The Promise and the Altar

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 12:4-9

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Well, this morning we continue on with Genesis chapter 12. It's nice to have a booming voice.
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I think I spoke too soon. I might have falsely prophesied last week that we were making great strides in audio quality.
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I'm told that that was not the case with the recording, and so peace, peace when there is no peace.
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But hopefully we're working out the kinks as we move forward. But at least hopefully this morning it's coming through okay.
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We're continuing with chapter 12 as we have begun the series of Genesis, we're reminded that chapters 1 through 11 are actually just the prologue or the introduction, rather long introduction, to the center of Genesis or the point of Genesis, which is the patriarchal narratives.
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So really, 12 through 50 is the significant or the zoomed in part of the narrative, and 1 through 11 is the prologue.
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And yet, of course, they're not introductory in means of you can dismiss it or ignore it.
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They actually create the foundation to which the patriarchal narrative is responding. We're going to see that in some ways this morning.
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So we began last week with chapter 12, and we began with God's work in the life of Abram.
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This surprising work of grace in the life of a pagan idolater in Ur of the
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Chaldeans. And so God effectually called Abram to himself, and Abram departed along with his father
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Terah, and they settled in Haran. And when Terah died, then we read that Abram traveled from Haran down to Canaan.
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And that's what we're going to look at together this morning in verses 4 through 9. We're reminded that God is continuing this great promise from Genesis 3 .15
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forward. The promise of the seed who will undo the work of the fall, the work of the serpent.
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This promised seed that will crush the head of the serpent and overthrow the kingdom of the serpent.
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The God of this world, the ruler of this age, the prince of darkness. We're reminded also that this promise has been preserved through Abel, through Seth, through Noah, through Shem, down this
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Semite line, even on to Abram. And we're reminded that this blessing of God upon Abram is completely unconditional, completely unilateral.
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It has not been earned, has not been bargained for. There's no strings attached. God moves to bless and bless and bless
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Abram, and through Abram to bless all of the families of the earth. So this is how significant
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God's work of grace is. And as we unpack the life of Abram, we're going to see just how incredible God's grace is according to his purpose for Abram.
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Now last week, we read part of Stephen's speech in Acts 7. Stephen, as he was preaching and declaring the word of God before the assembled rulers and high priests, he said,
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Brethren and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran and said to him,
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Get out of your country and from your relatives, come to a land that I will show you. And so he came out of the land of the
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Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this land in which you now dwell.
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So God is now moving Abram to this land in which the Israelites will live and settle.
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And that's what we're looking at in verses 4 through 9. We're looking at God moving Abram from Haran to the promised land, to Canaan.
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We're going to see that in three stages in verses 4 through 9. First, the journey from Haran to Canaan, to the border of Canaan.
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Then secondly, to Shechem. And then lastly, from Bethel to the south or toward the
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Negev. So those are the three stages of this journey in verses 4 through 9.
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Now, to give you a preview of where we're going next week, because it would be so relevant today, we want to talk about what is the significance of the promised land.
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Why does God promise to bless Abram with a land and with a seed that will occupy the land?
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How does that connect to us as the church, to Christ, the Redeemer, and to his work as prophet, priest, and king?
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So next week, we're going to unpack this sort of meta -theme of the land in Scripture as a theme.
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But we're not doing that this morning. We're not going to talk about the land theologically this morning.
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Today, we're just going to focus on the details of Abram's journey and some application along the way. So first, from Haran to Canaan.
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We read, Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy -five years old when he departed from Haran.
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Then Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all of their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan.
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So they came to the land of Canaan. So this is Abram's walk of faith.
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God is moving him, and yet he is moving. He is moving. He's walking and trusting in what he cannot see.
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All of that's contained in this little phrase, So Abram departed. So Abram departed.
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Very straightforward, simple three words in English. We can assume because of that, it was no big deal for him to depart.
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There was no hardship in him leaving, and that would be reading beyond the text, because we know from human experience just how difficult this transition and this obedience would have been.
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We read, So Abram departed, and we don't think anything of it. Okay, time to go. Pack up, everybody.
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We know from experience how stressful and anxiety -ridden these kinds of transitions can be.
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It's hard enough when you know where you're going, and what you're going to do. How much harder when you don't know where you're going, and you don't know what you're going to do, or what you're going to be called to do.
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God was essentially saying to Abram, Leave everything you know, everyone you know, follow me into everything you don't know.
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That's hard. That's very hard. And it's all summed up in this little faithful expression,
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So Abram departed, or Thus Abram departed. He obeyed and heeded what
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God called him to do. Abram first had to hear that call of God. He had been listening to it when
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God effectually called him in Ur of the Chaldeans. Again, when it was time for him to leave
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Haran, he heard that call of God, and then all he had to do, as the hymn puts it, was trust and obey.
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There is no other way but to trust and obey. That's what Abram had to do.
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This didn't mean that he could do what we might do. Google where you're going to go. What Holiday Inn Expresses are you going to stay in along the way?
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Go down to Sam's Club with your U -Haul trucks. Load up all sorts of Aquafina, cases of water, granola bars for the kids, pallets of goldfish.
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Anything you could conceivably think of that you would need for this journey. Make some connections. Email some
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Canaanite realtor. Say, we're moving in. Can you do a little reconnaissance for us about apartments in the area?
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He has no idea where the Lord is leading him. He just has to trust and obey. And remember that Abram is a city dweller.
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75 years living in some of the greatest cities of this period in the ancient world. He's a city slicker.
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He's a metropolitan. He's a man of taste. He's a man of all of the conveniences of urban life.
