so when we say covenant, what we mean is we mean God's secure promise to us that he's with us and he's for us.

And this story raises some huge questions.

It raises questions like, what should I expect out of life and how life works?

How do I deal with the unknowns in life?

You thought you were heading one direction, you thought something was going to happen, you thought something was going to work out and it didn't, and now everything's unknown.

And how does that work?

Is God really always with me, or is that something preachers say?

Is he really with me in huge, massive heartache and disappointment?

Is he really with me in my unfaithfulness and my messiness?

So let's look at the story.

Genesis 12, let's start in verse 1.

The Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.

He said, I'm with you, I'm going to help you, I'm going to guide you, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

So we're not sure how this played out without this voice part of it is in his head.

We don't know.

We're not sure if some sort of miraculous audible voice.

What we do know is this is strange enough to get a guy to pack it up and to leave.

I mean, can you even just imagine this?

I mean, you get this prompt, first you get this command, leave, pack it up and leave.

And here's the promise.

All these great things are going to happen in your life, but there's no plan.

I'm not going to give you a plan.

I'm not going to give you any like certain steps of how this is going to happen, but I'll be with you, I'll guide you.

You won't be alone.

I'm for you.

Verse 4.

So Abram went as the Lord had told him.

And Lot went with him.

Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran.

He took his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

They just leave.

They just leave.

They take off.

They pack it up.

I mean, can you imagine this?

You're packing it up, and your neighbor walks over and you're packing the RV, everything's going in.

Where are you going?

Not really sure.

Right, why are you going?

Heard a voice.

Right.

Great.

Okay.

How long have you been gone?

Don't know.

Don't know.

So what's your plan?

Don't know.

Don't know the plan.

Don't know the plan.

Just going.

Just called.

Just headed out.

Packing it up.

All my people, got my people.

They're all in the RV, got my stuff.

I mean, can you this is this is the scenario.

This is the situation.

Leaving your land, leaving your area, leaving your home to go somewhere else.

And you got these promises, but you have no plan.

Abram hears and he leaves, but there's no explanation of what will come tomorrow.

There's no Waze app.

Anybody using Waze?

Right?

We're so addicted to Waze.

So Waze is an app on your phone, and you need to explain this.

And so Waze is fantastic.

I mean, it's tracking, just so you kind of know how it works, it's tracking everybody who's on Waze, it's tracking everybody ahead of you in the future of where you're going and then reporting it back to you so that you have no uncertainty of where you're headed.

She is guiding you.

You have the plan.

It's 18 turns to Peachtree City.

It will take you 43 minutes.

If anything changes, she'll tell you right on the spot you need to make this turn because this happened up there.

There's no uncertainty.

And how do we all feel with ways?

Unbelievably secure.

Right?

We feel wonderful.

The other morning I woke up early.

I woke up for me early.

I woke up at like 6 and I got ready and I get out in the car.

It's about 6 30, and I need to get to Atlanta to a meeting.

And so I type in the coordinates where I'm going, and I hit the button, and she calculates and she tells me it's a little bit different route than I would have thought.

Feel kind of good about that, don't you?

When that comes up, like you got in on a secret.

And then you feel so secure.

37 minutes.

Great.

No uncertainty.

I know exactly how long this is going to take.

You just feel so good.

Oh, there's a broken down blue Chevy up on the right.

You turn the corner, there's the blue Chevy.

I don't know how she knew it.

She knows it.

It's amazing, right?

We love it.

We love all of that certainty.

And for Abram and for life, this is not how life works, right?

It is nothing like this.

We don't get the details of tomorrow today.

We don't get what's up the road.

We don't get that coming to us today.

We live step by step.

And we can plan and we can pray and plan, and we can get wisdom for planning, but we don't know tomorrow.

And for Abram, it was years of fumbling about.

Because this creates a lot of anxiety.

It creates fear.

It creates some unhealthy actions.

And so he's settling down somewhere for a little bit for weeks, for months, and then he's moving on.

There's sort of this restlessness.

He's deciding, well, this place isn't quite for us.

In verse 7, he gets a promise.

He gets the promise of land again, but still no plan, no timetable, no 37 minutes to Atlanta.

There's no concrete plan given to him.

Can you imagine the frustration that that would create?

I'm going to make you the father of so many.

You're going to have so many children.

You're going to be the father of a great nation.

I'm not going to give you any game plan.

No timetable.

