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Good Friday is a reminder of the greatest exchange that has ever been made. Jesus was substituted for you and me. It is in this moment that our sin was paid for, and we could go freely to heaven. While there are some who dislike the church calendar, I think setting aside some time to contemplate Christ’s sufferings is helpful. 
  
We tend to avoid thinking about pain and sadness because they are unpleasant, but it is exactly this pain that we need to focus on here. In our lives as Christians, we can spend far more time thinking about the positive moments in Jesus’ life, His teachings, His miracles, and His resurrection. All of these are important, but we mustn't skip over Jesus’ suffering and death. After all, that is a major part of why Jesus came to Earth in the first place and one of the main reasons Jesus was born in a physical body. Think about it. What is the one thing that Jesus needed a body for? He could have healed without a body. He could have done miracles without a body. God did that all the time in the Old Testament. But Jesus couldn’t die without a body. God, having a divine nature, cannot die, but when He takes on humanity, now it is possible to experience pain and death in His humanity. 

On the cross, Jesus experiences physical pain and spiritual pain. Sometimes we can be overly descriptive on each side of this. We can exalt the physical pain over the spiritual pain because that is what we can most clearly see, understand, and relate to. On the other hand, we can point out that bearing the wrath of God that was aimed at us is far harder than the physical pain of crucifixion. After all, many have endured crucifixion that physically was harder than Jesus’, but no one has been crucified and simultaneously borne the wrath of God for the sin of the elect. This is absolutely true, but we don’t use that fairly abstract concept to numb the horror of the physical pain that He endured. 

On the physical side, Jesus would have been whipped first, a tremendously painful punishment. The whips would have contained bits of glass, bone, and other sharp things to make the damage to one’s back substantial. Some even died just from that experience alone. The blood loss and pain are almost unimaginable from this experience alone. 

From there, Jesus was told to carry His own cross, but He was too weak to do it. This isn’t because Jesus didn’t have the arm strength due to a lack of training in the gym. He would have been just as strong as anyone else in that time. If anything, due to His likely work as a carpenter prior to His ministry, He was probably physically strong as they wouldn’t have had power tools or easy means of lifting and sawing trees. He would have been too weak to carry the cross due to the beating He has already received. He likely has lost a lot of blood. So another man, Simeon of Cyrene is compelled to carry the cross for Jesus. 

The cross as we imagine it, indeed, as it is depicted behind me, may have been different from what Jesus actually was hung on. One source I came across described a cross beam nailed to an already existing tree, with the feet hammered into the trunk of the tree and the hands nailed to the cross beam (Martin, Beck, and Hansen, 180). There were a couple ways to die on a cross like this. One has the victim eventually unable to breathe, as the position the body is placed in would only allow breathing when pulling on the nails in the hands and pushing on the nails in the feet. This would have been even more painful given the flogging that has already happened, and the roughness of the tree bark. The other way to die would be simple dehydration or blood loss (Keener, 684), which might take days. 

Regardless of how Jesus would have died (and it is key to realize that Jesus gave up His life rather than had it taken from Him (John 10:18) or exactly what shape the cross was, there is a shame component as well. In the Old Testament, it is clear that whoever hangs on a tree is cursed of God (Deu. 21:23), and now Jesus is hanging in that spot! What’s worse, He is hanging on a cross in the midst of other criminals. Anyone walking by would assume that Jesus was guilty of the same sorts of crimes that they were. Have you ever been in a group where a couple of people in your group did something wrong or stupid and the whole group was implicated, including you? Even though you had nothing really to do with the act in question, you feel the heat of judgment from those around you. They assume you did it, too, or were at least in agreement with the act. That shame by association that you feel is something that was thrown towards Jesus as well. 

And here is where we transition to the spiritual pain of Jesus. It is here where we don’t have as much clear Scripture to guide us on how to think about it. In some way, Jesus, God the Son Himself, is absorbing the wrath of the Father aimed towards us. How that works is a mystery, but it is clear that Jesus became sin for us so that we might have His righteousness. In some way, He was turning away a real wrath from God towards Himself away from us, and it is difficult to even begin to imagine what that must have been like. He endured the wrath of God so that the elect would not have to. This is something that Jesus dreaded tremendously yet willingly suffered on our behalf. 

How people respond to this death is dramatically portrayed in the two criminals on either side of Him (for the following, I am indebted to Martin, Beck, and Hansen, 178-9). One responds in mockery based only on what he saw with his eyes. A bleeding victim of crucifixion is hardly the Messiah everyone is looking for. What kind of savior is unable to save Himself? Yet the other looks to Jesus and despite what he saw with his eyes, he could see with the eyes of faith a vision of a King about to enter into His Kingdom. Is this not what Jesus pictured in Matthew 25:31-46? The sheep on the one hand and the goats on the other. (Martin, Beck, and Hansen, 179). 

These are the only two responses to Jesus. Anything less than trust in Christ is against Him. That one thief with the eyes of faith saw his Lord, and was given the incredible promise that today he would be with Jesus in paradise. Jesus knew what was going to happen, and He was going to His exaltation. The thief could see that by grace, and asked Jesus for help. Note he doesn’t ask to get down from the cross. He simply asks Jesus to remember Him in His kingdom. The thief's hope lay beyond this life and comprehended what was important. What comfort would it be to get off the cross only to die later in life to eternal judgment? The thief knew what was truly important and knew the only person He needed to be united to. There wasn’t time to do good works, join a church, or even read the Bible. The thief only trusted Jesus, and based on Jesus’ invitation alone was he worthy to enter heaven. I’m sure if we could speak to the thief today, we would have loved to get to live and serve Christ here on Earth, which is our privilege, but the promise is still the same: look to Jesus, and you will live. 

What is your reaction to Christ? You will have one. Is it the eyes of faith like the faithful thief? Is it with the understanding that you can’t save yourself, but Jesus can save you? Is it with a vote of no-confidence in yourself but every confidence in Christ? 

Or is it like the other thief? Are you only interested in Jesus as long as you think it might pay off for you in gaining some other goal? 

Either way, Jesus stands ready to save you. Just ask Him! 

From here, Jesus gives up His life, is taken down from the cross and buried in a tomb. It is here that we leave Jesus and wait.