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And all of the success that sometimes urban life can bring. And God is calling him away from that. Remember that we've seen, and we'll see it again throughout
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Genesis, this sort of implicit criticism of the city. The city of man as opposed to the city of God.
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Well, we know that Abram had done very well in Haran. And so God wasn't just calling him to leave a place, but to leave all of his ambition, all of his roots, and all of his success in that place.
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We read, Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran.
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So Abram was busy. He wasn't just living in a tent in Haran. He was doing what city dwellers do. He was working hard.
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He was investing wisely. He was acquiring possessions. He was acquiring even servants as he had more things to manage, more things to rule, more ways to invest.
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He became a great man in this city. He had a retinue. He had a whole town's worth of servants.
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He became a mighty man in the city of Haran. God was calling him to leave all of that success, all of that ambition behind.
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God has prospered him. That would have made it harder to leave, wouldn't it? Much harder to leave.
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But notice that Abram doesn't put things in storage units. He doesn't say, half of you servants stay here.
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What's my property? For I might return someday, you know. And I'm not gonna sell, you know.
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It's a buyer's market. But, you know, I want you to stay and maintain my property here in Haran. Maybe I'll come back someday.
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I certainly would want to come back. Just for old time's sake, if anything. No, he packs up everything.
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There's no sign of return. No sense of return. I'm going to the place God has promised to make my land.
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The place in which he will make my name great. Now, Abram has taken all of his possessions, all he is and all he has, in order to follow the
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Lord God. He's left his homeland, his relatives, his success, his ambition, everything that had anchored him in Haran.
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All of that must be abandoned. And so all the way back in Genesis 12, as in so many ways, when
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God calls his people, he calls us to forsake all in order to follow him. He calls us to forsake whatever would prevent us from following him.
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And to follow him. We see that time and time and time again. So many of you have that very testimony of what you had to forsake in order to follow
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Christ. In order to carry through that commitment you made to have Jesus Christ as your
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Lord. When the writer of Hebrews encouraged believers not to forsake the faith. Some of them were thinking of abandoning the faith.
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Well, maybe we can just go back to Judaism and be saved from this persecution. After all, it's just because we're
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Christians and we're proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah. That's why we're being persecuted. Can't we still have this relationship and this salvation just through Judaism?
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The Judaism we've left behind. And the writer of Hebrews is saying, no, there's no going back. And so he's encouraging them to persevere.
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And one of the ways he encourages them to persevere is say, it's always been this matter of trusting God and being faithful to him in those things you cannot control.
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And those things you cannot see. And those persecutions that rock you and wave you and reduce you.
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And so one of the examples the writer of Hebrews gives is Abram himself. By faith,
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Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance. Obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
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How many of us have that very story? When we follow the Lord, we had no idea where we were going.
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We thought we knew where we were going before the Lord called us. We thought we knew what our life was going to be about before he called us.
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And then he called us and he starts to lead us. And now we have no idea where we're going. No idea what he's called us to.
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All we can do is trust him. Sometimes season by season. Sometimes just day by day. You follow the
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Lord and often you won't know where he's bringing you. We gather together and we share. I love doing this with so many of you.
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We just talk about what has the Lord's providence been in your life? What little detours?
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You seem to be wandering, but in God's eyes he was guiding you. He had a purpose.
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And it's nice when we can look back and see all of these things that had to happen to get us to this place at this time.
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Perhaps for this reason. Abram did not know where God would take him, but he followed. He didn't know what lied ahead, but it didn't matter.
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The Lord was prompting him, moving him, guiding him. Sometimes just giving him enough for the day and nothing more.
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He didn't have an iPhone with GPS. He didn't have the route planned. He didn't have the
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AAA office load him up with maps. Every leg of this journey would have had to been a step of faith.
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Day by day, trusting the Lord. Trusting he'll provide. Trusting he'll guide. Trusting he won't leave us halfway, but that he'll guide us all the way.
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That's why if you look at your bulletin even, I have a little map there. I think the first time we've ever done an image or a map in the bulletin.
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Just because I think it's important for us to not read past these details. It's so easy for us to read strange names and to read things like, and he went from to.
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He went from Haran to Canaan. And we go, oh yeah, he went. He had to trust God. Well, let's actually be a little more imaginative than that.
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Let's get a sense of the scale. And even this is a pitiful representation of the scale of this journey.
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If only we could use Google Earth to sort of zoom in and actually get a sense of what was attainable day by day.
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What routes he might have taken. What obstacles he would have had to overcome. Unknown terrain.
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Unknown dangers along the way. This would have been a 400, at least around a 400 mile journey.
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And you perhaps are imagining the way a Hollywood presentation would do it, right?
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Abram and Sarai, these elderly 75 year olds. And they're wandering through a completely barren desert.
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They, they have cloths covering their faces and the sand is whipping up. And they're there, lots trailing, come on, lot trailing behind.
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Maybe they have one camel. Well, that's not the picture we get, right? This is a caravan.
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This is hundreds of people. Hundreds of carts and trains. And it's all sorts of possessions and livestock.
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This is, this is like a massive moving group of people. And they're journeying perhaps 10 miles a day.
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Maybe 15 on a good day if it was, if it was smooth. And they have to provide along the way.
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They need water. They need food. There's a lot of mouths to feed. They only have so many provisions with them that will last that kind of journey.
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And they have to make it these 400 miles from Haran. This is an incredible undertaking.
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It would have been easier in some ways if it was just Abram and his nephew and his wife. And yet every day
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God was faithful to provide. 10 miles a day of trusting the Lord and 10 miles of the Lord providing.
