Sermon for Chapter 2 of the Story

Last week on The Story. Isn’t that how a lot of modern TV shows start off? That’s how Desperate Housewives always started, “Previously on Desperate Housewives”, and they would give you a review of the things that had happened in the seasons past episodes, particularly those that were going to be part of the storyline that night. I could always tell what the episode was going to be about by watching what they reviewed. Sometimes it was a continuation of something that had happened four episodes before. We will have a few of those in The Story. But this week we have only had one episode, our first season is just getting started. So it is pretty simple. Last time we learned that there is an upper story and a lower story. God works in the upper story doing his divine acts, God also works in the lower story where we live working through us to accomplish things in his upper story. We discovered that we are all actors on a stage and that in the story we find God’s script. As the story started out we saw how God created the heavens and the earth. We heard that human beings are considered the highest of God’s creation. That God made us in his own image. Most importantly we discovered that God’s vision in creation in the upper story is to be with us in the lower story. Unfortunately we saw that Adam and Eve chose a different vision and that sin and the sinful natured entered the human race. Yet, God passionately pursues us at great cost. The episode continued with God doing a do over by the flooding the world and destroying every living thing, except Noah and his family and the animals in the ark. We also saw that it did not solve the problem, sin survived the flood and not long after Noah and his family find themselves in another sinful situation.






This morning we start to learn a very important lesson about God and his love and pursuit of us. He doesn’t give up. God just flat refuses to quit loving us and trying to bring us back to him. He is like that parent with a rebellious child; no matter what the child does he refuses to throw in the towel on them. Jesus many thousands of years after our story this morning would tell another story of a father who had a prodigal son that he never gave up on. But that is a story for another time. Today I want to look at one of the most amazing and most important stories in The Story. The greatest story ever told. The first thing we need to discover this morning is where The Story takes place. On your map, either in your Bible or in the handout find the Tigris and Euphrates River. In this area is where everything is happening. The people of the world had all been one, even in language and they had begun to build a tower to reach to the heavens. God seeing their arrogance confused their languages and scattered the people. Now they lived in different people groups speaking different languages, making up different nations. Obviously this took place over a very long time period, how long we don’t know, but let’s just say for the sake of the story our story takes place many, many years later. We can even get an approximate year about 2091, give or take a few decades or even a few hundred years. So around 4100 years ago. No one was marking down dates on a Calendar at the time, in fact no one could agree on a calendar at the time. So once upon a time, long, long ago, in a land far, far away.



God looks at this situation, which was very similar to the situation that existed before the flood; people were sinning and committing evil everywhere. He has promised he will never flood the world again, but he is not pleased with what he sees. God decides this time that the best way to deal with this is to create a new nation that would follow him. He would be hands on with this new nation; they would be designated as his people. He would give them his laws and they would live like people should live. They would worship him and they would live the way people who worship God should live. The plan, when the other people on the earth saw them they would want to become a part of this new nation. They would stop worshipping idols, they would stop living evil lives and they would start to worship God himself and become part of his people. God had big plans for this nation, they were going to be his light on the hill, his people that would show the others how great a God he was. So you would think, or at least we would think down here in the lower story that God would start looking for another Noah. Not to build an ark but to lead this great nation.



In fact it would seem in our lower story that God would hand pick the best men and women from the other nations to make up this nation, you know (Name a bunch of nations and people from them) and than he would find the most talented guy on the earth to lead it. That makes sense in our lower story; get the best people and the man most qualified for the job. And here in part is why this is the greatest story ever told. God does none of that. In fact he does just the opposite. He doesn’t go find the best and the brightest of the other nations. He decides to start from scratch. And as for the most talented and best equipped guy to lead it, well instead he chooses a husband and wife who are 75 and 65 years old. Not only that their parents and their grandparents had worshipped pagan gods and they had no children and the wife is barren. In the lower story it kind of makes you scratch your head and go and so this is plan, yeah like this is going to work. I mean you want to talk about finding the least qualified people for the job. Really this is the plan?



And if you think you are surprised by this twist in the story well you can just imagine how Abraham felt. Abraham sat there and thought, let’s see, I am an old man, my wife is an old woman way past child bearing years, no one is following me right now and on top of that you want me to leave where I am at right now, where may ancestors have lived for years and move to another place where I don’t know anyone and the people that do live there are known to be unfriendly. Sign me up. I think this video may capture what the story is trying to get across here, (Show video)