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What is Maundy-Thursday? This is the day of Holy Week in which we come together to remember the Last Supper Jesus had with His disciples. It isn't the Last Supper in the sense that this is the last time that Jesus will eat with His disciples, as He will after His resurrection. It is the Last Supper because this is the Last Passover meal that will ever be observed in the Old Testament way. This is the moment where Redemptive History reaches a tipping point. Everything is going to be new. Elements that used to represent freedom from Egypt for over a  thousand of years, are, in a single meal, going to be redefined, given their true meaning.  Bread and wine are now going to represent the body and blood of Jesus poured out for them in the ultimate expression of love ever demonstrated. They will become the new signs, sacraments, of the New Covenant, a source of blessing and spiritual nourishment for Christians in the coming millennia. 

So what does Jesus do after that? Jesus changed the Passover and is about to go to the cross. What is he going to say to His disciples? What does He want them to know before He dies? Here we come to John chapter 15. It is an immensely popular passage for a reason. Doubtless you've all heard sermons out of it and maybe even have portions of it memorized. I'm willing to bet, though, if you are anything like me, you probably don't rejoice in it as much as you should. So I am going to lead you through this passage as we look together at some of the wonderfully comforting and challenging chapters in John's Gospel. We are going to look at How we are connected to God and How we grow in our connection with Christ.

At the end of chapter 13, Jesus tells His disciples that they are going to leave the upper room. Jesus is likely teaching along the way. Perhaps they passed the Temple along their way. At the time of Jesus, over the entrance of the temple was a golden vine with clusters of grapes the size of a man according to Josephus (Kruse)! Jesus could have pointed to that and then Himself with the immortal phrase "I am the true vine." This was one of seven of Jesus' "I am" statements. For Jesus to say "I am," He isn't just making a comparison. He is invoking the name that God gave to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 (I am that I am). 

So of all things to compare yourself to, why a grape vine? He could have chosen anything. A cedar tree would have suggested strength! An olive tree would have had a nice tie back to the Tabernacle furniture. Maybe even a mustard seed would have worked! But He chose grape vine for a very particular reason. As one scholar pointed out, often in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel is compared to a vine. Unfortunately, that vine is often missing fruit when it should have it. We can see an example of this in Isaiah 5:1-8 (Kruse). Israel was going to be the one to provide a blessing to the nations by pointing them to God. Consistently, however, they didn't. But now, the True Vine, the true Israel, is going to change that. Jesus is going to be the connection to Divine life. He will be the vine, and we will be the branches. 

This is a stunning picture Jesus draws for us. When He tells us later to "abide in Him," He doesn't have in mind living in Him like one would a house. When you live in a house, it provides safety and a predictable place to live the life that you want. The house doesn't have an opinion on that. In this picture, however, Jesus isn't telling us to live inside Him.  Abiding as He uses it here is a deep connection. A branch not abiding on the vine isn’t just out in the elements, exposed; it’s dead. You don’t just live IN Jesus; you live BECAUSE of Jesus. Your heart beats because of His. His life pulsates into your own. 

This picture of Jesus' life embracing and empowering your own gives us a whole new perspective on what it means to keep His commandments. Verse 10 tells us that abiding in His love means obeying His commandments. Abiding in Jesus is nothing less than obeying His word. If we say we love Christ than don't do what He tells us to do, we can't claim to love Him. Obviously, no one is perfect, but Christians can't help but produce fruit when they are connected to Christ. 

In fact, once you see just how involved the Trinity is in this picture, I think you will be very encouraged to produce fruit. 

Often, when we read this passage we zero in on Jesus being the true vine, but we can't lose what else is happening in this passage. Yes, Jesus is the True Vine, the culmination of Israel's history. Yes, we are the branches, pulsating with Jesus' own life in our souls. But there is another character in this passage: the Father. The Father is compared to the vinedresser. He has a specific role He is filling in this picture that of the remover and the pruner. One scholar points to vinedressing practices in Jesus' time. In the spring time, the gardener would cut back that which he wanted to produce more grapes. Those of us with hedges know how that works! In the fall time, however, branches that weren't producing fruit were cut off and burned (Kruse). One wouldn't want a vine's energy going towards leaf production when what you really want is fruit, so you get rid of those branches. 

How does this work in our lives? The Father will trim those who are producing fruit. Oftentimes that can look like things going well then all of a sudden a great loss that ultimately drives you closer to God. In the midst of it, it doesn't make sense. But when you see the fruit that comes of it, you can see why you went through it. The Father isn't doing this to be mean. In fact, as we are about to see, all of this is an act of love, but perhaps not in the direction that you think. 

You see, in verse 8, we see that the Father is glorified by you producing much fruit. And who is it that is making you produce the fruit in the first place? The Son, Jesus Christ. And Who connected you to Jesus? The Holy Spirit. John 14:17 tells us that the Holy Spirit is going to be the one living inside us! So, the entire Trinity is involved in this metaphor (with the Holy Spirit in the background as He often is!), all of them working towards your producing fruit. The Holy Spirit connects us to Christ, who provides the power to produce fruit, which is further enhanced by the Father! 

Now, why do they do that? Would it surprise you to know that it is simply because they love each other? We see in verses 9-10 there is a great love that is between the Father and the Son, displayed by the Son's obedience to His Father. A couple of chapters later in John 17:6-7 we get a glimpse into that relationship and how it works. Jesus thanks the Father for the people He has given Him (including us, v 24) and joyfully reports that he hasn't lost any of them except Judas, and only because the prophecy of God was to be fulfilled. In this prayer, you can see the obsession that Jesus has with the Father's glory, and in the end of the Bible, we see the Father's joy in placing all things under the Son's feet. The Father glorifies the Son, the Spirit glorifies the Son (John 16:14), which ultimately glorifies the Father! The Son's loving obedience was rescuing God's people, and empowering them to bring Him glory by producing fruit! 

So what does all of that mean for you? If you struggle with assurance of salvation, let me set this out for you very plainly as it was for me by old John MacArthur, probably 15 years ago for me. You, as a Christian, are a love gift from the Father to the Son whom the Son redeems and gives back to the Father all with the Holy Spirit revealing the Son to the people and sanctifying them to glory to live with them forever in heaven. This doesn't diminish any of the Trinity's love for you. Jesus loves you the same way the Father does Him. All I'm telling you is that you are being drawn up into a love between the Godhead that staggers the mind to even comprehend! 