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10 miles of the Lord giving new direction. New assurance of his guidance. You can imagine what it was like when he finally began to tread the verge of Canaan.
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This sense of this is the land. This is where I'm coming into. He still journeys.
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But this is the possession now. I've entered into what will be my possession. And perhaps the terrain didn't seem any different as he entered into the verge, right?
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You know, dirt, bushes, trees. Dirt, bushes, trees.
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It doesn't seem that different. And yet the emotion, the sentiment, the realization of this.
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It would have been so powerful. I mean, sort of tongue -in -cheek. But I remember being on the tour bus as we were heading through northern
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England. And it was all the same terrain. But you pass this magical line on the map where it says,
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Welcome to Scotland, which is the second promised land in the world. And it was like, oh, all of a sudden you see it with new eyes.
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Same terrain. There's really no difference. But there's all this sentiment behind it. And that's what it would have been like for Abram.
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This, this is the land. Not all that distinct from what I have just been through.
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But that it's mine. It's going to be my possession. This is where God has been guiding me.
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And so he's drawing him to the slow realization of his promise from verses 1 through 3.
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And every time he would have reached the hilltop. Or a servant said, Master, Master, come look at this vista.
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Look how far you can see. When he saw the mountain ranges that were so massive.
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When he saw plains that just vanished beyond the horizon line. And this was his.
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This was his by God's grace. And then he's being reminded of this great promise.
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You're going to have descendants that are going to fill this land. You see how massive this is? It's taken you all these many months just to get to the border of it.
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And now it's going to take you many more months just to travel within it. If you even could. And your descendants are going to fill it.
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And through them the whole earth is going to be blessed. Your name is going to be great, Abram. Let's get a glimpse of that in Genesis 13.
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The Lord almost encourages Abram to take a tour of this land. Envision what I'm going to do.
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Even though you cannot see it now. Even though you cannot comprehend how I will bring it about. Just look.
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Look and believe me. Lift up your eyes from where you are. Look north and south.
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Look east and west. All the land that you see, I will give to you. And for your offspring forever.
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You see? God is encouraging Abram in this journey. It's not just like, well, just get to the city.
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Here's where I want you to plan. He's saying, walk around. Look. Look everywhere. Take a tour of where I'm going to work.
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And so this promise is dawning. And yet there's so much that's left unseen. Here's the promise.
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Here's even the beginning of its realization. But it's so close and yet so far.
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There's so much left undone. Here is the land. But as we'll see,
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I'm not the only one here. Here's this land and my seed is going to fill it. But my wife is barren.
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There's so much that is left undone. And so Abram still has to renew his faith in the promise of God.
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And so we come to the end of verse 5. They came to the land of Canaan. Notice that Abram doesn't enter with any great acclamation for himself.
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He doesn't send along some parade to announce his entrance into the land.
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He walks in as a stranger. He walks in as a wanderer. Hebrews 11 .9, by faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.
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That's how he entered. That's how he lived. Canaan is a foreign country in many respects.
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Canaan is filled with idolaters, notorious for their wickedness. Canaan is settled, of course, as we remember, by the descendants of Canaan.
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Remember that cursed grandson. Remember Noah said, Cursed be Canaan. And he's speaking of this
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Canaan, of these Canaanites. And so secondly, we see Abram having entered
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Canaan. He comes to Shechem. We read verse 6 and following. Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the turban free of Morah.
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And the Canaanites were then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants,
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I will give this land. And there he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. Shechem was, in many respects, the very heart of Canaan.
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And so Shechem reemerges in Israel's history later on as a very significant place.
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Moses, of course, being inspired to write this account of Genesis, wouldn't have missed the parallel to the
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Israelites of his own day, who would have to go on and make a conquest of this very land.
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And so the whole narrative is framed in the way of them having to look to the example of Abram.
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Them having to follow the very steps of Abram into the land as they make a conquest.
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We get a sense of the idolatry of Shechem right off the bat. Abram comes to the tree of Morah, right?
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This without a shadow of a doubt is a sacred tree. It's known as the tree, the terebinth tree.
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It could be an oak tree, more likely, of Morah. And this must have been a tree that was renowned.
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You know, it's just like our famed waterfall in Hubbardstown. Have you seen the waterfall in Hubbardstown?
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It's known around the world, right? When you're saying the tree or the natural occurring phenomenon, it's something that is so unique, so rare, that it has a reputation.
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You don't need to define it any further. Like if I said, you know, hey, I have something I want to run by you.
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Meet me at the tree in Rutland. The tree in Rutland. Is there a great tree in Rutland that I don't know, right?
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If you say the tree, you know this is a well -known tree. This is an important tree. This must have been a towering tree.
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And to the ancient Near Eastern mindset, such places were very important connection points between the world of the deity and the world of the worshippers.
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So shrines and cultic sites were put on the high places. Even in Israel's day, their idolatry is in the high places.
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Or in the abundant groves, or in some of these great landmarks, these great trees. And so worship was being performed at places like the
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Tree of Morah. Now, perhaps it's called Morah, the Tree of Morah, because Morah could be translated as instruction or even teacher.
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So perhaps this is where prophecies were being given from this Canaanite religion.
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Perhaps this is where oracles were being delivered to Canaanite worshippers. Perhaps Abram, when he approaches this tree, this shrine, he thinks back to some of his paganism.
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He sees these people coming up with their offerings. Maybe even offering children. And perhaps there's, you know, most likely with a great tree like this, it would have been a deity associated with fertility.
