Hold On To The Promise

Genesis 12:1-3 (NLT)

The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

Background and context:

In Genesis 11 we have an account of the line of Shem from which Abraham descended. More specifically from verses 27 to the end we have details of his direct paternal line. We are introduced to Sarai in verse 29 and in verse 30 we are told that Sarai was unable to become pregnant and had no children.

Abraham’s father started the journey to the promised land of Canaan but he stopped at Haran and settled there.

God started your journey before he even spoke to you

It would seem that God decided to begin the journey to the promised land with Abraham’s father but there was a stumbling block.

Terah had 3 sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran. His son Haran died in the land he was living in at the time, Ur of the Chaldeans. We are told, “one day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai and his grandson Lot and moved away from Ur of the Chaldean.

God began the Abrahams journey before he even made the covenant with him. God had already decided that he was going to use Abraham’s line as the line through which his plan would be fulfilled.

Others can delay you but they can’t stop you

Terah stopped in Haran, a place which shared the same name as his son, and it says that he settled there.

Could it be that this place reminded him of what he had lost?

Could it be that he remembered old times and couldn’t move on?

Could it be that the reminder of his son that had died put fear in him to move on?

Whatever the reason, he stopped the journey and settled in a land that was not the land that God had put in his heart to go to.

Sometimes we have people who start the journey with us but stop along the way and they settle. They want us to settle there with them and sometimes because we are looking at them for guidance we stop there with them.

A perfect example for me is when I was growing up, I always went to the churches my mum said I had to go to. I decided I wanted to study medicine because that was what my mum wanted for me and convinced me it was what I wanted too and I allowed this leading in a lot of areas and it was a delay on my journey, an extended stop at an intermediary station but it didn’t stop my journey. Now I am not saying that my mother derailed me – on the contrary, she offered a lot of guidance and prayed for me continuously. I would say that part of the reason I am where I am now is a result of her prayers and constant encouragement.

Look past your current circumstances

God is teaching us about the faith of Abraham and the obedience he had before we even get into his story.

Before his story starts we are already made aware that his wife could not get pregnant and she had no children.

The next thing we read is God telling Abraham that he will make him a great nation.

No children then great nation. In the natural these things do not align.

Let’s add to this that Abraham was 75 when he left Haran.

If you look through his line you see that most of his line had their first child between 29 and 32 so Abraham must have been looking at his situation like there is no hope for him but here is God telling him that he will make him a great nation.

We all know that Abraham became a great nation. So why did it come to pass?

Abraham did 3 things:

1.     Abraham recognized the voice of God

Sometimes we know God is speaking to us. Each of us hears from God in our own way. I know I used to hear the word of God through music and I am also learning to hear his voice in my spirit but I am learning to discern when God is speaking to me. How, I spend time reading the word of God and meditating on it so that when he speaks I recognize his voice because I know his nature. I am building my relationship with him so that I can distinguish his voice from the noise that we hear.

I don’t need caller id to know when my wife calls or when my parents call or my siblings. Anyone who I have a true relationship with I know their voice and I can distinguish them from other people. It is the same with God, we need to build our relationship with him so that we know how to recognize his voice.

2.     Abraham obeyed the voice of God

There are so many times God speaks to us and we pretend we didn’t hear him. We do our own thing and say “that can’t be God, he wouldn’t tell me to do that” or “God knows I’m broke, why would he be asking me to give my last £10 to someone” or “God knows the economy is hard right now, why would he tell me to leave my job” or whatever it may be. We learn to rationalize our disobedience. Abraham heard the voice of God and he heard what God was saying and right about the part where God said he would make him a great nation, Abraham must have said to himself “who me? The guy with a barren wife? The guy who is now 75 and has no heir?” but he recognized the voice of God, he heeded the voice of God and obeyed.

Why did Abraham obey? Well there we have point 3.

