Uncomfortable Obedience

All right, this morning's text is from Genesis 12, 1 through 9.

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 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 seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran, and Abram took Sarai 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 of Shechem, uh to the oak at Morah.

At this 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 journeying on journeyed on, still going towards Negeb.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

So as you can tell, James is uh he's not here.

Um he he's in Florida uh performing a wedding, so he gets to see some warm weather.

You all you all get to see me.

So um my name's John Kushneroff, and I'm an elder here at Redemption Church Denver.

Um we do have one announcement.

Uh we've got we've been doing these Bible study classes, uh, two in the fall, two in the spring, or uh winter spring.

And uh this next one's gonna be kicking off uh January 27th, so that's a week from Wednesday, and it's gonna be a study on community.

Um we'll be going through Bonhoeffer's uh life together as as the text.

James will be teaching it.

Um it's really a great time, so it's it's eight weeks long, but it's four classes out of eight weeks.

So every other week for eight weeks, uh we provide food and childcare.

So um just a great way to get kind of a deep dive into uh something with some other people in our church.

Um with that said, I'm gonna go ahead and pray and uh we'll go ahead and jump in.

God, um, thank you so much for being so gracious to us.

Um God, I just ask that this morning you would just open the hearts of those listening.

Um, God, please speak through me.

Um I just ask that I would be just a conduit for your word this morning.

Um, Lord, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would fill this place and that the words that you intend uh for me to speak would penetrate uh the hearts of those listening.

God, help me to speak clearly this morning as we move through your word.

Thank you for everything that you have done for us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, so let's go ahead and jump in.

Um what we're gonna be uh looking at this morning is is three things out of this text.

So, first, we're gonna be looking at just what is a covenant.

So we're just gonna define a covenant, and that's really gonna set up kind of what we're gonna be talking about over and over again as we move through the book of Genesis.

Um second, we're gonna look at Abram's calls.

We're gonna zero in on that moment that we just read where God actually calls Abram.

And then third, we're actually gonna look at how this applies to us.

So we're gonna look at the covenant, the call, and then we're gonna apply it to our own lives here.

So, first, let's just simply define what a covenant is.

So, a covenant is a solemn bond sovereignly administered between two or more persons with attendant blessings and curses.

Okay, so a covenant is a solemn bond sovereignly administered between two or more persons with attendant blessings and curses.

Really simply put, a covenant is simply how God has chosen to relate to his creatures.

Okay, so last week James did the rapid recap of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which we moved through last year.

And what we found in that is every single time man sins, God comes and he intervenes into the story.

First in the garden, right, when Adam and Eve they sinned.

God clothes them and then brings them out of the garden.

Then we see the flood, we see rampant sin covering the world, and God again deals with that sin, floods the world, and preserves one man's family, Noah.

And then you fast forward a little bit further, and we come to the Tower of Babel.

And we've got all these people who had this command to go and scatter themselves throughout the earth, and they didn't.

Instead, they decided to glorify themselves, build a huge tower.

Again, God intervenes in the story, scrambles the languages, and they have to scatter.

So here now we find ourselves at the beginning of Genesis 12 with a man named Abram.

And once again, God is intervening into our story.

But this time it's different.

This time, what he does is he intends to make a people for himself.

He intends to make a new nation that he will use to bring about the redemption of the entire world.

See, from Abram, later called Abraham, eventually will come David, King David, and then from there you fast forward a bunch more years, and that will, there will come Jesus.

See, so this means that we as Christians are actually from the seed of Abraham.

So it's important to understand this.

God puts covenants in place throughout Scripture with his people.

It's also important to understand that these covenants are not fragmented, they're not disjointed, but they're actually all connected and they're all consistent.

So this is why we read our entire Bibles.

See, the Old Testament and the New Testament are not disjointed, but rather it's one whole story, all of which is pointing to Jesus.

So when you hear people say things like, you know, well, that was the God of the Old Testament, or, you know, well, the God of the New Testament would have done this.

See, that's just that that's a wrong way of thinking.

See, it's all the same God, and it's all the same story.

This will help us understand the character and the consistency of God better.

See, an example of that way of thinking actually uh is um was written in a book uh by a pastor named Andy Stanley in a book called Irresistible, and he says this in his book.

He says, By the time we finish our journey together, I hope you'll be ready to unhitch your faith and your theology and your lifestyle once and for all from the old that Jesus came to replace.

See, this is a dangerous way of thinking.

This is a wrong way of looking at the Bible.

See, in fact, the New Testament actually refers to the Old Testament 855 times and directly quotes it 283 times.

See, so what that means is that what God starts here with Abram is for you.

See, what is fulfilled, not replaced, but fulfilled in Jesus, is for you.