Further, your salvation couldn't be more secure. Jesus isn't going to drop you not only because He loves you, but ALSO because to do so would bring dishonor to His Father. The Father won't let you coast in bearing fruit NOT ONLY because He loves you (after all, He did send His Son for you), but ALSO because He has a people He wants to give to His Son as a bride. Therefore, as one scholar put it, "No fruit-bearing branch is exempt" (Carson, 514). But what about those branches that get cut off? Given all that we have said here, this isn't talking about real believers who slipped away. Jesus doesn't lose anyone. As one scholar argues, you can't stretch the image too much (Kruse). But there is a real warning there. If you aren't producing fruit, it isn't because Jesus isn't putting in the work. The entire Trinity is on it! If you aren't producing fruit, you probably aren't connected. 

Y'all now is the time. Abide in Christ. Put your trust in Him. Maybe you've been producing fruit, but you've hit a dry spell. There's been some pruning going on. Do you feel that cut from the sheer? Listen to it. The Father is working on you! He sees your branch! He is saying, "Son, let's work on this one." Don't resist. Instead pursue obedience to Him, because when you do you will find joy. How do I know? Because that is what He says in verse 11. One scholar put it this way, "The Son does not give his disciples his joy as a discreet package; he shares his joy insofar as they share his obedience, the obedience that willingly faces death to self interest (12:24-26)" (Carson, 521). Have you lacked joy? Is there something you are resisting? Let it go. The whole Trinity loves you. They love each other. So join the party. 

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Do certain passages in the Bible make you scratch your head? The temptation is to go, "Well, I'm just going to chalk that up to divine mystery and move on." The other temptation is to ask different questions than the text wants you to ask. We could look at a passage like this and spend more time wondering why this happens in a different order than Mark has it. It's fine to ask those questions, but only as long as we are asking what this text wants us to ask: "Why is this here?" 

So that is the question that we are going to ask today! As we dive into Holy Week this week, we are going to be looking at some of the little details on our way down the road to the cross. Since we have taken in the forest on our past journeys through Holy Week, I thought we would look at the trees, in this case, literally. Jesus makes important points about the Christian life, often using imagery of plants to help us see the point clearly if we take the time to see it. So today, we are going to look at our main point of this passage: Religious actions are no substitute for real faith in Christ.

Religious actions are no substitute for real faith in Christ.

Let's take a moment to remind ourselves where we are. We are coming up on the last week of Jesus' ministry before the cross, so Jesus has been teaching, healing, and fulfilling prophecy for the last three years. On this day, we celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, fulfilling the prophecy we read out of Zechariah a few moments ago. 

That day must have been quite a scene, one of those once in a lifetime sort of experiences you remember forever. I remember fondly those times in my late childhood when my dad and I would go to Ligonier conferences. It was three days of some of the best preaching you could hear (this was before the podcast was everywhere, so this was quite a privilege). But what I remember at those conferences, something I still look forward to whenever I have the chance to go is the singing. When you are surrounded by thousands of people who are *singing,* having just heard one of the best sermons you'll hear that year, it's an experience. Here in Jerusalem, it would have been my experience times a thousand. The pilgrim coming to Jerusalem would have been special enough on its own. Here you are in the holiest nation in the world, coming to the holiest place in the world, the Temple, the place where you could encounter God, during the holiest point in the year, the Passover, the remembrance when God Himself delivered your people out of Egypt, surrounded by the holiest people in that nation, it must have been incredible all on its own. 

On top of all of that, here comes the Teacher. The one who has been healing, raising the dead, and providing food for the masses, is riding on a donkey into the Holy City. Their hands must have shook as they took down the palm branches, as their throats sang out, "Save Now!" It's the Son of David, the Christ, the Messiah come to take His throne! It is the culmination of the world! The final act! If there was ever a time for the Messiah to come, it is now. 

But then. According to Mark's account (most likely Matthew is condensing the story to save space) Jesus walks up to a fig tree in full leaf (a sign that there is fruit on it), finds nothing and curses the fig tree. Then, Jesus walks into the Temple and throws everything going on in there down. He calls it a den of thieves and walks out. The next day, the disciples come across this fig tree Jesus cursed and finds it withered to the root. 

What should the disciples have asked at this point? They should have asked "Why? What are you trying to tell us here?" But what do they ask? "How did you do that?!" (Keener, 505). By taking a second to think about it, this is a stupid question. What have they spent the last three years looking at? Honestly, of all the things that Jesus has done, this is down near the least impressive. Jesus has raised dead people, like, multiple times! Have they forgotten the widow's son, Jarius' daughter, and even Lazarus (and that one was dead for four days, which is completely dead, not even mostly dead)? What about calming the storm, multiplying bread, and walking on water? Surely withering a fig tree is not beyond the Son of God. 

Now Jesus does answer their question, but let's pause and ask the question they should have asked. Why does He do this? Mark's account of this points more glaringly at the temple. Mark inserts the story of the Temple in the middle drawing us to conclude that this is a statement about the Temple. Some point to the idea that Jesus is perhaps making an allusion to Micah 7:1, as that prophet laments about the state of the country. God has just announced judgement for the sins of the nation in the prior chapter, and Micah laments that "I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires." Why? Verse 2, "The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net." Here, indeed, there is no ripe fruit. The fig tree puts out its fruit first and *then* the leaves. But this one is all show. And, devastatingly, so is the Temple. As we will see in a few days, there are indeed the very "holiest" of people lying in wait for Jesus' blood. Its a sham, and Jesus knows it. 

And here, Jesus shows it. He points to the holiest nation with all of its pageantry at its holiest time in its holiest place and says it is all just show and will be judged. Rightly understood, that is devastating. Have you ever had something that you thought was pretty good that you produced only to have it torn down by someone whose opinion actually matters? Whether it is a work assignment or a creative project, that can really sting. But this has eternal implications what Jesus is saying here. 

It should have us look at ourselves for a minute. What do we think Jesus is impressed with in our lives? What are you proud of in your life? What boosts your confidence? Or put negatively, what terrifies you? Your job? Your church title? Your kids? Your grades? Your payscale? Your relationship status? Your knowledge of the Bible? Your church attendance? Your kid's church attendance? 