See, a concrete plan is what we think will set our hearts at rest.

But it's not.

It's only dependence on God that sets our hearts at rest.

And he knows this.

That's why we don't get a concrete plan.

And that's why the journey is the point.

I'm reading the story this week.

I'm reading it over and over again, Genesis 12, Genesis 13, 14.

I'm just reading over and over again.

And I'm just thinking over and over.

Man, it's just the journey.

For Abram, it's just the journey.

It's not that he gets concrete steps and plans and timetables of everything and how God's going to do it.

No, it's that he's having to be dependent upon the Lord each step, step by step by step.

And we see it again in verse 9.

Then Abram set out and continued toward Negev.

Then Abram said, like just like one step had it, and then the next step starts, and he goes somewhere else.

And it's just the whole story, just stage by stage.

Doesn't life feel like guesswork at time, right?

Like what's going to come next?

We aren't quite sure.

And we hold on to this promise that He's with us and He's for us and He's working.

But the WaysApp has not shown up in my Bible.

I've been looking for it, I really want it, right?

You want it, I want it, we're looking for it.

And you know, some guy on Christian television is promising us something, and people love that and grab hold of that.

But it doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist.

And listen, here's the point, main point.

When we constantly need the outcome, we miss his constant nearness.

That's the main point.

I'm going to say it in several different ways.

I'll come back to it, but that's the point.

That's the point of the sermon.

Is when we constantly, when we are needing the outcome, the type of need that creates fear and stress and anxiety.

When we constantly need the outcome, we miss his constant nearness.

And then when we constantly need the outcome, we start to grasp instead of trust.

And when we start to grasp, we risk doing some very unhealthy things, which is exactly what Abram does.

So back in the story, the second half of Genesis 12, due to a famine, Abram and his people end up down in Egypt.

Abram gets down there and he looks around.

There's all these wealthy guys, powerful guys, and he looks around in his situation and he says, I have no ability to kind of protect my people, much less I have this beautiful wife, Sarah.

And I know what they're gonna do.

They're gonna knock me off and they're gonna take her.

So here's what I'm gonna do.

Sarah, sweetheart, love you.

Let's pretend like you're just my sister, not my wife.

Let's pretend this and that way I'll be protected.

Everything's gonna work out.

This is a great plan.

Great plan, you know, Abram.

Sure, this worked out great for the rest of his life from his wife.

Sure, he never heard this again in his life.

Because what happened is, right?

Uh babe, do you mind can you can you do some wash?

Can you remember to do some wash today?

Right?

Do you remember when you sold me to Pharaoh?

Do you remember that?

Yeah, I remember that to do your own wash.

Appreciate it.

So he pretends Sarah is his sister, and Pharaoh takes her into his household, meaning takes her as his lover.

I mean, just hideous, right?

I mean, a horrible, hideous, awful thing to do.

And he does it because he's afraid of tomorrow.

He's afraid of what might happen.

The stress, the anxiety, the fear, the need to know an outcome creating such a disaster.

Doesn't it just irritate you to not know tomorrow?

I mean, to not know about that job and how that's gonna work out or that thing at school or how the future is gonna work out.

I mean, it can drive me nuts.

It can create in me a ton of stress not to know what us, what we as a church look like in two years or in six months, and two years, and five years, right?

And I don't I don't know.

All these all these little personality things are starting to develop in my girls and my children.

You know, and you see them and you wonder, like, I wonder how that's gonna play out.

Like, I wonder if that's gonna get worked out, I wonder if I got how much parenting we need to do there, I wonder what the Lord's gonna do with that.

I wonder, oh, I wonder what boy is out there growing up somewhere else, like in Iowa, and they're gonna meet somewhere and they're gonna marry, and I wonder about him, and there's all these all these unknowns.

And what about the market?

What about your money?

What about your home value?

What about that home you you you're gonna you think you're gonna buy, you think it's gonna be a good investment, but you're not sure.

What about your your job?

What about your marriage?

We were at Antico's Pizza down in Atlanta on Wednesday night, and so date night, we were down there, and so best pizza in Atlanta, it's fantastic.

And so there's a couple big rooms and there's big community tables, and so basically it means you have your own conversation and you listen to other people's conversations.

And so Christy and I are there and we're eating, and two girls sit down, caddy corner from us, and very cool, we're right near Georgia Tech, so it's clear they're probably tech students, and they sit down and they're talking, and one says to the other, I just can't wait.