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And Abram remembers all those sacrifices he and Sarai had made back in Ur, back in Ur of the
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Chaldeans before God called him. And so here he is, he's confronted with sort of a shadow of his past, this idolatry.
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Back when he thought there were many gods, and that there was this relationship that the gods needed us to perform certain functions and give certain offerings.
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And in so doing, then they would give us things that we need. And now
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God has called him, and he knows there's only one God, and he needs nothing from us. He's all -sufficient, self -existing.
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And he must choose to give, he must choose to bless, and he must do so suffering. This is grace at work in the life of Abram.
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Now he's exclusively devoted to Yahweh. Exclusively devoted to Yahweh.
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In the ancient Near East, just because you had a certain god in your tribe or in your people group, you wouldn't necessarily discount that other people's gods weren't true gods.
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Gods were far more territorial. And so you had the god of the Israelites, but also the god of the
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Philistines, and maybe the god of the Canaanites. So that all can fit together. You can sort of have a pantheon of gods, right?
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Yes, our god is going to go to war against your god, and we'll see whose god will give the victory, right? And so many worshipers could say, oh yes,
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I believe in this god, and now I'm in this new land, and this new land has this god. And so now
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I'm going to pay homage to this god, right? Because this is the god of this land and this people. Abram doesn't do that.
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Abram doesn't do that. He builds an altar to Yahweh. No, Yahweh is God. This god is nothing.
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This god is not a god. Yahweh is God. He builds an altar. Picture the intimidation that Abram would have felt as he entered that land.
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It's him and his caravan, and he's going through town after town after town, and village after village after village, and city after city of this
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Canaanite populace. And they're all worshipers of false deities.
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Highly offended if you don't pay homage to their god, to their deity. You could be threatening their harvest, their crop, their people.
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It'd be like a missionary entering into the most extreme parts of the Middle East, or maybe India. A culture totally saturated by a false religion.
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Inescapable in every facet of life. How intimidating that would have felt for Abram and his wife. How vulnerable they would have felt unless they were trusting in the
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Lord. And so this is still the great challenge, not only for Abram, but for us, right?
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The great challenge is we enter into the promise, but there's Canaanites in the land. That's the problem.
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There's Canaanites in the land. And so Abram is immediately faced with the prospect of having these uneasy neighbors that might wish to do him harm.
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He's in a place saturated with paganism. It's his land, but there's these abominous squatters living within it.
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And they are many, and he is few. And apart from the faith that God is giving him, how vulnerable he would have felt.
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Completely exposed to whatever this people wanted to do to him. And so it is for the life of the believer, isn't it?
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There's Canaanites in the land. God has given us promises about his kingdom in this world, and yet there's
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Canaanites in the land. How vulnerable we often feel. We read some of the great accounts of the missionaries, of the modern missionary movement.
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I know some of you have been just reading about Adoniram Judson, for instance. You ought to go online, even this afternoon, and look up John Piper giving an address about Adoniram Judson.
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I think it's something called, How Few There Are Who Die So Hard. How Few There Are Who Die So Hard.
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He would have had to enter Burma like Abram entered Canaan. He would have had to.
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We know that the promise is sure. We know that all authority has been given to Christ in heaven and on the earth.
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We know his kingdom is advancing and expanding. We know he's binding the strong man, so we can plunder the strong man's house.
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We know that he's a redeemer and grace restores nature, and there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth, a radical continuity of the consummation of salvation, not a dismissal, not a platonic escape from the world.
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Right? As we've said, the cross was planted in this earth. Abram's covenant is for this earth, these tribes and tongues and nations, and yet we feel so vulnerable, don't we?
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We get the headlines and we're so discouraged. We look at policies that are being passed and things that are new frontiers historically, and we feel overwhelmed.
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We feel doomed even. The prospects of the kingdom here are shattered. Just look, just look, just look at what
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Abram's facing. The whole land is filled with the gods and the worship and the culture of the
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Canaanites, and he's the only one who knows Yahweh, and he's completely vulnerable, and he's wandering in their midst, and he's establishing worship for the one true
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God, trusting that, yes, the day is coming when your worship will cover this land from north to south and east to west.
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Yahweh, your worship will cover the earth. Your glory will be filled throughout the earth.
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And so we don't lose heart. It doesn't matter whether the world, the flesh, and the devil dwell in the land and threaten us.
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It doesn't matter how many cults are on how many high places, how many great trees and great shines there are for the pride of man or the folly of man or the abomination of man's rebellion.
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We don't lose heart because Christ has overcome the world. Just like the land is mine, the fullness thereof.
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Don't worry that there's Canaanites in the land. I'm giving it to you. I'm giving it to you. And we know that all those who seek to follow
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Christ will suffer persecution. We know that the Lord Jesus faced persecution. He faced opposition as he was fulfilling the promise of God.
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And so we know no servant is above his master. We expect these things, but we don't lose sight of the promise. And therefore, our hope is sure.
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Our way is weak, but our hope is sure. And so Abram needed to be reminded of this.
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I love what John Calvin says. This is so thoughtful. What could this holy man think that he was being betrayed into the hands of these abandoned men?
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And he might even be murdered or at least would spend a disturbed and miserable life surrounded by their injuries and troubles.
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But Calvin says it was profitable to him. Better that God did it in this way.
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Because it helped Abram cherish a better hope. If he had been kindly and courteously received in the land of Canaan, he would have hoped for nothing better than to spend his life there as a settler, right?
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So God, by having this opposition, is, as it were, pointing Abram beyond.