All fig leaves. Now, don't get me wrong those things can be significant, but they aren't saving. They aren't the fruit, the heart, that Jesus is looking for. You can have everything I just said and lack what is most important: faith in Him. That should terrify. Everything can look great from a distance, but on closer inspection have nothing to eat, nothing to sustain. 

Now, how do I know that faith is the key to this? Because this is what Jesus goes on to talk about. The disciples ask the wrong question in that it was the wrong "how" question. The first question should have been why, and the second question should have been this "how" question, "how do we avoid the same fate as the fig? How can we possibly do the work God has called us to do when even the holiest place, in the holiest city, at the holiest time can't do it?" 

Jesus points to the instrument that could do far more than wither a fig tree. Why, this instrument can move mountains! But how? It isn't anything to do with "the power of faith" or the power of positive thinking. The people who crucified Jesus had faith. It just wasn't faith in the right thing. Their faith was in mad up laws, customs, and the physical structure of the Temple. As such, that faith was powerless to help, and powerful to kill. It was pulling away from the real power source: Jesus Himself. 

So how does this faith connect with Christ? Jesus tells us through prayer. It is a position of utter dependance. You don't move that mountain. You ask God to move it for you. He makes a rather stark claim that anything we ask in prayer will be granted to us if we don't doubt. Is Jesus giving us a blank check to get whatever we want? No. To think that way doesn't understand prayer. Prayer isn't wish list time, and we should be reminded of that every time we say, "In Jesus' name." That isn't some sort of magic stamp to get your prayer mailed to heaven. It is saying, "I have license from Jesus Himself to say this. I am praying a prayer that Jesus would pray for me." Whoa. Well, no wonder that has power! How much more confidently would we pray knowing that. 

So how do you know what to pray? Well, Jesus has told you. The Lord's prayer is a good place to start. He did say that when you pray, pray like this. Go into the Psalms. Those are divinely inspired prayers. Look to the promises of Scripture. What has God promised you? He told you that if you are weary and heavy laden and come to Him, He will give you rest. He told you that if you come to Him, He won't cast you out. He's told you that the suffers of this present time aren't worth comparing for the glory He has prepared for you. He has promised to heal all of your diseases and wipe away all your tears. So pray for that. He's promised! Is it immediately answered all the time? No, but faith looks beyond even vast stretches of trying times. It only sees Christ! It looks beyond religious pageantry. It looks beyond grand buildings and week-long ceremonies. It looks beyond pain. It looks beyond cancer. It looks beyond the death of children. It strains its face forward to Christ even though the reigns of the joy and pain tear on the bits in your mouth to look at anything else. Sin will make it hurt to look to Christ. It knows just how to tug on your mouth. 

But remember who you are looking at! Jesus will hold your face! Come to Him! Ask and do not doubt, and mountains will move. He's promised. It will happen. It fact, Jesus is probably alluding to Zechariah to make his point (Keener, 505). Zechariah prophesied to the recently returned Jewish exiles from Babylon to rebuild their Temple 500 years before this moment here with Jesus. They started but gave up. There was much to overcome. But hear what God tells the governor of Israel at the time, Zerubbabel, Jesus Great times 8 Grandfather in Zech. 4:6 "Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’” They could probably see Mount Olivet and the Dead Sea from where they were standing making the visual powerful (Keener, 505).    

So what's our takeaway? 
That same Spirit is at work in you. God has called you to a work. The things you are proud of won't get you there. Be grateful to God for those things, but don't trust those things above Him. See those things for what they are. They are leaves. Joy and color, but let them point to the substance of it all: faith in Christ. This is a week where many of us reexamine our lives. We hear once again of Christ on the cross, buried, and raised into glory. Do you believe it? Are you putting all of your hopes and fears at His feet? Do you trust that God will make possible what He has promised? Have you laid aside all that would keep you back from trusting Him, anything that might turn your face away from Him? 

Now, maybe you are sitting here and saying, "I think I'm the barren fig tree. All leaves and no fruit. Is my only fate withering?" Oh, my friend, there is another fig tree. It too was barren for three years according to Luke 13. The owner of the tree told his groundskeeper that for three years this tree has been barren. Cut it down and make room for something more productive. But the groundskeeper said, "Let me fertilize this tree this one last year, and let's see what happens. If fruit, let's keep it, and if not, we'll cut it down." We never find out what happened to that tree in Jesus' parable. Your life will show the end of the story. If you have been wandering and are hearing the sound of my voice, Jesus is giving your tree some more fertilizer. If you have been fruitless, surrender to Jesus' work, abide in Christ, as we will see on Thursday, and you will see Him move mountains.  

Image by Tracy Lundgren

Do you journal? If you don't you probably should. It is impossible to keep up with all the ways that God moves in your life unless you write them down. In my own practice, I try to sum up the major points of the day into a small, single page. Flipping through the journal shows me how I thought about a particular problem. Something that seemed absolutely *dominating* at the time, upon flipping through it, was only relevant for a couple weeks. It started, resolved, and now I've moved on. Some problems seemed to be the theme of life for a year or two, but again, those things resolved firmly and are behind me. It didn't seem like that at the time, though. 

The Bible, and our passage here before us, is like decades worth of journal entries summarized in a line or two. As we will see, vast stretches of time were spent between chapters, or even between sentences! Because you can read Abraham's life from start to finish in thirty minutes or so, we lose that sense of daily obedience that Abraham offers when it seems like nothing is happening. The majority of journal entries for me start with "Today was a long day," which once you've flipped through ten or fifteen straight pages of that, can feel discouraging. But looking back on the course of years, one can see what the Lord was doing all that time. That is what we are going to see with Abram. God is working in his life, but that does not mean that Abram sits back and does nothing. As we will see, in our single point today, God's authority and control does not eliminate your responsibility to obey.

God's authority and control does not eliminate your responsibility to obey.

We left off last time looking at the incredible promises that God makes to Abram of a land, seed, and a blessing. He is going to have a place for his descendants to call home, there are going to be descendants in the first place, and there is going to be divine blessing that will flow from them to the nations of the world! Crazy good stuff! 