I I just wish it was 10 years from now.

I would be 32.

It would be so great.

But we know this feeling, right?

I mean, I know it.

I'm 35.

I'm going, oh, if it was just 10 years from now, right?

Like all the tension I feel and the uncertainty, surely it'll be gone when I'm 45 or when I'm 65, right?

I mean, all the tension I experience now, if it if I was just down the road a little bit further, surely this goes away.

I I love a good atlas.

This has been my atlas since 07.

And so this is an atlas is uh, Jack, so it's paper, it's maps on paper.

So you can't don't try to, you know, don't try to enlarge it or anything.

It doesn't work that way.

It's just what it is.

I love this is how I I got around, right?

I mean, we who who used to carry atlas in the car, right?

I mean, this was it, and then I had my Metro Atlanta.

I could get anywhere anytime.

I don't need anybody, I don't need to stop for quite I don't need I don't need web service, I don't need anything.

This is wonderful.

It's wonderful.

And you can look on here and you look at all, I mean, look at this.

This is this is our state.

I mean, all it's all on one page.

You get to see it all at one time, not just one little part, and you're enlarging, you're moving it over.

It's just all one.

It's wonderful.

And so we uh this week we figured out we're gonna go see my cousin in San Francisco in May.

And so uh, you know, I go get my atlas.

She lives in San Francisco.

Let's let's figure out what's what's around there.

What could be a day trip?

So I you know, get the San Francisco you know map in here, and then California several pages, and then get the California map and map everything out.

Oh, we can go down to Carmel, we can go to the Monterey Peninsula and look at the routes and everything, get it all planned out, and it feels so good because you're in control.

Love it.

I love the at I'm in love with the Atlas.

And we just wish life was like this, right?

We we wish just if I knew if I if I know I go to ex college, then why will happen?

Oh, what's gonna happen when I'm 54?

Okay, that's what happens.

Okay, when I'm 37, how's it how's it play, how do the next three years play out?

Well, if I go down this road, then that's how it plays out.

I mean, this is what we want life to be like.

Like our our little, you know, your little boy, you know, Jojo, who's sick, is he gonna be okay?

The job, is it gonna work out?

The home, is that gonna happen?

The cancer, will it go away?

The years of waiting for a child, will it ever happen?

Because for Abram, it's been eleven years.

And has any of that meant anything?

And he and Sarah are very old at this point.

And again, Abram decides not to trust and live in the journey and what God has for them and that step, but he decides to grasp.

And he sleeps with Hagar, Sarah's maidservant.

So now Abram's made the mistake twice.

Twice he gave up on the journey of what God was doing in the journey in order to try to secure an outcome, right?

And it goes back to he's trying to get control of an outcome instead of just realizing and trying to trying to just get in tune with God's constant nearness.

When we constantly need the outcome, we miss his constant nearness.

And his constant nearness is actually what we need.

That is actually what sets our hearts at rest.

So I I've been fortunate to have been to Venice, Italy twice in my life, which sounds incredibly snobby.

I I mean I even thought about it.

It's so snobby, but it's not snobby because the first time I was a poor college student, I slept in train stations.

You know, I mean it was it was not a wonderful experience, it was just okay.

And the second somebody else paid.

So it's not as snobby as it sounds, but it really fits the sermon, so I had to go with it.

And so the first time I went, poor college student had my Frommer's book, which is like an atlas, right, in terms of control.

I mean, so you have your Frommer's book, it's just telling you what cafe, you have all your maps, you have everything you need to get around this city, which is a maze of canals and alleyways and little bridges and squares.

And so I'm there, me and my buddies are there, and I got the Frommer's book, and we are walking around, don't want to get lost in this huge maze.

And so just constantly walking around trying to get to the big sites and the cafes they recommend.

And so you're just, I'm constantly, nose is in the book because it is a maze.

You're going, are we here on the map?

And you stop and you ask somebody, are we here?

And they're, yeah, and they kind of do this and point you up, and you don't know what they're saying, but you're trying to work with them, and it's more alleys and bridges, and you're constantly worried about where am I at?

And here's what I realized is I missed two-thirds of Venice because my nose was in the book.

Like I was so worried about getting every turn right that I missed so many of the buildings, so many of the bridges.

So I'm at home, it's probably a couple years later, I'm watching Rick Steves.

Anybody watch Rick Steves on PBS?