3.     Abraham had faith in God

Abraham believed what God had said not because he could see what was ahead but because he knew that God could see what was ahead, behind and all around. Abraham knew what God had done in the past. Abraham had seen a legacy of God’s goodness and he could see that God had a plan and as long as that was the case, he didn’t need to know the details.

Faith is not following blindly, faith is trusting that the one who is leading you has already planned for all the obstacles.

A good general puts a plan together but does not share the plan with anyone outside his inner circle. His battalion still follow his orders and put their lives on the line under his command, why? Because they trust the guidance of their general. They know that he has looked at all the options and he will do what is in their best interest.

So it is with our faith in God. The father has shared his plans with his inner circle, he has discussed it with the himself, the Son and the holy spirit. He just needs us to follow and believe that where he is leading us to is better than where we are now.

You will doubt and your faith will falter

Did Abraham’s faith falter? Of course it did.

Examples:

Genesis 15 is an account of a conversation between God and Abraham and during this conversation God has to remind Abraham and reassure him of his promise to him. Abraham is afraid that his servants will inherit all that he has and says to God what good is all his wealth if he has no one to leave it to? God reassures him that he will have a son of his own. Then Abraham asks God, how can I be sure that I will posses the land of Canaan and God reveals part of his plan to Abraham. He lets him in on the future, the things that will not be fulfilled till the time of Moses and Joshua.

Genesis 16 Sarai gives Hagar her hand maiden to Abraham as his concubine and she had a son for him but this was not the son of the promise. In a moment of doubt, Abraham tried to hurry along Gods plan and he took matters into his own hand but all he did was make the situation more complex. He created problems for himself and his wife. He didn’t derail the plan of God because once God says it, then it has to come to pass because he is not man that he should lie and his word cannot return to him void.

Genesis 17 when Abraham is 99, so this is 29 years after God initially told him to leave Haran and told him he would make him a great nation, there was still no baby and God was still telling Abraham the same thing.

Do you have the faith to endure even when you trials feel like they are not coming to an end?

God blessed Abraham in other areas whilst he was bringing his plan to fruition. Look around you and see how God is preparing your life for his promise. God will not birth his plan into land he has not prepared. Nothing is an accident with God, nothing takes him by surprise. God will develop you in all areas of your life to prepare you to receive his promise.

Abraham doubted what God was saying and he treated it as though God was confused. He said “may Ishmael live under your special blessing” but God corrected him and said “Sarah, your wife will give birth to a son for you and you shall name him Isaac.”

There are more accounts of Abraham and Sarah’s faltering faith but when God reminded them they believed. When Isaac was born God tested Abraham to see if he would continue to trust him.

God asked Abraham to give up the one thing he had wanted for so long and Abraham was willing to do so. Abraham believed that God said he would have a son, so if he had to sacrifice his son who God said would be the line through whom all his descendants would be counted then God must have another plan to fulfil that. Since he gave him Isaac like he said he would, then he will do what he has said he would do because that is his nature.

Are you willing to trust God with everything?

When the promise comes are you willing to do something that God asks even when it seems contrary to what he said he was doing?

How much are you willing to trust him?

How much control are you willing to give him?

Abraham did not see the full fulfilment of God’s promise because it was not designed to be completed in his generation but his faith allowed him to see God do what he said he would do and he died knowing that God would accomplish his word and make his line a great line through his son Isaac.

In the same way we need to hold on to what God is saying to us. Don’t look at what is happening around you. Do not look at the barrenness of your situation or the hopelessness of it. Look at the promise and remind yourself of his promise. Remind yourself that you heard his voice and you heeded his voice.

1 Samuel 15:22 says:

But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.”

If we obey his voice and we have faith in him who has spoken it, knowing that this is the same God who spoke the world into existence. The same God who sent his son to die in our place because he loved us so much. The same God who allowed his son to become sin and therefore a curse so that we would never be blemished in his eyes again. The same God that gave us an eternal pardon through the blood of his son, then how can his promise never come to pass? They have to come to pass because they are spoken by a God who cannot and does not ever lie.