FACING THE UNKNOWN



A Sermon On:
GENESIS 11.27-13.4



















PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO



Play blind man's bluff with someone (call for a volunteer).
Note and draw attention to the natural hesitancy when you can't see where you're going and have to rely on another to direct the way:
suspicion, fear, a feeling you'll be made to look foolish.

Ask the congregation to consider this played out scene as we read:

GENESIS 11.27 - 13.4

I asked you to keep that little game we played in mind.
Did you catch the link?
Abram being led by God.He was blind, but it was no bluff. He was led, but it was no game. The issues of this chapter are real. Much was at stake. A lot of wealth. Family future. Abram's wife. Maybe even his life. Thing is, of course -- that may have been all big stuff for Abram. But really, what's it got to do with us? That was his< /I> life, his wife, his wealth.
So, where does this story bump into our lives?
Last Sunday morning we looked at Genesis 11. We recognized that God is beginning to build momentum of His saving work for Creation and humanity. He's cutting through all the fickleness and disobedience and wandering and hard-headed attitudes of people -- attitudes you can read about in previous chapters; stuff that's frustrating enough to make you cry in despair.
God begins to groom a family for Himself. It's the family of Shem. Abram is the first fellow in that family that we really get a good look at. There's lots written about him, and that for good reason. He is called elsewhere in the bible, "The father of all believers." His life is held up as a model, a picture of how God wants to work with people.

You and I gathered here this evening. We're people of faith, people struggling to live a life where faith fits, belongs, works. As such people we can legitimately hang a label around our neck that reads - "children of Abraham."

Children of Abraham....
So.... what's with the life of our spiritual ancestor?
What's God trying to tell us?
What is there in this picture that applies to you and I?
THE SITUATION
Can you picture him - Abram, I mean?
A man of means. Used to calling the shots, getting his way, being in charge.
Rich and powerful.
Nobody would question him.
Many depended on him.

Sounds pretty good, right?
Well, please don't overlook ch.11, verse 30: a few little words about Abram's family situation. See them?Now Sarai was barren; she had no children No kids. Sad, maybe. But not the end of the world.
At least that's what it seems on the surface. But you've got to remember the context where we find these words. We're dealing with the work of God in grooming a family tree out of which His mighty act of saving a messed up world is going to come. Last week we said that here in ch.11 things are finally starting to get rolling.
But no children....
No children, no family....
No family, no plan.....
Dead end again.

While everything seemed to be really quite OK on the surface, dig a little deeper and you come up empty. The OK stuff is just the stuff on the outside; the veneer. Paper thin. Unless God enters the picture with some extraordinary work there will be no future.
That makes me look around at life in our congregation here and think the same sort of thing. We -- children of Abram, people of faith. Living in a land of freedom and luxury. Got it pretty good. Nice church building. Good group of people. Virtually everyone employed. Neat families for the most part.
Seems to be pretty much together.

And yet....
yet.....Many of you have heard the words before. Let me say them again; poem words from Psalm 127. Anybody know how it begins? Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain, Unless the Lord watches over the city, watchmen stand guard in vain. Unless God is the one doing the greatest, most immediate work, everything at Calvin -- at that community of children of Abraham -- would be barren, dead end, good looking veneer but no more, paper thin. Without the Lord's ongoing involvement, direction a nd power things could come to a crashing halt so fast it would make our heads spin. Right?

THE CALL
In that setting God calls Abram to leave behind his comfortable family life and economic situation and go.
"Where to?" asks Abram.
"Just go!" commands the Lord. "Step by step. You'll see." God, as it were, takes Abram aside and says, "Let me put the blindfold on you, and lead you. And you trust me."
It's made very plain in the story. Says God:
"I will make you a great nation....
I will bless you...
I will make your name great...
I will bless those who bless you...
I will curse those who curse you...
I will give this land to your offspring..."
"I... I... I... I... I... I..."God asserts himself as strongly as possibly in a way that all Abram's children through the centuries will hear.
The scary part is that God's invitation is dangerously open-ended. We aren't always sure how things are going to turn out. Only thing we know is that whatever turns out, God remains in control.
Think of it - 75 years old, with a 65 year old wife, cashing in their old age pension cheques, leaving all behind and immigrating. Immigrating to........... who knows? No forwarding address.
Imagine, cane in one hand, reins in the other leading Sarai's camel. "Where you going, Ab?" "I don't know." "What you going to do there, Ab?" "I don't know." "Why, Ab?" "Because GOD told me to go."