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I'm giving you this land. And yet, what do we know from Hebrews? He's looking for a city whose builder and maker is
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God. And so part of this opposition is framing his eyes toward the Lord.
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Beyond the physical place, beyond the physical promise, he's fixing his eyes on God's overarching promise.
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And the Lord was with Abram in that place. He appeared to him there. That's very significant as well.
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Notice the significance of this. Abram, we're saying, enters into Canaan. He comes to Shechem.
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He sees idolatry at its height. Perhaps he's feeling the most vulnerable. Keep in mind, we have never read until this point that Abram has built an altar.
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There's no detail of that being recorded. We know that Yahweh's revealed himself to him all the way back in Ur of the
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Chaldeans. He's a follower of Yahweh, trusting in Yahweh even as he's in Haran. He's certainly following him through here to Canaan.
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But we never read of him building an altar to Yahweh until we get to Shechem. And it's amazing to me that that's the response of God answering
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Abram. And I wonder if God is answering Abram's sense of fear, anxiety, vulnerability.
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Maybe he's wavering. How in the world? I can't stay here. I can't. I can't worship you here.
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These people are going to kill me. It's, I mean, just look at how the narrative puts it together.
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The Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your descendants, I give this land.
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Do you see the, it's sort of like cause and effect. The Canaanites are in the land.
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I can't stay. This isn't my land. They're here. It's time to go back to Haran. And then the
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Lord appears. It's almost like, wait, Abram. Don't you remember this promise I gave to you?
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It's to your seat I give this land. And so the Lord appears to him. He builds an altar.
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The Lord appears to Abram. It's what we call a theophany. This is the first theophany to a patriarch we have.
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We can infer that there were others, right? Stephen's speech in act seven said the Lord appeared to Abram in or of the calding.
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So certainly, certainly we can infer that there were other theophanies, but this one is explicitly stated for us in the text.
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The Lord appeared to Abram and we see this pattern begin to emerge.
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When the Lord appears to the patriarch, they build an altar. We're going to see this as a pattern throughout the rest of Genesis.
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Now, just as a placeholder for next week, we're going to unpack the land promise.
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And we're going to see how this promise to when God says, Abram to your seed, to your descendants,
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I will give this land. We have to unpack that next week. How does Galatians three connected to this promise?
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How does this connect us to Isaac and Christ and Israel and the church? We're going to unpack that all next week.
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So just a placeholder there. But this is the first theophany of God to Abram that we have in the
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Genesis text. And it's foreshadowing that God will appear to his people at Sinai, at the tabernacle and beyond.
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And we're remembering that Abram's been journeying by faith. And every step of this walk of faith as he's following the
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Lord, the Lord gives him more to follow. And he follows up to that point. The Lord gives him more to follow. You see, this is what the walk of faith looks like.
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And don't miss this connection. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your descendants, I will give this land.
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And there he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. So the altar is connected to God's appearance.
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He built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. That's the connection.
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Abram builds an altar because the Lord manifested his presence. So he builds an altar of worship to Yahweh there.
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Now, this is a very significant thing. Because not only is it about Abram's personal devotion to the exclusive worship of Yahweh, it's also about the message he's sending to the
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Canaanites around him. He comes to the great Terebinth Tree, where there's most likely a cultic shrine and Canaanite worship.
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And he builds a site to worship Yahweh. Counter -worship. Counter -worship.
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Abram's altar was implying that there are no other gods. This is the God. And I alone will only worship
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Yahweh. Now, this is incredibly important. No wonder that Joshua, in Joshua 24, when he's about to die, the people are assembled there at Shechem.
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And there he rehearses his history and raises a great stone of remembrance. Remember this covenant that you've made.
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This is the site of commitment, isn't it? Joshua knows that. Joshua knows that. Abram is setting up a place of worship to the one true
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God, the one living God. The God who made the heavens and the earth. The God who is exercising dominion everywhere at all times.
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He builds this altar in the midst of the shadow of Canaanite culture, in the midst of all of the false worship that was so much more powerful and oppressive.
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And then he departs. And then he departs. And he travels further south to Bethel.
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And then beyond that to the deep south, the Mississippi of the Middle East, as you would, the
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Negev. 12, 8 through 9. He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel.
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And he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the
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Lord and called the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed going on still toward the south.
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So here we see, again, the priority of Yahweh's worship in the life of Abram.
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Notice this. We read this detail of Abram pitching his tent. It's between Bethel and Ai. Pitching his tent means he has not settled yet.
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He has not found a place to settle. There's more to see of the land. God has been urging him to tour the land.
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But notice this. Notice this difference. He pitches a tent, a temporary dwelling.
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He builds an altar. Do you see the contrast? Pitching a tent, building an altar.
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What's transitional? What's temporary? Me dwelling. What's permanent?
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Yahweh's worship. Do you see the faith of Abram? That's faith in God's promise. Well, I'm childless.
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Here's my retinue. Here's the land. It's filled with Canaanites in Canaanite worship. I better build a church for my great -grandkids.
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Because God's going to do what he said he's going to do. That's essentially what I better build a little cathedral here.
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In fact, everywhere I go, there's going to be so many of my descendants. They're all going to need these places to worship. And I want them to remember where God made his promise known.
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His presence felt. I want them to come worship and stand on these promises. Stand on this history of God's faithfulness.
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So he pitches a tent and yet he builds an altar. What a contrast.
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If we can go back to Genesis 11. What a contrast between the building projects of the
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Babylonites and the building projects of the patriarchs. We're going to see this again and again. This is very important.