It's a good nap, by the way.

Rick Steves will put you to sleep.

But he's like the godfather of Europe.

Rick Steves is the godfather of Europe.

And here's what he said.

And I heard him, and it was like gospel truth to me.

He says, When you're in Venice, don't use a map.

You're on an island.

Just settle down.

Put the map down because you're going to miss it.

What you do, know the name of your hotel, know a big site near your hotel, and then go walk around.

And then when you get tired of walking, ask somebody where that big site is near your hotel and start to work your way back toward it.

And so the second time we go, and I'm going, Rick Steves, got it, gospel truth, got it.

I'm with Rick Steves.

And so we get there, know Frommer's book, and we do it and get to experience and walk around.

Walk right by.

Everybody has their like heart and soul, nose into the Frommer's book, and just get to walk around free, just get to walk around.

Get to experience every bridge, every building, every canal.

I simply missed it the first time.

Right?

The point was the journey and who I was with, but in my desire to control every moment, I missed it.

I actually missed the moment.

Because I wanted to control it all.

See, all of this, the uncertainty of what is coming up the road, is about learning to walk in the goodness and sovereignty of God today.

So here's what we do.

We refuse, and when we need to, we repent of our desire to constantly control everything.

And we seek the one who is constantly near us.

Right?

We seek Him to know His nearness and His goodness and His sovereignty.

And here's the good news with us for us.

The good news is that your bedroom and your kitchen, your car, and your cubicle and your garden, your classroom, these places are just as holy as the prettiest church sanctuary you've ever been in.

Your school library.

So you you can worship and you can pray and you can journal and you can seek to know him and his nearness to you.

You don't have to be in a location to do this.

And step by step, this is what we do.

We seek not to constantly know the outcome of everything, but seek to know his constant nearness to us and to remember, right?

This is what Abram did not do.

Remember over and over and over and over again the promise that he is with us and he is for us.

And though it's been 11 years, he's not done.

He's faithful.

God just keeps speaking this promise in the story.

In Genesis 15, verse 2, the Lord speaks to Abram in a vision.

Genesis 15:2

Do not be afraid, Abram, I'm your shield, your very great reward.

God keeps speaking it into Abram, even after all this unfaithfulness, these huge mistakes.

And what we see in Abram is that God's faithfulness is enough for all of our unfaithfulness.

The promise is enough.

Jesus is enough.

See, out of Abram came the great nation of Israel, and out of Israel came the Messiah, came Jesus, the fulfillment of the promise.

In the book of Acts, in the New Testament, Peter's preaching, so Jesus has died, he's resurrected, the church is beginning.

Peter's preaching to a group of Jewish people who know the story, they know about Abram, they know Abraham.

And Acts 3.25 says this, and you are heirs, so Peter's talking to these Jewish people, and you are heirs of the prophets.

And this can come to us as well.

You are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers.

He said to Abraham, Through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed.

And Peter is preaching about Jesus.

This is in a sermon about Jesus.

So when he's saying this, Peter's saying, Jesus is the promise.

See, all of this, these stories are pointing to Jesus, and they're pointing to our need of him, our need of God's grace in our lives, because we are constantly grasping for outcomes, for control, and it's idolatry.

Because we're not God and we don't know tomorrow.

And what we should be going after is to know his constant nearness to us.

And that Jesus takes all of this idolatry and this unfaithfulness and he takes it upon himself on the cross and he gives us his faithfulness and his righteousness.

If your faith is in yourself to control it all, to know it all, you will never be at rest.

You will constantly be opening the atlas, obsessively looking at the Ways app for how everything's gonna work out, and you will never be at rest.

But as you place and you live in faith in Jesus and his promise that he is with you, he is for you, and even though it has been years and years of disappointment, he's doing something that's not meaningless.

He's doing something.

He's still faithful.

It's only then that your busy controlling heart can be at rest.

Let's pray together.

Father, we surrender to you our constant need for outcomes.

For many of us, it's idolatry.

It's a God in and of itself.

That in a given moment we would obsess more, we would put more attention toward what's going to happen tomorrow than how near you are.

We repent of our tendency to look for control rather than to look to you.

Help us to find rest in your constant nearness to us.

Help us to place ourselves under the great waterfall of grace that you have given to us.

To remember the covenant you gave to Abraham, the new covenant that we have in Jesus.

We pray this in your son's name.

Amen.