Kingdom Beginnings: Insights from Abraham
Gen 12:1-3
Intro:
When we talk about the Kingdom of God, it is easy to focus only on the words of Jesus and what He taught about the Kingdom of God. There is certainly enough there to talk about and try to understand! But we can also learn a lot about the Kingdom of God from the Old Testament. In the two sermons in this series thus far, we’ve talked about how the Kingdom of God is multinational and we have a lot to learn from Christians in other cultures, and last week we placed Jesus very clearly and firmly as the King of the Kingdom, worthy of our complete and total love and obedience. Today I want to back our journey up a little, and see some of the character and Kingdom of God as revealed in the Old Testament.
Genesis 12:1-3
This morning I want to look at 3 verses in Genesis 12. Now, the context for this is essential. Genesis 1-11 is the first section of Genesis, dealing with the creation texts, Noah and the flood, right up to the tower of Babel. Genesis 12 begins an entire new section, the story of God and the creation of His people. It is the story of Abraham and his immediate descendants.
Right here, at the very beginning of the story of God and His chosen people, we see some fundamental principles that establish God’s Kingdom. Let’s read verses 1-3.
“1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
Point #1: Called Out
The very first word God speaks to Abram is this: “Leave”. That tells us something about God’s Kingdom: we need to leave some things behind to enter in. And those things are not light, fluffy things we can gladly do without – to Abram, God said “leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family.” That is a pretty high call, a lot to sacrifice, don’t you think?
Lest we become tempted to think that no longer applies, listen to Jesus’ words from Luke 14:25-28: “25 A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, 26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. 28 “But don’t begin until you count the cost.”
As I look at a lot of what is emphasized today, I sometimes get concerned that it is one-sided. I sometimes fear that we talk exclusively about how great it is to follow Jesus, about how incredible the relationship is, how rewarding, how exciting, how wonderful. And it truly is – I believe that with all my heart, and I echo the apostle Paul who said “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:8-11). I echo that “surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”. But I am concerned that we sometimes neglect the part of the Christian life that is about “giving up.” Paul didn’t – he said it plainly: “for whose sake I have lost all things… (I want to know) the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”. Jesus certainly didn’t emphasize only the rewards – He called us to “carry our own cross and follow him”.
My point is this: being in God’s Kingdom means we must leave the kingdom of this world. There is no dual citizenship. Jesus demands that we choose one King, and then obey completely.
And it is a big sacrifice: we are invited to give our entire lives to Jesus, to reject all the values and lifestyles and priorities that Jesus does not command, and to bow to Jesus alone. We are called to total, sacrificial, obedience.
What have you left behind to follow Jesus? Some of you know this sacrifice acutely: you have had family members turn against you, you have been ridiculed and put down, you have had to struggle to leave a life that trapped you in addiction and in a sea of temporary worldly pleasure. I think our teens know this struggle even more than many of us adults who have more control of ourselves and our world – they feel the strong pull of the values of this world with great pressure, and they can see how being a Christian in the middle of teen culture is radically different. Living in God’s Kingdom means a very deliberate rejection of the kingdom of this world – it means a decision to live counter-culturally – it means choosing to leave.
Perhaps some of us are trying to live in both kingdoms – we want all the things that this world convinces us are important and we want the things that God promises are part of His Kingdom too. But I believe Scripture clearly teaches us that that is impossible to live by both the values of this world and the values of the Kingdom of God – they are simply too opposite. As big as the sacrifice is, I want to clearly say: it is worth it. What Jesus offers, though it comes at great cost, really is worth it. Jesus’ Kingdom of love and of others-centeredness and of peace and of joy and of excitement and of purpose is far greater than the cheap substitutions of this world. But we only discover that after we leave the other kingdom behind.
Point #2: “Go”.
The next line in the story of Abram is one of my favorite in Scripture: God says “leave”, and then “go to the land that I will show you”.
For those of us who like to be in control, this is a terrifying command. What, no road map? No estimated length? Not even a clear final destination?? You must be joking, right?
And yet this is a picture of the Kingdom of God. Because, right next to the vague destination is a promise: “I will show you.” That is an incredible promise – it is the promise of the very presence of God, guiding and traveling alongside. We might not know the final destination, but we know Who is taking us there.
Yesterday I got to experience a little glimpse of what this might be like. Our friend, Dennis Shierman of CBM, met with our advance team that is going to Bolivia in January to begin to form the relationships with the Bolivian Baptist Union through the STEP program. Dennis met with the 6 of us who are being sent as representatives of our church to begin to prepare us for what we will experience. While we certainly know more than Abram did, there are a bunch of similarities also. We don’t understand the language, we don’t understand the culture, we don’t know exactly what to expect or how to live in a world that is so completely different than our own, we don’t yet know exactly which places we will be visiting or which ministries we will be helping in. We know a lot more after yesterday, but there are still a lot of unknowns. Yet each of us (I believe) left with a great deal of comfort, for one main reason: when we arrive, we will be met by two Bolivian men, named Ivan and Emigdio, who speak English, and who will guide us for the 10 days we are there. They will translate the language, they will take care of our documents, they will make sure our food and water are safe, they will drive us wherever we need to go, they will introduce us to the people with whom we as a church are forming relationships, they will make sure our shoes are completely shiny so that we do not offend our hosts, and they will be there to answer any questions we have about any of the situations we find ourselves in.