However, though those things are promised by the grace of God *before* Abram takes the first step, he still needs to listen to God and leave his country, clan, and father's house. This isn't Abram believing God AND adding works to his faith. Abram's faith is being displayed by his works (John Redd, 137). Abram doesn't earn those promises by doing these things, but the doing of these things truly demonstrates that he believes God is going to do what He said He will. That's faith! This faith isn't also some one time deal. Calvin comments, "It is however certain, that in this place the obedience of faith is commended, and not as one act simply, but as a constant and perpetual course of life." (350) In other words, Abram didn't make a decision at a camp meeting, wander out a ways away from his home, and then go back to Ur. No, Abram started a journey of long obedience in the same direction, to borrow from a book title. Long obedience in the same direction. What does this mean? 

Let's take a look at how long obedience translates into a travel itinerary for Abram. We through out all of these strange city names like Ur, Haran, and Shechem, but what does that mean? Well, the first leg of Abram's journey from Ur to Haran is about 600 miles! That's *walking.* And let's even judge Abram as hard as we possibly can and say that Haran was like Ur, so the last leg of the journey is all that counts (I don't think that is the case, but let's say that it is!). From Haran to Shechem is another 430 miles! That's like from here to Lexington, Kentucky! Assuming that Abram kept a brisk pace of 20 miles per day everyday, that is around three weeks on just the last leg of the journey. Plus you have camp to set up and animals to feed as you go along.

Can you imagine slogging along for weeks, possibly months, each day wondering, "Ok, is *this* the land of promise? Exactly how far am I supposed to walk, here?" It is one thing when you know exactly where the destination is, but God hasn't even told him specifically how far he was supposed to go! Wouldn't that be maddening? Isn't that maddening? Is that not how our lives are lived? 

God tells us in His word to go. And we go. Doesn't the journey feel long sometimes? Each day you wonder, "Is this part of the journey over yet?" And each day, the stakes get pulled up, and off to another day's walk. 

Then there are unexpected issues along the way, aren't there? The day finally comes for Abram when he arrives in Shechem, a place that is going to come up a time or two later in the Old Testament. It is here that Abram reaches the promised land, and lo and behold, there are people already there! I bet when Abram reached this spot he said to himself, "Well, at least I know that this isn't the land! Look at all these people already in it." But no, here is the place that God is going to give to his descendants. What? There's a surprise! 

God reiterates his promise to Abram that this is indeed the land He will give to Abram's descendants. Calvin notices something here in these verses. He points out that from a human perspective, this is almost an insult (353)! Abram could look at God and say, "What land? This land? The one that is full of other people! How am I supposed to clear this out, and while we are talking, what descendant? I've walked a thousand miles at this point from Ur! It's been months! Where is even one child?" If we didn't know better, we say that this has all been an elaborate tease! But with God it is not. God's bare word is enough (Calvin, 353). It is not because of what is said but Who is saying it. Yes, if I promise you a land and a child, that doesn't mean much. I can't actually give you those things, but God can. 

So why does He do it this way? Why does God insist on such delays and impossible circumstances? God wants to show us Himself. And the way that God presents Himself is not the way that we present things. If you want to show your house for sale, you light it better than it ever could be, clean it like it has never been cleaned before, and stage the furniture in impractical ways to make sure that it photographs well. 

That isn't the right metaphor. God tends to present Himself like a car crash safety test footage. have you ever watched those? They take this perfectly nice car, and then they sling it as hard as they can into a wall or a barrier. They stick crash test dummies in there to show how safe the car is for the people inside. For the cars that do well in this test, you tend to see them put up on tv. It's nerve wracking watching it race for the wall, but then amazing when they keep everyone safe. In that instance, you want to show people the car conquering anything life can throw at it. 

But in the end, you have to get into the car. 

That's where, if you'll excuse the extended metaphor, the rubber meets the road. Abram gets into the car, and it hurtles towards the wall. But as we will see, the Lord works through it all. Abram stays the course. He keeps on the road God is taking him. And that isn't an easy journey. 

I'm sure Abram thought about going back the further and further away God took him from everything He knew. Every day was a decision to keep walking because He trusted what God said. 

Do you? I bet Abram had to remind himself of God's promises everyday. Do you? If you don't, that may be why you are discouraged this morning. It is hard to walk a long way and not know why. That feels pointless, doesn't it? But if you know what you are walking towards, then the journey is still long, but it means something. 

So what made Abram different? 

Abram didn't set out to the promised land and sneak up on God. He didn't climb the mountain and God say, "Well, look who found me!" God chose Abram as His own. We will see this again with Jacob later on. Neither Esau nor Jacob are particularly nice, Christian people at the start. Yet God calls the "trickster" to be His. Why? Because He wanted to.

When told to "go" in chapter 11, what did they do? They built a tower! No one wanted to follow after God. Behold! All they like sheep have gone astray! With Abram, however, God called, and he answered. It works the same way with us and our salvation, too, by the way. God doesn't just drag people into heaven whether they want to go there or not. No one is going to heaven kicking and screaming, and likewise no one is pounding at the gate, genuinely wanting a relationship with Jesus who is going to be shut out. John 6:37 puts this together perfectly. The second half of the verse says "whoever comes to me I will never cast out," and yet we see the first half of the verse tells us how that is: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, AND whoever comes to me I will never cast out." If you are coming to Jesus, it is because the Father has given you to Him, and because the Father has given you to Him, Jesus will NEVER cast away a gift from the Father. 

Now, because people will go there, folks try to predict who is elect or not based on what they are doing right now. Quit betting against God like that. That is a bad bet. Look at Jonah. God has ways of getting it done. Look at Paul. Come on. He can handle your atheistic uncle. 

As Jonah teaches us, God can get you where He wants you to be. But not even that gets you out of following what God says. You still gotta do it. Jonah still needed to go to Nineveh in the end. And you still need to obey. Is God the one empowering that obedience? Yes. Are you still responsible to do it? Also yes. How does that work? I don't know. Abram still took every step on that road. God didn't teleport him Star Trek style into Shechem. And He doesn't do the same for us either. We live out that salvation here on earth with all of the hard situations and tests of faith. Our works don't create faith, but faith does create our works. 

And what does Abram do while he walks and waits? He worships. He builds an altar and calls on the name of the Lord. This can mean worship, or it can mean proclaiming God's word to people. Calvin happens to think it is both (354). Worship like that is a bold move. Here he is setting up an altar in the midst of a pagan people! It would be like starting a church in Mecca and putting a cross on your building. That's some witnessing, right there! Perhaps that's why he has to keep moving! But all of that hardship was to point Abram up. If he was greeted with ease in the land, perhaps he would just be satisfied with that. God keeps moving him, because ultimately, his home isn't here. It is in heaven. It is with God. 