You know sometimes when we read these stories out of the Bible we tend to think of these people as special, we don’t really make the connection that these were real flesh and blood people like us, but they were. I want you to look at your hands and look at the person next to you. Abraham and Sarah were not any different. They were not superheroes, and God did make them superheroes, they were people just like you and I today, with all our faults and anxieties and problems. They were flesh and blood, The story is about people just like you and I. And so remembering that and remembering Abraham’s situation, listen to this next part, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, they set out for the land of Canaan and they arrived there.” “By faith 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.” That’s faith. I know that there are a number of you here this morning, who have made big moves in your life, some of you even moved here from another country. There is excitement in a move like that but there is also fear. I have made several cross country moves in my life for schooling and Darla and I have made two huge moves in our marriage, one 2100 miles East from Idaho to Indiana and then seven years later a 2200 mile move southwest from Indiana to Arizona both times not really knowing what I was getting myself into. Let me tell you there are some gut check moments when you make moves like that. What if this doesn’t work out, what if it ends up in disaster? Some of you can identify with those feelings. Abraham if he had those struggles they are not mentioned in the story. God speaks to him, he picks up and goes, and he has nothing and nobody waiting for him at the other end, that’s faith.



But back to the question of why of all people, Abraham and Sarah? This doesn’t make any sense in our lower story. God though in the upper story has a reason and a plan. God works through people, but he wants the credit. Did you hear what I just said, God works through us as people, but at the end of the day he wants the credit. So therefore he many times chooses the weakest and the most unqualified so that when it all works out people will know that it was God who really did it. It is kind of like God is saying look I am so powerful that I am going to accomplish this with one arm tied behind my back, hoping on one leg, blindfolded and chewing gum at the same time. That’s what God does here with Abraham and Sarah. God chooses an old and unlikely couple so that all people would look to God, knowing that all that happens is done by God. God wants people to see him and understand his plan.



God makes a promise here to Abraham that really is four fold plan for the new nation. You know we are in the political season, and both candidates have their own plans for the nation, well God is no different, he here offers his plan. The difference is God is not a politician you can trust him that he what he says he is going to do he will do. The story reveals this four fold plan in these words, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” The first part of the plan. God will make the nation great. Notice it says God will make the nation great, the nation of Israel will be later become a powerhouse. Two God will make Abraham’s name great. Abraham will become the father of many nations. He will become the father of all who believe later in Christ as well. Three, God will bless all who bless Abraham and curse the one who curses Abraham. God destroys the pagan nations around them and but blesses those who chose to become part of God’s great nation. And fourth, God will bless all the nations of the world through Abraham and the new nation. God will use the new nation to reveal his heart and his plan to win us back. In the long view what we see here is that God is going to use the nation of Israel to show how great he is and to draw people back to him. He is also going to use the new nation to bring fourth the Savior of all mankind who we now know as Jesus. Out of this great nation that Abraham will be the founder of, salvation will be brought to the entire world. This is God’s plan in the story to bring man back to him. This is his grand scheme to pursue and bring us back into a relationship with him. But looking at them from a lower story perspective it wouldn’t be because they were the all star team, no most of the time they look more like the strike replacement team, or the B or C team or the spare parts team.



So Abraham and Sarah are off to start the new nation, and you would think since this is God’s idea and God’s deal it would start off with a bang, but in reality it starts off more like a slow fizz. In fact it almost seems that everything falls apart before it even gets put together. I mean if you are going to start a nation what do you need? People, and lots of them. But here’s the thing Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah is 90. Not exactly child bearing years, and things don’t seem to be working out. Sarah cannot get pregnant. The years go by and nothing happens, no children. This is a little confusing. God said that he was going to bring forth a nation from Abraham and Sarah and yet they have not been able to have children, which really should be no surprise considering their age. And so doubt begins to kick in, can God really be trusted. Abraham even has an encounter with God where he says to God, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no children; so a servant of mine will be my heir.” Abraham is desperate, what about that promise God? God responds, “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is of your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” And the story says, “And Abram believed and God credited to him as righteousness.



Sarah though has had enough. God’s plan sounded good but he wasn’t working fast enough for her and so she decided God’s needs some help and she comes up with her own plan to start this nation for God. Let’s pause for a moment here. Can you see the warning light go on here? How many of you at times have had that same thought? God is not moving fast enough, I need to do something. Or maybe it wasn’t God, maybe it was something else. And instead of waiting you impulsively took the reigns. How did that turn out? Most of the time it ends in disaster. In the story this sort of things happens a number of times and it never turns out good. So Sarah comes up with this idea that she will give her servant to Abraham to sleep with and maybe she can get pregnant and get this nation going. Abraham doesn’t put up any argument at all here. He is all for the idea and so Sarah gives her servant Hagar to Abraham and Hagar gets pregnant and Ishmael is born. God blesses Ishmael, but he does not begin the new nation with Ishmael, instead Ishmael becomes the father of other nations. God says nothing about this by the way, this is not his plan but he lets man do what he wants to do. Later when God talks with Abraham again about the new nation, Abraham brings up Ishmael to him and God looks at him and says no, he is not the one. Ishmael becomes a source of grief later on to both Abraham and Sarah and becomes the father of what is now known as Islam. Sometimes the consequences of taking things in our hands instead of waiting on God can have disastrous long term consequences.