And what God says in his word, his entire word, is for you.

It's all about Jesus, it's all pointing to him, it's all the same story about a gracious God redeeming his people.

I also think sometimes when uh that that kind of that wrong way of thinking is a way of taking the Bible, taking the gospel into our own hands.

And I think we kind of want to maybe make it a little bit more palatable, maybe a little bit more presentable.

And we and we think that if we disregard or downplay the Old Testament, that we can we can do that for people.

But the truth is the word of God, the whole word of God, can stand on its own.

And it is the gracious gift that God gives to his people so that we might know and understand him better.

So this is something I really want to draw your attention to because we're um in the weeks to come, we're gonna be moving through more of the book of Genesis.

And in the book of Genesis, we're gonna see this idea of covenant and promises come over and over again.

And so I want you to look at this as part of your redemptive story.

I want you to value the time that we spend in the Old Testament and not disregard it as something that's just merely historical or something that um that isn't as relevant as when we're working through the New Testament.

So this is where it all begins for us.

This is where our redemption story begins, not just for the nation of Israel, but for all of us.

See, thousands and thousands of years ago, God sovereignly put into place a covenant with Abram that actually affects you.

So let's let's drill, let's kind of zoom in a little bit.

Let's look at that moment.

Let's look at that moment of Abram's call.

So Abram's call was actually very simple.

God basically said, leave your home and go to the land that I will show you.

Um it sounds pretty familiar, actually.

It's a similar way that we see Jesus calling his disciples.

So here in Mark 1, 16 through 20, we look at that.

It says, Passing along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

And Jesus said to them, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.

And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

And going on a little further, he saw James and Zebedee, the son of James and Zebedee and John, his brother, were in their boat mending the nets.

And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

See, God uses similar language throughout Scripture, and it's very similar.

He calls them away from their old life, and he promises them something.

He makes them a promise.

In this case, the disciples, he tells them, I will make you fishers of men.

And we obviously, as time goes on, we see how that gets built out, and where Jesus eventually builds his church on these men.

In Genesis 12, we see that same language.

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 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 will be blessed.

So in both places, what we see is being called to an uncomfortable obedience.

He said, Abram went out not knowing where he went, but he did know with whom he was going.

See, oftentimes I think we like to, we talk a lot about what is it that God is calling you to?

And I think that's a great question.

I think that's something that's that's worth um exploring and worth talking about.

But today, I'm gonna ask a slightly different question.

And that is, what is God calling you away from?

What is it that God is calling you to leave behind?

So what idols are you clinging to?

Is it um the idol of politics?

Are you still putting your faith in, well, if this man just gets elected, if these policies just get passed?

Is it the idol of control?

In a time that's been just so crazy, are you just clinging to maintain control of your life so that you just don't go nuts with everything going on?

Even fear can be an idol.

But I'm here to tell you this morning politics won't get us out of this mess that we're in.

The control that you seek is actually an illusion, and it won't bring you the comfort that you're looking for.

And fear.

Fear does not come from God.

When we walk in faith and obedience to Him, we have nothing to fear.

See, our only hope, our only hope is in Jesus.

And operating outside of Him will leave you completely bankrupt.

See, we saw this already in the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

Every time that we as humans operated outside or without God, we messed everything up.

When Eve ate the apple, before God flooded the world, the Tower of Babel.

And this was just in the first 11 chapters of the first book of the Bible.

We got to messing it up real quick.

See, we think that we know better than God.

We seek our own glory, and this is why we so desperately need a savior.

We need a gracious God to come down and say, You are my people, and I will save you.

In a book, uh in a book called Um The Christ of the Covenants, a man named O.

Palmer Robinson, because apparently you have to initial your first letter if you want to be a theologian.

So O.

Palmer Robinson, he wrote this.

He says, In Jesus Christ, God fulfills his promise.

In him, God is with us.

He offers his own body and his own blood as victim of the covenantial curse curses.

His flesh is torn that God's word to the patriarch might be fulfilled.

So that God's word to the patriarch, to Abram, Abraham, would be fulfilled.

So I don't know if you guys have noticed, but uh 2020 was kind of a crazy year.

Um and it turns out 2021 has kind of come out the gate swinging too.

Um so what do we do?

What do we do as Christians?

Well, speaking of the New Testament, referring to the Old Testament, we see this in Hebrews 11, 8, 8 through 10 and 13 through 16.

It says here, By faith 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, in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking, and I love this, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

These all died in faith, these referring to the ch the people before Abraham, Noah, Moses.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth.

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, 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, for he has prepared them a city.

See, this concept right here, this is this is the already, but not yet.