That is what Jesus promises us. He doesn't promise ease, material wealth, or even the idea that life is going to make sense all of the time. What He does promise us is Himself. And He has shown us the ultimate test of His love for us in that while we were still sinners He died for us. We have not only heard God's Word, but we have beheld God's Word in the flesh. The ultimate revelation of Himself, the ultimate test of God's trustworthiness is in His Son, Jesus Christ. 

Do you trust Him? Do you show that through your obedience? That's really our takeaway from this. Yes, God is absolutely gracious and sovereign who pulls the most unlikely people towards Himself, but that doesn't negate your responsibility to trust Him, to follow Him. Abram wasn't going to get to the promised land by deciding Egypt was better (which we will see after Easter). But as we will see even there, God's hand guiding us through every step that He empowers us to take. 

Image by Gerd Altmann

Can you imagine a world in which the Jews didn't exist? It's impossible for us to do so as Western people. The default religion from a human population standpoint is polytheism or some faceless, person-less Law that governs the universe for no apparent reason. For us to walk around as even secular Americans assuming "a" God who runs the world is due to God making His promise to Abraham. We as Gentiles would have no idea at all that such a concept even exists. We couldn't form a category for this without God revealing Himself to Abram through words and demonstrations of His character. Even more than that, can you imagine a world without the Ten Commandments? It forms the basis of nearly all of our laws, including the principle of the punishment fitting the crime! 

But God has done far more than give us some new way of thinking or governing; God has also saved us from our old way of living. Both have been achieved through this promise to Abram. True, without God's promise to Abram there is no concept of monotheism or modern law, but more importantly without this promise to Abram there is no Jesus. There is no assurance that God could fulfill any of His promises without a demonstration of God's faithfulness to Abram. 

He promises that He will make Abram a great nation and that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. And as we can see today, we have been. Today, we are going to finish off point 2, God gives His people a Savior. 

God provides His people a Savior 

We saw last week that God gave His people a land, a place, and we saw that ultimately this is heaven. But the question remains as to how exactly that is going to happen. How on earth is God going to move from one old and barren couple to a nation great enough that all the nations of the world would be blessed? On paper, this doesn't look possible! Looking at the facts on the ground, God bringing life to an empty womb AND that life resulting in worldwide blessing seems unlikely at best. 

So how does God do this? The first step, of course is Sarah being pregnant. We will discuss that more when we get there, but suffice it to say that promise looked so impossible that it borders on irresponsibility to believe it and act on it. 

We are used to scams, aren't we? I remember getting a message once where a man was so glad to finally get in contact with me. A relative of mine had passed away leaving me tens of millions of dollars, and in order to get this money, all I would need to do was email back some personal information. Now, I knew this wasn't true based on two things. One, based on the country of origin of this message, I had absolutely no family there. Second, at the time, the entire living Jessup family could have fit in two booths at Denny's (we're a small family, is what I'm saying, and we love breakfast). And I knew where everyone was and knew that they were quite alive. I could discount that promise. What would have been even less believable, however, would be to say that my grandfather (whom for the remaining fifty years of his life after his wife died remained unmarried) would have a son who would provide me with millions of dollars! 

But this is exactly what happens to Abram! God looks at Him squarely in the face and tells him that the impossible is definitely going to happen. Now, as the chapters in Genesis go on, we will see that this takes a while from an individual human standpoint, and there are going to be some false steps and foibles before we get there. It is far from a direct and speedy path from childless Abram to mighty Solomon (to say nothing of the distance between Abram and Jesus!), but a quick glance at history shows that this has always been the case. It has always been the case that God makes a people where there used to be no people. 

Let's take a look at the nation of Israel from a political standpoint. When they arrive in Egypt, they start out as a shepherd family of 70 people (Gen. 47:1 and Ex. 1:5). They had to *leave* the land that they were promised because there was no food there to reside in Egypt. At first, this works out well. They've got a direct line to the king of the country who gives them the best of the land. You can imagine that this might be where they get to flourish. After all, they've got a privileged position in a wealthy nation that is currently feeding the rest of the world. Sound familiar? They do begin to multiply in this context, as that is what Pharaoh fears, but when did they begin to multiply more? When they were persecuted and enslaved (Ex. 1:12). 

How did we get from slaves to the richest king in the world? It wasn't from their throwing off of Egypt. They didn't revolt and conquer Egypt. God did that. As promised (those who curse you I will curse). It wasn't their resolve out in the desert. Even after escaping, they wanted to go back (Numbers 14:1-4)! It wasn't their courage in battle (Numbers 13). It was God's mercy. Skipping ahead a few hundred years, it wasn't David proving himself out in the shepherd's field that made him king. It was God's protection of his life, not just from Goliath, but from Israel's own king several times, that brought him to the throne. Finally, it was God's blessing of Solomon with both wisdom and riches that brought both to him and the now firmly established political entity of Israel. 

There is a lot to draw from for our own lives in just this little survey. 

One is that God works through ordinary, unimpressive people. God uses barren people to have children and uses slaves to rule. He uses imperfect parents to raise children. He takes grandparents who feel their relevance has gone and gives them ministries. You are not "too anything" for God to use you. Now, there may be some specific areas you aren't able to work in (for instance, there are specific qualifications for a church officer), but that doesn't mean that you can't serve the Lord in great ways as He considers them. 

The second thing that we should draw from this is humility. It is terrifyingly easy to assume that because things are going well in your life that you are definitely the only reason why. Does God reward obedience? Of course, and we will see that more next week, but obedience to a command that God gave you doesn't then give you all the glory. That is what Luke 17:9-10 is getting at. At best, we are only doing what we should have been doing. Honestly, just doing the things that are ultimately best for *us* and the wider world.   

As we turn back to the history of Israel with all that in mind, we can answer the question of why God does all of this. Why did God make Israel a great nation? Yes, it is because He promised, but the answer isn't so that Israel could be a political tour de force (notice that David and Solomon's reign together add up to only eighty years of prosperity and political influence before things begin to slip downhill). It was to be a blessing to the nations. 