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There's a Old Testament scholar named Gerald Kleinbil. And he says,
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Clearly, Genesis 12 needs to be read against the background of Genesis 11 and the whole Tower of Babel story.
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Abram, after receiving and accepting the call from Yahweh, builds an altar as an expression of his faith.
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This is in contrast to those unnamed builders described in Genesis 11, who only build a city as an expression of their pride.
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Do you see? The only building projects we've seen lately has been monuments to man's arrogance.
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We're going to build a tower as high as the heavens. We're making our own way in the world, right?
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God hasn't called them. God hasn't moved. They're doing this all man initiated in the flesh in defiance of God.
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But then God does move. He does initiate by his grace. And in response, what do we see the patriarchs do?
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They build what? Build a city? No, build an altar. Build worship. So you have the altar builders of God versus the city builders of man.
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That's the contrast. The patriarchal narratives, as David Klein says, mitigate the whole
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Babel story. And this is the dark side of this primeval history. It's read as things going wrong when humans take the initiative.
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But notice this difference. God appears after man builds Babel, right?
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God appears after their building to knock it down, to make it cease with the patriarchs
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God appears before. Do you see that difference? We take the initiative. We build up.
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We try to work. We're going to make this thing happen. God comes after the fact. He stops it. He tears it down.
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No more of that. God appears first. God shows his grace first.
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Then we build. We build in response to that grace. We build something to express that grace.
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We worship in light of that, you see. That's what Abram's doing. There he built an altar to the
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Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Here's another beautiful expression. As we press forward in Genesis, we're going to see the altar connected with this language of calling on the name of the
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Lord. Genesis 13. We'll see it next chapter. Genesis 26. Calling on the name of the
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Lord. Don't you remember that? Does that sound familiar to you? Back in Genesis 4.
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Back when in the days of Seth, the sons of Adam began to call upon the name of the
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Lord. This is corporate worship. And so now there's this beautiful line. The Lord has not only preserved the promise.
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He's preserved the worship that his people bring to him. Here, Abram again begins to call upon the name of the
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Lord. Abram is fulfilling this Sethite vision. And then he builds that altar.
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And he continues to go south. He travels to the Negev, to the dry land, to the desert. There's not enough moisture that can cultivate agriculture in that region.
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That would be where the Hollywood version of this would be correct. Showing a desert landscape and not a whole lot that you can do with it.
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But here the Hebrew is really interesting because it doesn't just say he traveled or he went. It's emphatic.
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He journeyed and then it has an infinitive absolute. So it's like he's journeying, journeying.
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It's like he journeyed while journeying. It's awkward, but the point is we're really trying to put in big bold letters.
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He was journeying. He was wandering. He was traveling. It wasn't this detailed.
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I'm just going to go to this place. Now what? He was traveling and roaming the land. And that's what the writer of Hebrews is picking up on.
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He's not settling. He's wandering. He's sojourning. Now to the Christian's eyes, sometimes life feels like we're just wandering.
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Lord, you've called us. We're trusting you. We don't know where we're going, what you've called us to do. We're wandering.
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But in God's eyes, we're never wandering, right? Abram's eyes, he's wandering. In God's sight, he's not wandering.
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Every step has been purposed. He's guiding him as he sees fit. And remember that the ultimate aim is not settling in the land.
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It's settling in the rest of God. As we heard during prayer time, there remains a rest for the people of God.
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Paul says, if we have hope in Christ in this life only, we're of all men to be most pitied. Abram didn't have life, didn't have hope in this life only.
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His hope in God's promise was not for this life only. And yet God's promise is being realized through the daily physical pursuit of God's guidance.
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God is fulfilling his promise to the woman in the midst of the shadow of Babel, in the midst of the shadow of Canaan.
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Abram is going throughout this land, though it's filled with Canaanites, and he's building altars to Yahweh. He's claiming it for himself.
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He's claiming it. I used to be, maybe before God really did work in my life,
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I used to be very fascinated with graffiti and graffiti artists. And I was amazed at their desire to make a name for themselves in a city.
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And that was the whole point of, if you ever go toward Hannaford and Gardner, you see the train tracks. Every train car has this very colorful name that's very hard to decipher.
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But the point is that now your name is going throughout the whole country, right? And so the famous artists, they're sort of claiming the country through the trains and through the billboards.
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Now, we here at GRBC do not condone vandalism of any shape or nature. But, in a sense,
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Abram is vandalizing Canaan. He's making the name of Yahweh known throughout the land.
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He's claiming it. He's tagging it, to use the kid's lingo. He's tagging
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Canaan. He's saying, no, this belongs to Yahweh. I know you have your cities and your towns. I know you have your shrines. No, this land belongs to Yahweh.
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This land belongs to my descendants. And they're going to worship Yahweh and Him alone. And this is the result of the presence of God to Abram in his life.
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This is the result. He built an altar because God appeared to him. And, brothers and sisters, what a beautiful way to understand what we are as a church, what we are as Christians, as a result of God making
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His presence known in our lives. In a way, the Christian becomes the altar.
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And the sacrifice of Christ is what we're for. We're an altar and God lays on us the sacrifice of Christ, the
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Lamb. In another real way, Christ is the altar. I mean, Christ is everything. He's the priest, the altar, the sacrifice.
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He's everything, right? In another sense, Christ is the altar and we are the living sacrifice that's laid upon Him.
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Thus rendered pleasing to God, acceptable to God. What a beautiful symmetry we have here just with Abram.
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When God's grace is manifest, His promise is made known, He builds an altar to worship God, to express
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His gratitude, His awe that Yahweh has chosen Him. And so it is in the
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Christian's life. God makes His presence known. He opens your heart. He resides in you by His Spirit. And your life now becomes a living sacrifice to Him.