And so He had - "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I WILL show you."
Not - "I HAVE shown you"
But - "I WILL show you"
No maps beforehand, or triptic like the sort the CAA gives you before going cross-country.
Just: "Abram, uproot everything and leave the details to me."

God gives a promise to his people to bless their work for him. But his promise requires a radical commitment from them. It simply wouldn't have worked for Abram to say, "Well, we'll go along for the first 100 miles and see from there."
It was go or no go.

And fellow believers, the call of God to Abram, "Leave the driving in life to me. Go out on a limb and trust me", is the call that comes to us with as much urgency as it did to him.
Its the same call that Jesus Christ gave to those who followed him:"Whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mk 8.35)
And that's an awfully hard decision to make. To let go of what we might want in life in favour of what God wants, and to be unclear about the final end -
- that can be downright scary or painful.

But it's the only way.

As a parent of children in the public school system -- perhaps you sense God urging, prompting, leading you inside to be involved, to attend meetings, and to stand up for God-honoring principles and programmes. But you hesitate - "Will I be hear d?" "What will they think?" "Would it make a difference?"

Or as a business person in a world where its tempting to cut financial corners, padding certain accounts to minimize taxes, or slip a few bills here and there to influential people to win contracts -- in that kind of a world you feel a strong pull to sta y straight and clean, but wonder -- "What kind of future can my business have if I operate like that?"

Not easy, is it?
It can be hard to say "No" to a date who expects sex, because you've heard God call you to walk the road of chastity. "Will I get dumped? What will the others think?"

How DO you respond to God's clear challenge to walk the road towards marriage with someone who shares the same basic faith commitment as you -- particularly as you get a bit older, or find a person to whom you're attracted, but who doe sn't believe in the Lord?
What if there's no one else?
Can God's Word be as sharp as all that?
Is He really saying, "Leave everything behind, move on and follow me" -

Is He?

And then there are the times that the Holy Spirit gives us a clear sense inside that THIS is a moment to let that co-worker know that we're a Christian, and could we pray for them in their particular situation?What will they say? Cry harass ment? Look at you cross-eyed?
Reality.
And God's command.
See how they crunch against each other sometimes?
And then, as we hear God -- what do we do?
Watch, believer, as Abram points the way.

THE STUMBLE
Watch, also, as he slips and falls.
Bible's an amazingly honest book, isn't it?
Shows how Father Abram takes the first great step in faith, but part way along loses his footing and lands flat on his face -- ends up getting chewed out by Pharaoh after his half-baked attempt at self-preservation, and kicked out of Egypt as a person a non grata.

Know what I see written all over that part of the story?
Screaming loud? Red letters?

Grace -
Heaping truck loads..... or camel loads in Abram's case, of grace.

Even when there wasn't divine approval for his foolish actions, there was still providential protection. God picks up his bruised and somewhat humiliated servant and sets him back on the path again.

Forgiveness.
A second chance.
That's life under the guiding hand of God.
That's life for children of Abram under the shadow of the cross.

If you keep reading you'll see Abram wipe out again, big time. And God reaches down to teach him a hard lesson or two. But continues with this half-baked, sin-smeared child of His.

As He does with us. For Jesus' sake.
Jesus - the great son of Abram, who was also called by God to walk a dubious road - the road to the cross. Only, unlike Abram and us, Jesus never slipped or sinned or quit. He finished the job. Paid for our sins. Set us free.

And it is that grace, that forgiveness, resolute and determined of our Father in Heaven
-- a gift to us through our Saviour --That grace gives us the courage to try again. To honestly live for our Lord.
Knowing that "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Rom 8:32)"