In Jesus Holy Name May 8, 2016
Text: Genesis 12:1-3 Series: The Story Redeemer
“God Builds a Nation”
On our Redeemer Facebook page our staff posted the video of the life story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from “The Story”. I loved the artist who drew that history on a chalk board. If we had a screen and projector here in this sanctuary. I would show that 3 minute video and sit down. It wraps over 200 years of family history and 39 chapters of Genesis in a fabulous 3 minute video. Wow!
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He escorted them out of the garden. This was the perfect place God had prepared for all of humanity. A place of harmony and peace. When their descendants chose to ignore God in favor of their selfish desires, God sent a flood on the earth, sparing only one man and his family. His name was Noah.
His descendants did not work out so well either. They built the Tower of Babel, to make a name for themselves.
It was time for Plan “B” in a Plan “A” world. God decides to create a nation of special people. Leonard Sweet in His book: Jesus, A Theography writes: “The ultimate issue in the universe…..still today….. “who will be worshiped?” People must choose. Adam and Eve made a choice. Cain made a choice each to go it alone.
Nation building is not an easy task. Corrupt leadership must be removed. Infrastructure for basic services, like water and sanitation. A legal and justice system. Our own founding Fathers took 12 years before the national government and fundamental laws were signe on September 17, 1787 by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
God chose to begin this special nation with a childless couple. Abram is 75 and his wife Sarai is 65. Because of infertility their family genetics was coming to an end. This is where God intervenes in the human story to begin “Plan B”. What is Plan B? He wants to restore the “community” of love. God wants to bring humanity back to Himself in perfect harmony. The only thing standing in the way is “human selfishness” and “the gift of “free will”.
Read Genesis 12:1
God comes to Abram and says: “Will you leave everything you know. Your people. Your father’s household. Will you go. I’m not going to tell you where….just start walking.” Ever had a call like that? Leave the familiar. Trust God.
Read Genesis 12:2
• If you go I will bless you.
• You will become a great nation
• You will be a blessing to others
• Oh… there will be some who curse you.
Ten years go by. No children. Abram is now 85 and Sarai 75. You can hear the voice of the serpent from the Garden who truly hates God’s plan for humanity. He wants to stick his thumb into God’s eye. Listen to his voice: “Ah, Sarai, If God loved you wouldn’t you have become pregnant by now? Maybe your old man didn’t really hear the voice of God.”
Are you sure? Doubt. Nothing new. The best tactic of Satan still today is to create doubt in your mind that God has not heard your prayers.
Doubt is Satan’s best weapon for a culture….There really is no hell…how foolish to believe those old teachings from the past.” Doubt.
So Sarai gets to thinking. “Maybe God needs our help?” After the birth of Hagar’s son, Ishmael, God came again and said…. Folks thanks for your help but no thanks. That was not my plan. When God visited Abram again, he was 100 and she was 90. Not the most optimal years for raising children. Sarah agreed and laughed. Exactly one year later Isaac was born.
The rest of the O. T. and N. T. are filled with important moments for the descendants of Abraham and Sarah.
Look at Matthew 1:1-3 Jesus is a descendant of Abraham. The children of Israel are descendants of Abraham. They must remember God’s plan… to be a blessing. God was very clear that his plan for them to be a blessing was to begin in the home. Deut. 7:6; 9, 12; 11:13, 16 (responsibility) 19 (in the home.
Like the children of Israel we are to be a conduit of God’s blessings, not just a receptacle. We are to be like water hose not a water jug. The blessings from God are to flow through us to others, not kept in our home safe.
Have you ever been at a meeting where the leader hands out the agenda or other notes and says: “Please pass this on?”
Those who have listened, take their notes and then pass thenm on to the next person. But there is always someone, when the notes arrive…. They just stop.
Half of the table has notes the others do not. The leader stops; “are there any extras?” There is a “kink” in the hose. I hope our church never becomes a kink in the hose.
The problem in “The Story” of God’s people is that they failed to be a blessing. The prophets, the Kings. The Pharisees.
Did you notice in our text today that God told Abraham that even though he is to be a blessing some people will “curse him.” It’s a hard thing to walk through life knowing that there will be some people who curse you for believing in the Ten Commandments and the cross. That’s why the ACLU is suing the City of Angels for having a “cross” on their city seal.
When we arrive at Genesis 22 there is a very unusual request of God. All of Abraham’s hopes and dreams were wrapped up in this child. (read Genesis 22)
What? Sacrifice my child? You see, we know “how The Story” ends. Abraham does not know the rest of the story. We must also remember that Abraham grew up in a pagan culture and child sacrifice, much like the ancient Aztecs was common. I can only imagine the emotional turmoil that Abraham experienced. “This was the son you promised”.
Yet early the next morning….. Abraham goes to the region of Moriah to the place God will show him. For 3 days they journeyed. The surprise is that just as Abraham raised the knife God stops him. “note” earlier that God used the words, “your only son, whom you love”. Sound familiar?
John 3:16
Jesus, God’s own beloved son would be sacrificed on a hill called Calvary in the city of Jerusalem. Do you know the ancient name of the hill on which Jerusalem is built? Moriah
• God is asking us to watch Abraham and Isaac. Their live is a pre story of what is to come.
• Isaac and Jesus are the only two people in the entire bible who are referred to as “The only begotten son.”
• Isaac’s birth was a miracle. It was impossible for Abraham and Sarah to conceive. Jesus’ birth was a miracle.
• Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice. Jesus carries the wood of the cross.
• The sacrifice of Isaac was on Mount Moriah. Moriah was the hill on which Jerusalem would later be built. Jesus died on a hill outside the walls of Jerusalem.
• For three days Abraham journeyed and considered tht his son Isaac would die. Jesus was dead in the grave for 3 days.
• Abraham was given a ram in a thicket to spare his son Isaac. When John the Baptizer say Jesus coming to the Jordan what does he say? ”Behold the Lamb of God who tgakes away the sins of the world.”
The “Story”. God’s Story is about how God makes “atonement’ for the selfish actions of His people. When Adam and Eve listened to the voice of the creature…they discover “shame”, “fear”, broken relationships between each other, and their Creator. Later in their own family. It is God who intervenes because they were hiding from God. He makes Atonement by the shedding of blood for their forgiveness. This is the basic principle of redemption.
We will again meet the “atonement” in the Passover where the blood of the lamb protects the children of Israel. Lives were spared. We meet the “atonement” again in the Red Sea where the death waters buried the ungodly Egyptians and Israel cross over on dry land.
We find Jesus being baptized in the Jordan, the same passage way the children of Israel took into the Promised Land.
We meet the atonement at the cross of Jesus, on a hill called Moriah.
Read Hebrews 9:22; 27 & v 15 “Jesus died as a ransom to set God’s people free from the sins committed under the 1st covenant…the 10 commandments , and thus provides eternal life to all who believe.”
This is what Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae. “God forgave us all our sins, He canceled the commandments we had broken that stood against us, that accused us, He took them away nailing them to the cross.”
That my friends if the good news. It is how you and I have peace with God our Creator. We could not do this on our own. For it is by His grace that Isaac was spared. By His grace we have been saved, and forgiven, not by our own works …for God came himself in Jesus.
In the 1700’s Nicolaus von Zinzendorf penned these words:
Jesus your blood and righteousness
My beauty and my dress.
Bold shall I stand on that great day.
Cleansed and redeemed, no debt to pay
For by your cross absolved I am
From sin and guilt, from fear and shame.
Then I shall praise you and adore
Your blessed name forevermore.
You have for all a ransom paid
For all a full atonement made. LB 362