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Christ is your altar. Or you're an altar to Him. Christ is your sacrifice. This is what
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Jeff Thomas pointed to the beginning. We read this last week, the very beginning of the letter of 1
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Corinthians. Remember how Paul says that he's writing to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, who in every place call the name of the
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Lord. Doesn't that sound like altar language to you? Christians are set apart, sanctified in Christ.
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And they are called to be saints, just like Abram was called to be holy, called to belong to Yahweh.
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And then we gather and we call upon the name of the Lord, just like Abram and all those in his household were calling upon the name of the
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Lord at these altars. This is a description of what Christians are. This is altar language of the church at Corinth, of the church at Bury this morning.
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Called to be saints, called by God, calling upon the name of God. And so we have this great promise, don't we?
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We have this great future, we have this great hope. Though it seems like there are many
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Canaanites in the land today, we built our altar and we call upon the name of the
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Lord. And just like Abram, we know it's sure the day is fixed.
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Christ will have dominion. Christ will have dominion. So this is our altar and there's
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Canaanites in the land. And we're often vulnerable. We're easily discouraged. Our hope often wavers.
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We pull out our hair and we say, we don't see how this could be. We're effectively as a church barren. How's God going to fulfill his promise through us?
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We're not seeing this abundance and this fruitfulness that God has said. We're trying to trust them. We're here this morning, aren't we?
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But how's God going to do this? And he's saying,
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I've made myself present to you. You're an altar. Build this altar. Worship me.
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Worship me. Christ will have dominion. This land is yours.
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The meek inherit the earth. Every square inch, every new altar erected in Myanmar, in North Korea.
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Even if it's in a basement. Even if it's in a prison cell. As three believers gathered together and Christ is present there.
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That's an altar in the midst of Canaan. And he's been doing this throughout human history successively.
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Building altars, claiming the earth. Realizing his promise through his people. Do you see?
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There is an inheritance that has been promised his people. A new heavens, a new earth. It will be ours.
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It must be ours. The meek inherit it, but not without conquest.
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Remember, we're pilgrims in a very real sense. We wander through this earth. But we're not just a passing through.
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We wander through this earth and we also make conquests. We're both Abram and the children under Joshua.
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And we do it all by calling on the name of the Lord. We do it all by calling on the name of the Lord. By building the altar of Christ Jesus.
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Making his name great. Proclaiming his dominion, his lordship over all. Just like Abram in Canaan.
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By him, Hebrews 13, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
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What does Hebrews 13 say? We have an altar, Christ himself. Christ is the altar.
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Christ is what we build. Christ's worship is how we take dominion. Even though there's Canaanites in the land, that's no bother to us.
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We expect that. We build sites of counter -worship. We live lives of counter -worship.
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We follow him until he makes his presence known again. Some of us in this room are all in very different seasons of life.
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And some of you, you're following him because he's just made his presence known. Or his power shown in you in some greater way.
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He's melted your heart or renewed your affections for him. And so you're here this morning and you're walking in strength.
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You have a bounce in your step. You're like Abram, right as he builds that altar. Others, you're not quite there yet.
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It's been a while since he's made that known. It's been a while since you've sensed his presence. You're still trying to trust and obey. You walk and you know not where you go.
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And we're all here together. We're all here together in this altar. Calling on this name.
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Trusting in this promise. Abram was trusting in the promise throughout. It did not matter where he was in that journey.
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Where he was and his realization of it. Where he was and the hope and the strength that it gave him.
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It could have been a low ebb or a high mark. He was trusting in that promise. And so it is here this morning. We have an altar.
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We have Christ himself. And Christ will have dominion. What a needful message for the church to hear.
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What a needful message for our church to hear. That the way we take dominion in this land is not by building a city.
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Some parachurch empire. We come to Christ.
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We worship him. We call upon his name. We cry out to him.
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We trust the promise though we cannot see the end of it. We watch as Canaanites become
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Abrahamites. We watch as people are transferred out of darkness into light.
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We watch as new altars are going farther into the Negev. Farther into parts of the world.
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Christ is having dominion. Christ will have dominion. And so we're just where Abraham is even here this morning.
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Though on the other side of the cross. We're waiting for God's promise to be fulfilled. We're awaiting that glorious consummation.
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We're following him and trusting him. Building altars and worshiping. Knowing that that day is fixed. Because the promise is sure in Christ.
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All of God's promises are yes and amen. Now before we close brothers and sisters.
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Let me just take this off the level of the church. And bring it down to the level of the person.
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We said we have Christ as an altar. And we talked about how the Christian's life is described as a living sacrifice. This is how we present ourselves to God.
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And just the wonder of this brothers and sisters. To conceive of your life as a living sacrifice. We don't go dig up stones out in the commons and bury and build an altar.
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We offer ourselves. We offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. Jesus is our altar.
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And we're just dust. We have no right that we should be able to approach God in this way. To somehow render our lives through Christ acceptable to him.
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Even pleasing to him because of Christ. We're but dust. And yet there's this new body that he's gathered into his life.
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And so we're all living stones in his temple. We're all living sacrifices for his altar. He provides the altar.
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And we give ourselves over to him. We surrender to him. That means that my life is a sacrament.
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Every act of my life is a spectacle of his grace. And I live my life in this way. I'm a living sacrifice.
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Now sometimes for me to be a living sacrifice would be like Abram at Shechem. It's a sacrifice that is a joy of celebration.