God wasn't building politicians to be world policy makers. He was building priests to be Kingdom promise proclaimers. How do I know this? It is because that is exactly what God said that He was doing with them in Exodus 19:6. Listen to what God tells Moses to preach to the Israelites: "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”" What does a priest do in the Old Testament? He connects you to God. He provided the means by which you could offer appropriate sacrifice to God to receive forgiveness and acceptance from God. 

What a gift that would be to the world! 

When I was in seminary, I had the chance to talk to international students a lot. There was one who impacted me the most as he described wanting to come to America so he could learn the truth about his own country. Information is very tightly controlled there, and he viewed America as a place where he could not only get information, but a chance a better life back home. Our country has been a beacon of hope for many other students like him. In my travels, I will see people look at me with wonder that I get to *live* in a place like America. Our country does hold much for the world, but access to money, information, and entertainment has nothing on Israel who had access to God. 

When Solomon built the temple, God's presence filled it. That's astonishing. You could point to a particular coordinate on the map and say, "You can meet with God there. Do you have sin you need to get rid of? Take to those Israel priests over there, and they can sacrifice to God to take care of that for you." Do you have any idea what kind of gift that was to the world? Do you have any idea what it must have been like to encounter the Living God of all Creation just down the street. 

Well, you should. Because that's your job now. 

Israel, as we know from the rest of the Old Testament, didn't always do their priestly job very well. Yet, even when Israel was exiled, Isaiah prophesies that they will have this job again. In Isaiah 61:1-7, God tells them that not only will return to their land, they will resume their role as priests once again, providing access to God. 

But how did God do that? Luke 4:16-21. Israel would one day produce Jesus. He would be the Temple who would be broken down, and in three days be raised up (John 2:19)! He would be the one where it could be accurately said that "Whoever who has seen me as seen the Father" (John 14:9). He would be the one who dwells with us (John 1:14). He is the blessing of the nations! Paul says so in Galatians 3:16. Christ was the whole point as it says in verses 7-9 of that same chapter. He is the one who is proclaiming forgiveness of sins! He is the one who welcomes us into the promises! Now, WE have a land, a seed, and a blessing for the nations! 

But how? Because, as you may notice, Jesus isn't physically here anymore. How is that blessing communicated to the nations now? 

The answer is "you." How do I know this? That is what 1 Peter 2:4-9 says. This language might be familiar to you by now. We are now the priests. We are now the temple! When people want to encounter God, they should look for you. This isn't because you have become divine (you, just like Abram, are ordinary), but because God lives in you now. You can provide people the gospel, the knowledge that a sacrifice has already been made on their behalf. When they see you, they should see someone who has been transformed by God. 

They should see someone who looks like the promises made to Abram were real. They should see someone who has a blessing for them, news of a savior for them. 

Application: 

You are part of this great Nation, this Kingdom. As a citizen-priest, there are responsibilities that you have. We are now the Holy Nation, and every nation is the sum of its parts. We talk about nations being built on the back of the nuclear family, and there is no escaping that responsibility in the heavenly Kingdom. Personal holiness makes a real difference. Ordinary faithfulness moves mountains. 

In the same way, unfaithfulness creates mountains. Nothing does damage quite like heavenly citizens acting like the sons of disobedience. No one will turn against the banking industry because one teller was a criminal, but boy will they do that because of a Christian. In the same way, no one joins the banking industry because one teller went slightly out of their way to help them, but boy does that happen in the church. People will join a church because of a can of soup given in love. Ordinary faithfulness. 

Finally, we are going to have to be comfortable with likely not seeing the effect of our priesthood. One scholar put what Abram was doing in this way: "Abram must exchange the known for the unknown (Heb. 11:8), and find his reward in what he could not live to see (a great nation), in what was intangible (thy name) and in what he would impart (blessing)" (Kinder). At the end of the story where Abram is promised a nation, a seed, and a blessing, he has been protected (blessing), has one son from Sarah (seed), and just enough land to bury his wife (land). From Abram's perspective, that would probably be disappointing. But what would arise in the future! Abram wouldn't even have a category for his spiritual children through Jesus to be talking about his story in Sylacauga.  

What might He do through you? You probably won't find out until heaven, but you'll never find out if you don't follow after Jesus. Answer the call that He is putting on your life. 

Image by Terje Ansgar Eriksen




What is the biggest promise you've ever made? Most of the time, we don't realize we are making such a promise at the front end. Most of the time, we realize just how big of a promise we've made when we are halfway into that commitment. It can be something small like a bake sale that gets out of control, or it can be something profoundly large like a marriage that needs deep forgiveness within it. When we make big promises, sometimes we can rise to the occasion, and other times we just can't. We often put God in that box. We assume that God may or may not be able to keep up with the promises that He has made. As we will see today, God absolutely fulfills His promises to us, in particular, His promises for our salvation. 

It is hard for us to imagine that our salvation is being worked out here with a little man with a funny name from a distant town, but they are. What is happening in these short few verses is nothing less than the shaping of history. This is the working out of one of the most important promise made in the Bible, the Abrahamic covenant. We are going to explore just how important this covenant is by looking at the fulfillment of the three separate promises God makes. God provides His people a place, God provides His people a Savior, and God provides His people a blessing.  

God Provides His People a Place
Last week, we saw that God forms relationships with His people via a covenant and had the opportunity to enjoy the signs of the new covenant with us. Now, we are going to look into how the covenant with Abram leads us to where we are today, and that must start by looking at the covenant with Abraham itself. This particular covenant, as one scholar points out, develops and gets details and things revealed as we go from chapter 12 to 22 (Redd, 135-6). The core of the promise that is made though can be found right here at the very beginning of God's relationship with Abraham. We will see this core promise echo through the rest of Genesis (and the rest of the Bible, really) either explicitly or implicitly. God promises Abraham three things: a land, a seed, and a blessing. Though, this will play out over seven "wills" that are contained in these verses (Waltke, 203). 

In order to understand what is at stake here, let's start with where Abram is at the start of our passage. Abram is just another guy (Joshua 24:2 tells us that he was another idol worshiper living in Ur) in the world. Ur was actually a pretty great place to live, and we know more about this particular city than any other ancient city of that time (CITE). Even if he was just near the city of Ur, it was quite a place to be close to! The walls around the city were more than a mile around, and there were two ports where trading could take place! There were houses, streets, and possibly even a sewer system! The walls of buildings at the corner of streets were curved to allow carts to pass by without clipping the building! More than the technological advancements, there was a huge ziggurat in the city, something that Abram probably worshiped at. 

