Abraham's Family of Faith 8 Feb 09

Abraham’s Family/Abram’s Call

Why this story matters to us:
1. Abraham is referenced some 70 times in the NT!
2. Abraham is labeled the means of blessing to the whole world; that would include us AND our neighbours and relatives.
3. “Like Noah before him, is a second Adam figure.
a. Adam was given the garden of Eden: Abraham is promised the land of Canaan.
b. God told Adam to be fruitful and multiply: Abraham is promised descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.
c. God walked with Adam in Eden: Abram was told to walk before God.
d. In this way the advent of Abraham is seen as the answer to the problems set out in Genesis 1-11: through him all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Gordon Wenham
4. We are said to be ‘grafted-into’ the lineage of Abraham, made to be his family.

Rom. 11:24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

5. Abraham was called by God to be the father of blessing to the whole world. We, too, are called.

Rom. 8:28 ¶ And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Rom. 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
Rom. 8:30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

This is individual.
a. We are called individually by God into faith.
i. No call; no faith!
ii. No faith; no life, no belonging, no mandate.
b. We are grafted into Abraham’s lineage, a part of the whole.
c. We have our joy enhanced when we share life together…

John Piper: “our joy in all that God is for us increases when it expands into the lives of others”

WE ARE BOTH DISTINCTIVE INDIVIDUALS AND PARTS OF THE WHOLE.
I am Abraham’s son.
I am God’s means of delivery for blessing to the world.
Start school tomorrow morning with that in mind and see what happens!

This raises more questions than it answers…
The Call—leave the land of Ur/Babel; WHENCE?
The Land—never owned land to live on; WHEN?
The Son—but they were too old to conceive; HOW?
The Sacrifice—the son of promise was to be offered?! WHY?

I believe that his life is a magnificent story of God’s personal intervention, divine rescue, and infusion of character and faith.
Abraham is no hero. His faults and failures are all too real, too transparent. But, when Abraham heard God’s promises and believed Him, God launched a work in Abraham that has the globe still vibrating.

The story begins…as a story of family, “the generations”…
Gen. 5:1 ¶ This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
Gen. 6:9 ¶ These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.
Gen. 10:1 ¶ Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.
Gen. 11:10 ¶ These are the records of the generations of Shem. Shem was one hundred years old, and became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood;

Gen. 11:27 ¶ Now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran; and Haran became the father of Lot.
Gen. 11:28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
Gen. 11:29 Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.
Gen. 11:30 Sarai was barren; she had no child.
Gen. 11:31 ¶ Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and settled there.
Gen. 12:1 ¶ Now the Lord said to Abram,
“Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
Gen. 12:2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
Gen. 12:3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Gen. 12:4 ¶ So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
Gen. 12:5 Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
Gen. 12:6 Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land.
Gen. 12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
Gen. 12:8 Then he proceeded from there to the mountain 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.
Gen. 12:9 Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.

“go”—12:1,4
“bless”—five times: vv 2-3
“land”—seven times: 11:31; 12:1, 5b, 5c, 6a, 6b, 7
“built an altar”—12:7b, 8b and again in 13:18

CONTEXT EXPLAINS THE NARRATIVE:
1. Adam & Eve thrived then crashed in the perfect Garden.
2. Their offspring became so brutally violent that God FLOODED THE WORLD to end the madness, saving only Noah and his family.
3. The Eden mandate was repeated, but Noah’s offspring refused, settling in Babel rather than multiplying in order to cover the earth as managers.

Now, generations later, Abram lives in Ur: 140 miles south of Babylon, between Baghdad and the head of the Persian Gulf; Sumerian, third millennium.
Worse, he is married and childless.
Gen. 11:30 Sarai was barren; she had no child.

Waltke: Sarai’s barrenness is the centerpiece of the story in Chapter 11…

A Introduction: Terah and his offspring (11:27)
B The family lives in Ur of the Childeans; Haran dies (11:28)
C Abraham takes Sarai as his wife; Nahor marries Milcah, whose father is Haran (11:29)
X Sarai is barren; she has no children (11:30)
C’ Terah takes (laqah) Abraham, along with Abraham’s wife Sarai and Lot, whose father is Haran (11:31a)
B’ The family leaves Ur of the Chaldeans and settles in Haran (11:31b)
A’ Conclusion: summary of Terah’s life; his death (11:32)

Keller Genesis 11—the race is spiraling down
One ray of hope in 9-11, a single family tree, the family of Seth
Seth called on the name of the Lord—true worship
Terah = moon; Ur was the center of lunar worship
The last family who knew anything about God disappeared.
Joshua 24—your forefathers lived beyond the river and worshiped other gods

Not only has the last family who knew about God lost its knowledge, but it is also about to physically disappear as well.
Garrett
The theme of God’s purposes overcoming symbolic barrenness (see 54:1) recurs with Rebekkah (Gen. 25:21), Rachel (29:31) and Hannah (I Sam. 1:2) and it foreshadows the virgin birth (Luke 1:26-38). All these women actively commit themselves to God’s grace.

This is a DOUBLE DISASTER: out of place, out of potency.
God waited until the crushing weight was felt fully.
God intervened with a call that required faith.
Abraham “amened” God.
God rewarded Abraham’s faith with blessing.
God promised Abraham.

APPLICATIONS:
a. Adam was given the garden of Eden: Abraham is promised the land of Canaan.
i. WE ARE GIVEN THE EARTH TO CARE FOR.
b. God told Adam to be fruitful and multiply: Abraham is promised descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.
i. WE ARE TOLD TO MAKE DISCIPLES OF JESUS AND FILL THE EARTH WITH GODLY OFFSPRING.
c. God walked with Adam in Eden: Abram was told to walk before God.
i. WE ARE PROMISED THAT GOD WILL GUIDE OUR STEPS.
d. In this way the advent of Abraham is seen as the answer to the problems set out in Genesis 1-11: through him all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Gordon Wenham
i. WE ARE THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD

Keller: The call reshapes so that you ask, ‘where can I most be a blessing.’
Live for the blessing of others and I will bless you.
Don’t wait until you have completed your coursework; found the ideal job; achieved promotion to a safe position…


Garrett: The Gospel of Abraham
The hope of Abraham and of the nations for salvation depends on God fulfilling his promises to give a son (Gen. 15:1-6; Luke 2:28-32). To that end, the births of both Isaac and Jesus are miraculous (Gen. 17:15-18; 18:12-14; Matt. 1:18-25). Paradoxically, however, both sons have to die and be raised from the dead before they can fulfill their missions: Isaac typically, Jesus Christ literally (Heb. 11:19).

Miroslav Vulf: “the courage to break his cultural ties was the original Abrahamic revolution. Christians depart from their original culture. Christians can never first of all be Asians or Americans or Russians or Tutsis and then Christians. Christians are Christians first. Christians take a distance from the gods of their own cultures and because they give their first allegiance to the God of all cultures and his promised future.…But, Now in Christ, departure is no longer a spatial category. It takes place within the cultural space one inhabits. It involves neither a modern attempt to build a new heaven out of the world. Nor a postmodern restlessness that fears to arrive anywhere. When Christians respond to the call of the Gospel, they put one foot outside their culture while the other remains firmly planted in it. Christian’s distance is not flight from one’s original culture but a new way of living in it because of a new vision of peace and joy they have in Christ.”

Abraham had to live out of faith in the arrival of a son.
Isaac points us to the real Son.

Keller: Jesus got a call:
Leave your father’s house.
Left ultimate security
Left not knowing where he was going: into the abyss
He lost his father so we could gain his father.
‘My God, my God, why hast thy forsaken Me?’