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God your mercy is so rich. Your salvation is so wondrous. Look at what you've done in my life.
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Look at what you've done for me. You've been blessing upon blessing. And so here's my sacrifice to you Lord. I love you.
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I celebrate your goodness. I freely and richly proclaim who you are to all.
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Yeah sometimes. Other times you come with a heavy heart. Because it's been a dry season and you're building an altar.
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But he hasn't made himself known in that way. And you're reaffirming your trust in him. Here I am as a sacrifice
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Lord. Show yourself. Why won't you hear me? Here's the sacrifice pleading you.
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Make your power known. Be present again in my life. Forgive me Lord.
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Is there some unpleasing way within me? Lord I know these ways. I've been straying from you. Don't let your spirit depart from me.
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Don't let me depart from my first love. I'm standing on this promise. You said all who come to you you'll never cast away.
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I'm coming to you Lord. I'm a sacrifice for you. Other times you lay down this lowly sacrifice on the altar of Christ.
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And it's just your brokenness. It's the sacrifice that he's required of you.
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I'll show him how many things he must suffer. That's what Christ said of Paul. I'll show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake.
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And so some of us are here this morning not in that joy of celebration. Not in that place of weariness and distance.
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Using the sacrifice to plea as it were. But in this place of brokenness. He's made us a sacrifice.
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He's taken from us. He said this I require from your hand. This ambition
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I'm crumbling it. This provision I'm taking it away. And so we have to trust him.
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And we lay out our sacrifice. And we just say with Joe yet I will praise him. Yet I will praise him.
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Yet I will praise him. In all of these cases you are a living sacrifice to God.
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In those times in your Christian life when it's the joy of celebrating his grace. Or when it's pleading for his grace.
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Because it's a time of great need and you have not found it. And the stream has dried up and you're a deer that's panting.
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You're going to die spiritually. Or because he's made you sacrifice.
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He's taken from you. And so you come and say take what you will. I trust you. I trust you.
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Take what you will. Take more. I trust you. I praise you. I'm yours. In all of these cases brothers and sisters you are a living sacrifice laid upon the altar of Christ.
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Who makes you pleasing, delightful, a splendor in the courtroom of God.
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And I close with these words from Henry Law. Your calling is to dedicate yourself, your soul, your body.
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All that you are. All that you have. All that you can do. A sacrifice to God.
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You may not keep anything from him. There's nothing in your life. Nothing you can put your hand upon that you can say this is mine
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Lord, not yours. No, all is given to him. All is rendered to him. Remember he's given more than heaven itself for your ransom.
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Settle this truth then steadily in your mind. There is no acceptance for a person nor services except in the beloved.
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Words and works are worse than worthless except when they're offered in faith. Through the merits and for the sake of Jesus.
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That fruit, meaning anything apart from faith is only rottenness, which is not sanctified by his blood, consecrated to his glory.
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Cement yourself in your every intent, your every doing to him.
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Nothing but the rich incense which curls from this altar. Christ himself can render you and your whole life a sweet savor unto
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God. This was true for Abram and it's true for us here this morning. The altar makes us acceptable in the sight of God.
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Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this word.
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We thank you for your promise, Lord. Who are we that you would consider us?
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Help us, Lord, to abandon all our proactive efforts to draw close to you. Let us just respond to you,
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Lord. Make yourself known. Make yourself present. Move, Lord, in us, through us.
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And let that response be like Abram. An altar and a living sacrifice laid upon it.
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Let it be worship in gratefulness. Or perhaps, Lord, in repentance as we cry out for you to come near again.
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Or perhaps, Lord, as we reaffirm our trust in you as you take from us, as you make our life a sacrifice.
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Let us find great hope and comfort in that. That you are doing what is only best for us and what brings glory to your name.
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That everything works together in the life of your people. For our good, Lord, and for your glory.
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Help us to trust in the promise. Even though we cannot see how it will be performed. Even though we feel,
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Lord, barren and weak and vulnerable. Because there are Canaanites in the land. Let us remember that you've given us a promise and your promise is sure.
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That Christ will have a dominion in this world that shall know no end. Even as you make it unto in that glorious day of your coming.
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A new heavens and a new earth. It will be all of the tribes and tongues assembled together saying,
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Worthy is the Lamb. As even we here at this little altar, here in this little corner of a land that is claimed by Christ, have sung this morning,
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Worthy is the Lamb. Let us be reminded and therefore take heart and go from strength to strength.
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To build the altar. To perform counter -worship. To be in contrast to the
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Canaanites who think their time is sure. When in fact it is their end that is sure.
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It is your redemption and your promise and your work in our lives that continues on unending.
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We thank you, Father. We praise you. Give us eyes of faith, Lord. I pray for a brother or sister here,
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Lord, who perhaps this isn't a season of just joyous celebration as a living sacrifice to you. Lord, keep that going.
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Sustain that flame. Give them renewed zeal. Lord, let their joy be infectious to others here in this body.
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Let us renew our strength and our energy and our hope in you through their joy and the excitement of what you're doing in their lives.
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And Lord, I pray for that one perhaps who's far from you. Backslidden, Lord. The altar is unbuilt.
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The sacrifice is not laid upon it. Draw them, Lord. Draw them. Be present and near.
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Let them respond to you. As they cry out to you, Lord, let them respond to the grace that you will show them.
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Let them know the truth that Christ is a great Savior for sinners. And I pray for those in this room,
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Lord, that you've taken from, Lord. Truly, anything you give can be taken away. Help them to yet trust you, yet praise you, because they are indeed a living sacrifice.