Pastor Timothy Patoka
July 14, 2019 Joy For Our Journeys: 2nd Sunday The Journey To A Promised Land Genesis 12:1-9 1) God’s Promises Are Unbelievable 2) Faith Trusts In God’s Promises
One of the things I became used to while growing up in a military family is that moving across the country is a part of your life. By the time I started remembering life, my dad was a commissioned officer in the Air Force who got orders to move to a new base about every 4 years. While there can be a lot of negative things when a person has to uproot where they call home, I learned to focus on the positive things. Namely that we were now going to a new part of the country which offered so many new things and to see and do. When we moved from South Dakota to Virginia, I was looking forward to being minutes away from our nation’s capital and in the setting where so much our nation’s history happened during colonial times and Civil War times. When I went to college in Minnesota, I was excited about the snow and cold, especially because I was living in the dormitory and wouldn’t need to shovel anything or scrape the ice off a car’s windshield. When I went to Wisconsin for Seminary, I was happy that I could see most of extended family a number of times during the year instead of at most once a year. This morning we’re looking at Abram and his journey to the Promised Land of Canaan. He was looking forward to calling Canaan his new home. But not because he had been there before or knew what to expect. Rather, he was looking forward to it because of what all God promised he would do for Abram in that new land. As we follow the words of Genesis chapter 12, we’ll see what unbelievable promises God gave to Abram. And then we’ll learn from his exemplary faith which inspires us to walk in faith of all that God promises to his children today. 1) God’s Promises Are Unbelievable We start by reviewing what God promised he would do for Abram. “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.’” (Genesis 12:1-3) God begins by telling Abram to go to a place where none of his relatives have been 1
Pastor Timothy Patoka
July 14, 2019 Joy For Our Journeys: 2nd Sunday before, to a place we now call Israel. There in Israel God promised Abram 5 unbelievable promises: 1) God will make Abram into a great nation that would rival other powers in the region, 2) God would bless Abram and give him an honorable reputation, 3) God would make Abram a blessing to the people around him, 4) God would have Abram’s back by blessing those who blessed him and cursing those who dishonored him and, most importantly, 5) God would bless on people on earth through one of his descendants – Jesus Christ. Any one of those promises would have been enough for Abram. But to receive all 5 was a huge honor. So Abram followed God’s directions and came to the land of Canaan. And as he made his tour through the land going from north to south, he surely saw how unbelievable God’s promises were. This land that Abram’s family was to possess was already occupied by the mighty Canaanites. They weren’t going to give it up without a fight. God was going to make Abram into a great nation. But he and his wife Sarai didn’t have any children yet and they were well past the normal age for childbearing. God promised that he was going to have Abram’s back with blessings and curses. That’s not a normal thing for God to bind himself to. But then that last promise, the one where God was going to bless all people on earth through him. Abram likely did not know that this was going to be fulfilled in the coming Christ. Thinking in human terms, how could God do that? Even nowadays with our technology in communication and transportation, there are many inventions which remain unknown in other parts of the world. It isn’t just Abram who easily could have had a hard time believing in God’s big promises. Sinful man has always had difficulty taking God at his word. God has not promised us the same blessings he promised to Abram. But he promised us such similar unbelievable blessings. God tells us that he will always provide for us, giving us what we need at the proper time. But how can God take care of us when the world is falling apart? God tells us he will protect us from the roaring lion that the Devil is and help us in times of temptation. But where is that protection when we give into sin or our health fails? God promises that he forgives all our sins when we repent of them. But how can he remember them no more when we can’t forget them? While we sinners will have trouble believing in God’s unbelievable promises, that doesn’t change how God will act according to them. He will do everything he has said regardless of the difficulty to do so. Simply look at Abram and how God fulfilled those unbelievable promises. God made Abram into a
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Pastor Timothy Patoka
July 14, 2019 Joy For Our Journeys: 2nd Sunday respected figure both in his time and in our time. Abram’s descendants would live in this land and call it their own. But most important of all, God kept true to his promise that began with Adam and Eve – God would send his Son to crush Satan’s head once and for all. And by doing so, Jesus would bless all people on earth because he would free us from our sins in that way. Just as God kept the unbelievable promises he gave to Abram, so he keeps the unbelievable promises he makes to us. He will provide for all that we need for life so that tomorrow shouldn’t worry us. God’s in control and he will take care of us. He will protect us from all kinds of dangers we never knew existed and provide us help in temptation if we ask for it. And he says that he forgives our sins, he means it. Jesus already died on the cross and received the punishment for your wrongs. The price has been paid. That’s why you can be sure that God won’t hold your sins against you even when you still struggle to put them behind you. 2) Faith Trusts In God’s Promises And the peace of We just finished looking at what God has promised is unbelievably ours. And now we shift our attention to ourselves and how we live in light of these promises. Our answer can be summarized in 1 word – faith. Hebrews chapter 11 defines faith like this, “Faith is being sure about what we hope for, being convinced about things we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) When we say we have faith, we are equating it with trust, assured that God will bless us as he promised despite the obstacles. But if you noticed, faith is not the same as understanding or receiving. That’s an important distinction. We Christians who have faith in God’s promises do not necessarily expect to receive the fulfillment of every one of God’s blessings. We’ll have to wait for some until we get to heaven. Others, like the promises about the end of the world, may not happen in our lifetimes. Nor do we understand how God will fulfill his promises. Let’s look again at Abram. When he entered Canaan, he didn’t have any children or a well-known reputation. Yet, as our reading from Hebrews chapter 11 told us, God fulfilled his promises in ways that Abram never expected. Abram simply trusted that God was going to fulfill his promises and lived a God-pleasing life. It’s not just Abraham who can live such a life. We Christians also can. As Jesus explained in our Gospel reading from John chapter 8, a person can only come from one of two spiritual families. Either you reject Jesus as the Savior and come from the Devil’s family, or you believe in Jesus for salvation and come from 3
Pastor Timothy Patoka
July 14, 2019 Joy For Our Journeys: 2nd Sunday Abram’s family. And what is the deciding factor between which family we come from? Faith in Jesus. Trust in God’s promises as recorded in the Bible. Conviction that what our Lord says is going to happen whether or not we understand how. You and I have the privilege to call Jesus Christ our Savior because we have the same faith as Abram did. Even though he didn’t know how God was going to bless all people through his descendants or even the given name of his Savior, he trusted in the same promises that we do. And as members of the family that comes from Abram, joined together in the same faith that Abram had, let us live as he did. We trust that God will fulfill his unbelievable promises in his time without us necessarily understanding how he will do it. We place our confidence in what God says he’s going to do for us. If we repent, he will forgive us. When disturbing headlines come across the news, we don’t let it bring us to needless worry. And our gaze remains fixed on what is to come. As our verses from Hebrews chapter 11 told us, Abram and those who come from his family “were longing for a better land—a heavenly one. For that reason, God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:16) As wondrously as God blessed Abram while he lived in Canaan, he knew that what was to come in heaven was far greater. And so he walked in faith and trusted that God’s promises would be given to him both on this side and the other side of heaven. So it is with us. Regardless of how well God blesses us while on earth, we know what is to come is an incredibly wonderful and unbelievable promise. But as we journey towards our heavenly home, walk in faith that trusts in God’s unbelievable promises. Amen.
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