Keep on going. Don't give up.

The Promise

(Genesis 12:1-9, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, September 28, 2014)

[12:1] Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. [2] And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

We worship a God who speaks. This God is the LORD, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He is also the Redeemer of His people. He is able to rightly judge mankind, a fact displayed prominently in the flood in the days of Noah. He has a plan to bring about a new world without any sin or death. That plan involves all the family groups of the earth. At the center of that plan is His own coming as the Messiah. As the Lord spoke to one man in the Middle East about four thousand years ago, he announced His plan with a promise.

God's promise to Abram began with a command. Abram was to complete the journey that he and his father had begun before his father's death. The Lord did not tell Abram where exactly he would go or what would precisely take place along the way. He expected Abram to trust Him. God would show him a new land for his descendants. God promised that these descendants would be a great nation.

Even more than that, the Lord promised to bless Abram and to make Abram a blessing, insisting that all the various people groups of the earth would be blessed “in you.” This was a very large promise to a man who had very little to recommend himself to God. But throughout the four thousand years that have followed this announcement by the Lord, the truth of the the Lord's promise has been confirmed through the coming of the Jews, and especially in the surprising arrival of the Messiah, and then in the worldwide mission of the church to bring the message of the kingdom of Jesus to all the nations of the earth.

[4] So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. [5] And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, [6] Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. [7] Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. [8] From there he moved to the hill country 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. [9] And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Abram believed the promise, followed the instruction of the Lord, and built an altar to the Lord in a part of the land that would be Israel.

Put the Word to Work: We follow in the line of ancient men and women who have believed the promise of God and received the blessing. How can we not follow the Lord who saved us?

Memory Verse from the Songs of Ascents—Psalm 123:1 – To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

Gospel Reading—Matthew 14:13-21 – Jesus feeds the five thousand