Finally one day almost twenty five years after God has given Abraham and Sarah the promise God visits Abraham and promises the 100 year old that within a year he and Sarah are going to have a child. Sarah overhears the conversation and laughs’ thinking that is impossible. God hears her laugh and calls her on it. Within the year Sarah gets pregnant and has a child which God tells her to name Isaac, which means laughter, and who wouldn’t laugh that someone would have a child at that age, even God gets in the mix by telling them to name him laughter. God in the upper story even thinks it’s funny. God has a sense of humor, where do you think we get our sense of humor. Isaac is the child of the promise; he is the one that the nation will start to build upon. I mean this is crazy though isn’t it. In the lower story we would have chosen a younger fertile couple and we would have had them popping out kids every nine months like a production line. But God choose two people way past child bearing years and then doesn’t give them children for close to twenty-five years after that. Sometimes God’s thinking in the upper story doesn’t make sense to us in the lower story. But God has a plan and Abraham and Sarah learn to trust him that he knows what he is doing.



So maybe it seems like we are headed toward a happily ever after ending here right. Well just when you thought it was beginning to make sense, God throws a twist in the story, and not a minor one either. When Isaac is about 15 years old, God one day tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Yeah you heard that right. God severely tests Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. God says, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” God’s upper story continues to get more confusing to us down here in the lower story. Now as parents we know what Abraham does, he says no way I am going to do that, not happening. Well actually he doesn’t say that. Instead the story says, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God has told him about.” Abraham obediently does what God asks him to do. Let me show you another video that puts this situation in a modern world context. (Show the video)



What is the thinking going here? Abraham obediently replies and takes his son, his 15 year old son to the Mountain of Moriah. Now after they get there Abraham and Isaac start walking to the top and they are carrying everything with them. At some point Isaac realizes that they don’t really have everything. They don’t have the lamb for the sacrifice, and so he turns to his dad and asks where the lamb for the sacrifice is? He dad’s response, “Don’t worry son God will provide it.” When they get to the top Abraham lays Isaac upon the altar, (Pull the sheet covering the body on the altar) and he gets ready to sacrifice him. If Isaac had any doubt as to who was being sacrificed well it was gone now, he was the sacrifice, and even though he is fifteen years old and his father is a very old man he doesn’t resist. He could have probably very easily overpowered his dad, but he doesn’t even attempt to do so, he doesn’t even cry out. He trusts that his father knows what he is doing even if he doesn’t understand it. Abraham as well doesn’t hesitate, he is trusting that his Heavenly Father, God knows what he is doing even if he doesn’t understand it. Just as he is about to bring the knife down, God calls out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said, “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.



This is a story of faith and complete trust in God. In the story we read that, “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.” In this portion of the story we also get a picture of what is going to happen later on in the story. You could say that we have yet another clue as where this story is headed. Remember last week our clue was the shedding of the blood that was required for God to provide skins to cover Adam and Eve’s same. Well today we have another shedding of blood. In this case a substitute shedding of blood. A ram’s blood is shed in place of Isaac’s. Abraham didn’t have to sacrifice his son, his only son who he loved. Here is the clue, interestingly enough most scholars believe that the hill of Moriah is most likely in Jerusalem. It is on the same hill that 2080 years later another sacrifice would be offered up. (Reveal the curtain and the man on the cross) Centuries later another son, an only son, who was loved by his father will be sacrificed on this same hill and not spared. The same place where Isaac is nearly sacrificed, 2000 years later Jesus is sacrificed on the cross for our sins. God did not stop the sacrifice that time. Instead he let Jesus be our substitute he let Jesus die in our place. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” God will win us back at great cost to himself. That is how much he loves you. Abraham got a picture of that in the near sacrifice of his own son.



The bottom line of the story today? In choosing Abraham and Sarah to begin the new nation, God reveals a pattern. God chooses unlikely people who are not the smartest, the most beautiful and handsome with the best resumes. God chooses ordinary people like you and me. No matter who you are, you are qualified to be used greatly in God’s great story. You may reveal God, too, and reflect his plan to win us back. We have had two clues in the past two weeks of the story; they were both about the shedding of blood. Next week the story continues with an interesting character. A man who wears a coat of many colors and whose life God uses to preserve his new nation. But in the story God throws in one plot twist after another before it all comes to pass. So join us next week as we meet a man who rises from slave to deputy Pharaoh.