Genesis 12

Teaching 4-15-10

Abraham

• Genesis 12:1
• “The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”
  • Why is Abram so important?
  • Why would God talk directly to Abram?
  • Who is Abram?
• Genesis 12:2-3
• “’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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’”
  • Whoever loves Abram, God will love them too
  • Whoever hates Abram, God will curse them
• Genesis 15:2-6
• “But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
  • Abraham realizes he’s old
  • But God reassures him that Abram will have a son
• Genesis 15:7-11
• “He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.”
  • Abram asks God how he will receive the land
  • Instead of paper and pen for a contract, God and Abram used animals as their contract
• Genesis 15:12-16
• “As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.  In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.’”
  • Abram’s people will be slaves for awhile
  • But Abram’s people will get their land back… but later
• Genesis 15:17
• “When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.”
  • God made the torch move
  • This is Abram’s and God’s covenant
• Romans 11:29
• “For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”
• Deuteronomy 28:15
• “However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you”
  • If you don’t do what God says then you will be cursed
  • NOT the same thing for God’s covenant with Abram
• Jeremiah 31:31-34
• “”The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the LORD. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’”
  • This is talking about Jesus dying for us on the cross
  • John 3:16
    • “”For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
• Genesis 16:1-4
• “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.”
  • Abram and Sarai were impatient waiting for God’s promise
  • Sarai told Abram to use her servant to conceive their child
  • When Sarai’s servant bore Ishmael, this was NOT God’s promise
  • God said that Ismael’s descendants will NOT be given the promised land
• Genesis 17:18-21
• “And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.’”
  • Ishmael is NOT the promised child BUT he will have his own land
  • Isaac will be the promised child… God will hook Abraham up
• Galatians 4:21-23
• “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.”
  • Flesh vs. Promise
  • Ishmael is born according to Flesh
    • Humans effort without God
    • Represents the law because the law teaches you that you don’t need God’s help
  • Isaac is born according to Promise
    • God delivered to Abraham
    • Abraham and Sarai received Isaac through faith in God
    • Abraham and Sarai were too OLD to have children healthily
    • And yet God provided a healthy child who will be apart of the promise land
• Galatians 4:31
• “Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”
  • We are under the new covenant
  • Thanks to Jesus dying for us on the cross
  • It is NOT through our own effort to get to Heaven
  • It’s ALL about Jesus Christ
• Romans 4:19-21
• “Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”
  • People as Christians still want to get more spiritual by doing things on their own
  • You CANNOT do it by yourself without a relationship with Jesus Christ
• Is God cruel for making us wait?
• Absolutely NOT!
• God teaches us not to be an infantile
• God is not our butler and will not give us everything we want
• God teaches us what it is really like to truly rely on him
• God knows we are weak and cannot truly depend on ourselves
• Waiting is a GREAT strategy
• We are under the new covenant NOW
• If you have accepted Christ
• Revelation 3:20
  • “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
    • God will NOT force Himself upon us
    • We have to open the door to our hearts in order for God to enter