So I don't know if you're familiar with that term, but the already, but not yet.

So what this simply means is that we are living now.

The kingdom of God is here.

The kingdom of God has won and has accomplished his plan, but at the same time, we don't get to see it in its full glory yet.

But we will.

See, this is our hope that Jesus came once to die and to save us from our sin, but that he will come again in glory.

And when he does, he will set everything right.

And he will complete his redemption in this world.

So, do you ever wonder why we as Christians sometimes feel so uncomfortable here, maybe just a little bit out of place?

Do you ever wonder why we look around and we see a culture that's actually at odds with the word of God?

See, this is why.

This is why, because God's work is not yet complete.

But we can rest in his promises, just like Abram did.

God promised to make him a great nation.

And he did.

God promised that a savior would come from his lion, and he did.

And God promises that he's gonna return once again in glory to redeem this world.

And he will.

So what do we do with that?

What do we do now?

Do we just do we hunker down, wait for Jesus to come?

Get us, it's just to get us out of this mess that we're in?

Do we do we cower in a world that we just think, ah, it's just going to hell in a handbasket?

No.

No, not at all.

So with that idea, with that concept, I want to take a moment and kind of just speak to this place we are in history, this cultural moment that we all find ourselves in today, in January of 2021.

You know, the word uh unprecedented has been thrown around a lot, right?

Everything seems to be unprecedented.

Well, I want to add a little bit of perspective and hopefully a little bit of hope, too.

So, right now, we live in a country that's politically divided, almost right down the middle.

We've been living in a global pandemic for the better part of a year, and it's really difficult to see what even the immediate future holds.

Well, this isn't the first time in history that things have been really hard, that things have kind of been turned upside down.

So I want to share with you a quote from C.S.

Lewis, and he wrote this, he wrote this in 1948, and a little bit of context.

So by the time so by 1948, when he wrote this, Lewis had lived through the Spanish flu of 1918, which was a global pandemic, by the way.

He uh he lived through and fought in World War I, in which he was also wounded.

And then he lived through World War II.

In England, mind you, where they were actually like bombing London.

Um and then when this was written in 1948, the cold we were just on the brink of the Cold War really heating up with the real threat of the Soviet Union using atomic bombs at that point.

So, with all that in in mind, this is what he said.

This is the first point to be made, and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together.

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible.

Human things.

Praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.

They may break our bodies, a microbe can do that, but they need not dominate our minds.

See, what he's saying here is that in a crazy and uncertain point in history that he was living in, he was able to say, I'm not going to live in fear.

You see, he wasn't ignoring the situation that he was in, which was real, by the way, but he was also not letting it paralyze him and consume him with fear.

See, these are the words of a man who understood that God is in control of the story.

He also understood that we do have a part to play in it.

And that part is to engage in the beautifully normal things that are in our lives.

Things like friends, things like music, work, coming to church.

See, God has been incredibly gracious to his people.

So gracious, in fact, that when we got ourselves into this mess of sin, which corrupted everything, he got us out.

He entered the story, he called a people to himself, he died, and he rose again so that we might become his people.

So today, I want you to consider what is it that God is calling you away from?

Are you trusting in God's promises?

Are you still clinging to idols?

Are you living in fear?

If you are, that's okay.

Repent.

Repent and ask God to bolster your faith.

He is gracious and he will do that for you.

See, God's promises are real and they're made for you.

So let's take heart.

Let's be a people who move through this city with boldness and confidence.

Let's be a blessing.

Let's love.

Let's pray.

Let's pray for those who are our enemies.

Let's pray for those who don't agree with us.

Let's be a light in a world that so desperately needs Jesus.

And let's trust in a God that kept his promises to Abram that will do the same for you.

So I've got one more quote also by C.S.

Lewis, but I just think it so beautifully captures the hope that we have as Christians as we are looking toward the promises that God has made us.

This one's from uh this is from the last book in the Chronicle and Narnia series.

Um this is always a little bit of an emotional one, especially for those of you who who have read these, but uh it's just so great.

He says this.

And as he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion.

But the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.

And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after, but for them it was only the beginning of the real story.

All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page.

Now at last, they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one has on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

So let's pray.

Let's pray, and then we're gonna take communion and we're gonna worship together.

God, um thank you for being gracious to us.

Thank you for being a God that keeps your promises.

Thank you for being a God that doesn't leave us to wallow in our own sin, but instead graciously saves us.

God, I pray that we would be a church, that we would be a people that cling to your promises, that move through this city with the confidence that you've given us, not seeking our own glory, but seeking yours.

God, thank you for sustaining this church.

Thank you for those that are here.

I just pray that this would be an encouragement to those that are listening this morning.

I pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.