God said to Abram, “Go, to a land I will show you” – and promised that it would be ok because someone – in this case God Himself – would be there to guide and to walk beside and to “show” the way. The Kingdom of God is all about that walk of faith. That willingness to let God be in control, and to trust that under His guidance we can discover the fullness of life.
When you and I allow ourselves to live like that, allowing God to be in control of the final destination, trusting Him for guidance, we discover the joy of life without worry, without fear, we find a life which gladly embraces the many idiosyncrasies of life without seeing them as intrusions or distractions but rather as opportunities and moments of joy and relationship and pleasure. This is why Jesus taught us to pray, “give us THIS DAY”, this is why He told us to not worry about “tomorrow” but to live in today, this was the whole point of the daily provision of manna and quail as the Israelites wandered in the desert. God is a God of the now, His Kingdom is one focused on this moment, this interaction with another person, this opportunity to show love and to use our gifts to bless others.
This doesn’t mean that planning is wrong, it just means that living for the future is wrong. After all, God knew the plan for Abram, God even knew the way. And God also knew that the point was the shared journey. The Kingdom of God is about being in a relationship with God and allowing Him to direct our steps, allowing Him to lead us “to the land I will show you.”
God doesn’t just call us to “leave”, He invites us to journey, with Him, to a new place.
Point #3: “Blessed to Bless”
The last line in God’s instruction to Abram tells us one more thing about the Kingdom of God: The line is this: “All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”, and it tells us that the purpose of the Kingdom of God is that all of humanity would benefit.
This is more radical than perhaps it initially sounds. The values that our world constantly preach are mostly about ourselves: get all you can, take all you can, seek your own happiness, look out for yourself, be independent, “if you want something done right, do it yourself”, and the ultimate reward of all of that is supposedly that we would have all of these things and then be happy.
God’s Kingdom turns that on its head. To Abram, God says the exact opposite: I will bless you, and make your name great, and all that stuff, for one simple, single purpose: so that “all the families on earth will be blessed through you.” All the blessings of God were not for Abram to enjoy for himself, they were for Abram to pass along.
This is one of the key parts to the Kingdom of God: it is all supposed to be shared. We are to share our blessings, materially and socially and relationally and spiritually – just as we are to share our burdens and our sorrows and our challenges. The reason God has blessed us so much is because God wants us to pass those blessings along to others around us – we are blessed to bless others. This is the reason why we emphasize community to such a strong extent, even though true Biblical community is a great challenge for us. Because we recognize that God’s blessings are to be shared with others around us.
Here is the great part of that: as we share our blessings, their value is multiplied and we discover even greater joy and blessing as we are able to help and pass blessings along.
Conclusion:
I believe that this beginning – God’s command and promises to Abram – set a good foundation for our understanding of the Kingdom of God today. Like Abram, we are commanded to leave a value system, a world-view, behind, no matter what the cost. We are invited into the Kingdom of God, but the entrance requirement is that we accept Jesus as our King and reject the present Kingdom of this world.
With that comes a promise: we leave one, and we go to a new Kingdom which God Himself will lead us to. It is the promise of relationship: “go to a land I will show you.” It is an invitation to trust, to have faith for today, to live in each moment and to accept each gift and to enjoy the journey, with the God of the universe leading us. My friends, this really is a better way to live: with God in control, with Him in the driver’s seat, with us living in obedience to His word.
As we enter the Kingdom of God, we are greatly blessed. And the purpose of that blessing is that it might be passed along – we are blessed to bless others. And as we do that, we discover that those blessings are multiplied and the joy increases.
Which one of those three speaks most to your life today? Are you struggling to leave things behind – to truly step out of the values of this world? Are you trying to live in both kingdoms, and being frustrated by the hypocrisy and inconsistency? If so, I encourage you to leave: to turn your back, to run if you need to, to reject those things that deep down you know are bringing you down and making you miserable and bringing pain. I encourage you to leave that behind, and step into grace.
Or maybe you are challenged by the call to “go to the land I will show you” – to walk in faith for just today, to accept that God is the guide and God is in control and God will make today great. Perhaps the desire to be in control of your own life pulls hard, perhaps that feels like too great a sacrifice, perhaps it seems to uncertain. If that is you, let me encourage you with this: the certainty of the presence of God beside you is far greater than the certainty that comes from us trying to be in control. Ultimately, at some point, each of us realizes and accepts that we are not in control, and when we can honestly give that over to God, He promises to walk with us and beside us. That is a beautiful promise.
Or finally, perhaps you have been blessed and the challenge is this: how to share that with others. To you my encouragement is this: let it overflow. Invest in other people. Serve them, use your spiritual gifts to build them up, let your relationship grow and take a risk to love others. As you do, you will know the joy that comes with that multiplication of blessing.
As you and I do these things, we welcome the Kingdom of God, for God’s glory.