God is about to call Abram to leave all of that, and the leaving of the city isn't even the hard part. 

When Abby and I were about to get married, I was looking for a ministerial job. I had been on the hunt for the better part of a year, and despite the sending of resumes and a handful of interviews, just nothing was coming up. There was one more place to apply to: Brewton, Alabama. Population: 4,000. My wife grew up just outside of Metro Birmingham, populations: 250,000. The most recent thing that had happened in Brewton was a new Taco Bell. It shut down the roads. The call came. We accepted. Passing chickens and ponies, we drove down the winding two lane road into Brewton. That was an exercise in faith and love for my new bride. She was going to leave everything that she knew to throw in her lot with some youth pastor who couldn't find a place to even live in that town until 10 days before the move! Now, like Abram, when we went we found a blessing. The people there embraced us, and we could find a place to be for the time that God had us there. 

Abram's situation was very different. At least Brewton had a Walmart (and honestly, a pretty nice one at that). Abram is being called away truly from everything, and this is seen in his call away from family. This would have been harder than leaving the conveniences of a city. Every safety net would need to be left behind. He is being called to leave his country, his culture, even down to the smallest family unit possible (Matthews, 111). As Matthews points out, "So strong was the identity of a person with his father's household that an individual’s behavior had implications for the entire family (Josh 2:18; 1 Sam 17:25; 2 Sam 14:9; 24:17)." (Matthews, 111). In other words, Abram is being asked to be completely undone. This won't be the only time that he will be asked to do this either. One commentator noticed that this bookends Abram's life: "In Genesis 12 Abraham is called to leave his past out of simple trust in God's promises, and in Genesis 22 Abraham is called to abandon his future out of simple trust in God." (Waltke, 196). 

In return, Abram is going to be given, among other things, a place, a land. 

Do you long to have a place? People crave that. We see in the news how hard it is to own a home nowadays, but people still seek it. Even more dramatically we see in the news the wars that are going on are ultimately about place. Who is going to live where and why? The importance of this question rises to the level of bombs. This tells us something. There is this longing in our souls to *be* somewhere, to put roots down, to merge our souls with the surrounding people. I think we feel this now more than ever. The internet told us that we could form our own lands anywhere and everywhere. But what we found is if anywhere and everywhere is home, then nothing is. God is offering Abram a place where he can belong. Where he can have his family. Where he can be secure (what place would be more secure than the one chartered to you by the almighty Himself?). 

But Abram was looking beyond even that. Look at Hebrews 11:8-16, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." 

Abraham was looking towards heaven! God wasn't just offering another spot of dirt (although He was doing that, too); He was offering a spot in heaven. Jesus picks up on this for us as well when we get to John 14:1-3 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." Jesus is promising us a land. By fulfilling what He said to Abraham for this patch of land, we can know that He will do the same for us in heaven. 

Hold onto that. Sometimes you are told to do the same thing that Abram was told. Calvin restates it so well: "I command thee to go forth with closed eyes...until, having renounced thy country, thou shalt have given thyself wholly to me." (quoted in Waltke, 205). In other words, God almost never tells us beforehand where we are going when we start out on a journey on Earth. But He has told us where we are ULTIMATELY going. He is leading us to a land that He will show us. No, we can’t see it right now. We are called to exercise, as one commentator put it, a "divine imagination (i.e., seeing things that are not, as though they were)..." (Waltke, 196-7). 

I love this concept of "divine imagination" because I can't do this very well. I am not able to visualize something that isn't there. Abby can do this very well. I'm told to imagine what it would look like to move the couch from this end of the room to the other, and if I concentrate EXTREMELY hard, I can sort of do it. What I have found to work easier is to simply trust my wife for aesthetic decisions. If she thinks the couch will look great over there, then it will, whether I can imagine it or not. And the same is true of God. 

Our imaginations are really broken, so they need something to be guided towards. We can't see what isn't there most of the time. But we trust God when He tells us that there is going to be a thing there. When God tells us that He will work all things for our good, we have to believe Him, even when there is nothing that we can possibly see to make it so. When God tells us to be obedient to Him even when it is going to cost us our jobs, our family relationships, our own reputation, our time, our imagination can't see it working out. But God will make it so. I know that because God has promised us a land. He has promised us a place that we are journeying towards. It is as sure as it was for Abram. 

What is holding you back from embracing that promise? What is keeping you from exercising that divine imagination? If you are like me, the thing that distracts the hardest are the supposed facts on the ground, what I can see right here, right now. You look at your marriage that has been sour for, well, as long as either of you can remember. It seems like that if God really cared about it, He would have done something by now. Yes, we’ve prayed, we’ve gone to counseling, but we just want to give up. Don’t settle there. On one interpretation of this passage, Abram left part of the way but settled in Haran with his father. Settling before God tells you to doesn’t bring you His blessing. Instead He calls us, as Eugene Peterson put it, long obedience in one direction. 

What does that look like? What does it look like to embrace God’s promises? It looks like a trust in God that doesn’t leave you bitter and cynical. It is a trust that looks beyond the present moment. Why did Abram take that step away? Because he believed God. When Abram took that first step away from what he knew and who he loved, it must have felt nuts. I’m sure when Abram first brought it up to his clan they tried to talk him out of it. Wouldn’t you try to talk your family members out of packing up, leaving the United States, burning up their social security card, and not providing a means of contact? I would! Sometimes that’s what faith looks like. It means praying for that daughter or son when years of it has not yielded what you want for them. It means continuing through trial of physical pain and still saying, “God is good.” 

How do we do that? We believe God when He says that there is a place that we are going. We believe God that we are on our way to heaven. 

So what is our takeaway from this passage? God made Abram a promise, among other things that we will look at next week, that there would be a land for him, but it would require leaving behind his way of life to go to it. In this, God was giving the Israelites the divine right to this land, something that they would take hold of in the coming centuries when they were lead by Joshua. This promise extends far beyond a geographical region, but looks towards what the Ultimate Descendant, Jesus Christ, would lead us into. He has granted us a place, and we are going to it. We are called to leave behind former things, and follow Jesus where He leads. That may sometimes look like leaving everything. That may sometimes mean losing everything. But what it always means is that God will grant us more than we have sacrificed in the land to come. 


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