Genesis 12:1-9 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Build on the Rock Summer Series 3 June 17, 2018 “An Altar by a Tent”
As we look at a number of biblical building projects this summer during our summer worship series, it offers us an opportunity to review a good deal of Bible History. Certainly that does not mean to imply that we will cover everything in the Bible in a matter of the roughly 15 weeks of this series. Instead, as we look at major building projects, that will help us to see the major eras of the history of salvation and the history of God’s people as it is recorded in scripture. Especially if you are able to join us each week, you will see the major events from the beginning of creation through the end of the Holy book God has given to us. The building projects that we are considering often mark milestones in the history of God’s people. And that is true about today’s project, even though it doesn’t seem so impressive. It isn’t a tall towering building like the tower of Babel we considered last week. It isn’t a building that is revisited at other times in the course of history because of its lasting significance. Without pausing to consider, it might not look like a very important building at all. The building project is the building of an altar, a place to offer sacrifices. It was built by Abraham, though in our text he is still called by his former name, Abram. I’ll mention now that I might use those names interchangeably just because the newer name is much more familiar than the one in our verses. As we consider why Abram built his altar near his tent, we find one important and significant factor at this point in salvation history: the promise of God. Of course, even at this time the promise was nothing new. It goes back all the way to almost the very beginning. God’s promise goes back to Adam and Eve, the very first people and their very first sin. At that time a promise was needed. Adam and Eve had done what God had forbidden them to do. They had disobeyed him and were doomed to death. But God loved them in spite of what they had done, so he made the promise. He promised that he would send someone to destroy their enemy, the devil. He would be the offspring of the woman. He would be a very special person who would carry out and fulfill this promise. From the time of the Fall, of the first sin, sin affected everything. It destroyed relationships. It caused hardship and all sorts of troubles. It brought suffering into the world. We see the effects of sin as we consider the flood and the great wickedness all over the world that made it necessary. Even after the flood, wickedness prevailed. Just last week we considered the building of the Tower of Babel and how that act was direct rebellion against God. The need was clear, for Adam and Eve and for every one of their descendants. God needed to step in to end the rebellion and the sin. God needed to step in to do what he had promised to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. So he introduced the next step, the next stage of salvation history. He gave the promise to someone new. That person we have already mentioned, Abram who later became Abraham. God gave him an amazing promise, full of blessings for him, for those who would bless him, and for the whole world. God had selected this one man to carry the promise forward. He would be an ancestor of the Savior. Through his offspring all nations on earth would be blessed. This was the promise. And to carry out the promise, God invited Abraham to leave his homeland, his people, his parents, and to go to a new land, a land that God would show him. In that land, God would keep the promise that he was making. That is what God promised to Abraham. But the question could easily be asked, “Why?” Out of all the people, why Abraham? Why this man and not someone else? There is no other reason that we can find, no other reason that God gives except for this one: because God loved Abraham and chose him. This is the very definition of grace. God did not pick Abraham because of who he was or what he had accomplished. God chose Abraham in spite of his sinfulness and his background. God tells us that this is what grace means, that God chooses people just because of his love and not for any other reason.
So God made the promise, and Abraham set out. Not knowing where he was going, leaving so many behind, Abraham went where God led, to the land of Canaan. This land has come to be known to us as the Promised Land. It sits on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a small area at a major crossroads in the geographic and political arenas. And when Abraham arrived there, God repeated his promise. He assured Abraham that his descendants would own this land, even though at the time Abraham did not. And then Abraham built. He built an altar. He reacted to and responded to all the amazing promises that God had given him, and he worshipped and praised God. He didn’t build a house. He was still living in tents. He didn’t own any of the land. He had a promise, and that was enough. The altars that Abraham built provided him a place to worship. a place to praise God. Both the worship he performed and the altars he built were a testimony to his faith, to the trust he had in God’s promises. God had given the promise, and he had moved Abraham to believe it. God had inspired Abraham’s worship and praise. Clearly there is a lesson for us in the building project of an altar by a tent. Let’s be like Abraham. God’s promise was for all the world, including you and me. We don’t deserve it. We are sinners in a world of sinners. But God made the promise for us through Abraham. And he kept his promise. He sent Jesus to be the offspring of the woman, the descendant of Abraham, the one who would crush the head of our satanic enemy. God’s assurance to us now is that he has kept the promise he made to Abraham! And so he invites us to respond as Abraham did. In spite of appearances, in spite of what might at times seem like evidence to the contrary, God invites us to believe and to worship. Understand what I mean. God’s promises to Abraham seemed like a long shot. He was an old man without children, and God was promising descendants. God was promising a land that Abraham had never seen and did not own. It didn’t seem obvious that God would keep his promises. When God promises that he is with us, that he has forgiven our sins, and that heaven is our home, we don’t always see evidence of it. We see our sicknesses and our suffering. We see relationships that are still broken. We see our own sin still plaguing us. God says, “Believe. Trust in me.” And because we believe we also worship. And we do these things for the same reason Abraham once did. Hebrews 11 told us, “For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (v. 10). The land of Canaan wasn’t the main thing God had promised Abraham. That’s not what he was focused on. He was focused on heaven. That’s what the promise meant to him. That’s the same promise we have today. We live in a country and in a world that is not our final destination. We should be able to realize and recognize this from what we see in the world around us, the pain and the suffering, the horrible things that people do to each other, the lack of peace and satisfaction. God promises that because he has taken away our sins, we have something better to look forward to. We have an eternal home where things are exactly right and full of peace and satisfaction. There is so much more to come for us, sometimes in spite of the appearances now. Sometimes all we seem to have is the promise, but that is enough. So we worship. We offer sacrifices. We may not build an altar the same way Abraham did on which to offer sacrifices. But our altars are found here at church as we sing praises and offer prayers and hear God’s Word. Our altars are the offering baskets in which we give generously from what God has given to us. Our altars are found in the needs of everyone whom we meet as we seek to serve them because God served us. And they are in our own homes as we study God’s Word and as we pray to him. Yes, in a world that is not our own, we worship God. We offer him our praises. We offer our lives as living sacrifices, just as Abraham once built his altar near his tent.
The Text: Genesis 12:1–9 (NIV) The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “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. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So
Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. 6 Abram
traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From
there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. 9 Then
Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.