Chapter 02 “God Builds A Nation”
Genesis 22:1-18
Intro – welcome to chapter two of The Story…a 31 week journey we are taking as a church family through the Bible…in which we are discovering the grand theme of the Bible, the one overall message that God is wanting to communicate to the world…namely the story of creation, separation and restoration through the redemption of Jesus Christ…
-in other words, God created you, loves you, wants to have a relationship with you…but then He lost you because of sin…so now He is on a rescue mission to bring you back to Himself…and the Rescuer He has sent is Jesus Christ Who brings you back to God through saving faith in His substitutionary death on the cross…
Lower/Upper Story
Now for those of you who are listening to the DVD’s in your small group, you’ve probably heard the speaker talk about the concept of an upper story and a lower story…
-let me explain that.
The lower story is our story, the story of our lives that we live everyday down here on earth…the things that make up our life: relationships, work, paying bills, getting a cold, going to school…everyday stuff, the daily grind…the ups and downs of everyday life…successes and failures…smooth roads and bumpy ones…
…that’s our story, the lower story…and sometimes we can’t see how that connects to anything bigger…not sure what value or purpose our life story has…
But the upper story is God’s story…a story He is writing from His heavenly perspective…that He is up to something…that He has a good, sovereign plan for this world and our lives…
…even tho we don’t often see, it or even look for it…God is working out something eternal and beautiful in our lives, our lower story…
…that He is weaving together a tapestry that includes hope, future, blessing and purpose for our lives that is far bigger than ourselves…
-that is what we want to discover as we read God’s story…how our lower story fits into God’s upper story…and then to align our lives with His story…line ourselves up with His truth so we find ourselves drawn into His plans and purposes…
God’s Nation
-now, if you have a book and have been reading it acc to our schedule, then you know that this past week, in chapter 2, you have read passages all the way from Gen.12 to 35…a huge portion of scripture…but all focusing on one major theme, that of God building a nation…God’s plan to rescue lost humanity starts by Him forming a nation of people, a nation who would be His people…
Remember last week in Gen 1-3? God created the world and it was very good, including you and I…(turn to someone “you are very good”)…
But it didn’t take long for things to go terribly wrong with God’s perfect creation in the Garden of Eden…and when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit, then sin entered the picture, and broke the companionship God had with them and also brought suffering and death…
God Builds A Nation
So now, God begins the rescue mission of bringing people back to Himself…and He decides to do it through establishing a nation of people.
He starts to build a nation of people that He will call His own…and to do that, God chooses a couple to be the founders of this nation…Abraham and Sarah…
We read about it first in Gen. 12:1-5
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“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 peoples on earth will be blessed through you”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
Why A Nation?
Before we get to why God chose Abraham and Sarah to be the founders of this nation, why even a nation at all? Why did God even choose to establish a nation in the first place as the beginning of His redemptive, rescue mission?
Two reasons:
1. God wanted a holy, set apart people to make Him known.
Dt. 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
God wanted a nation of people who would be His people who could show the world what it looks like to honor and obey God…to belong to Him, follow Him…what it looks like to be faithful to God and bring glory to Him…unlike those in the first part of the story who got it wrong…who went off track terribly through their sinful choices…
God’s goal for His nation, His people, later to be called Israel. was to have a distinct people, set apart, who could find that relationship with God that He intended in the first place…to be loved and blessed by God…
And God wanted this nation to be a missionary people…whom He could use to point others to Him…who could teach others about Him…as a nation of prophets, priests and missionaries…
-we see that in the Gen. 12:3 “and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you”…
You can see the similarities in the NT when it comes to the role of the church today…that is exactly what God is calling you and I to be and to do in these days on earth…to be a people set apart for God on mission for God…
2. God wanted a people through whom the Messiah would come.
Rm 9:5 (about the people of Israel) Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah…
God needed a line of people through whom the promised Messiah would come…a nation that He could work with to produce the Savior of the world by sending His Son Jesus Christ to be born…and we know that was the Jewish nation…God’s chosen people…God wanted this special Person to be raised up through a special people…
Why This Couple?
Now why this couple? Why Abraham and Sarah? Like Randy Frazee points out in his talk on this chapter, if you’re going to start to build a whole nation of people, wouldn’t you start with a young couple who have lots of energy and the possibility of having lots of children who can get this thing going? Why an older, childless, actually barren couple?
Makes no sense from a “lower story” perspective…which is often our experience on earth…the things God is doing don’t make sense to us…
Well, let me offer an upper story perspective on why God chose Abraham and Sarah to be the founders of His nation.
Because God’s nation needed to be built:
1. on spiritual not human power
Rm 4:19-21
Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
-this nation had to be all about God right from the start…had to spiritually birthed instead of humanly birthed…had to have God’s DNA vs. some great human leader…
-so that’s why God chose an unlikely couple and impossible circumstances…
** have you ever doubted God could use you for something great in His kingdom because of some limitation?
Imperfect People
Not only were Abraham and Sarah an unlikely couple, they were a very imperfect one…it’s remarkable when you consider that God chose Abraham and Sarah to be the founders of His nation, even though they were far from perfect; they committed some serious sins:
• Abe lied about Sarah ch.12
• he had a son with Hagar, Sarah’s servant girl ch.16
Ishmael was produced by human by human will and plans…
• he lied again about Sarah to another King ch.20
• Sarah lied about having laughed at God when He said she would have a child at this time next year ch.18:15
(meaning of Isaac? ironically, “Laughter”!)
…yet God used them mightily…can do the same with you…
2. on courageous obedience
Heb 11:8 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.
-it’ really blind obedience, isn’t it? challenge for many of us…simply do what God says without considering all the angles first…knowing our options…having a plan B…
-but God honors faith that simply, freely, willingly obeys without questioning or negotiating the terms…
** you being challenged in that way?
3. on compassion for the lost
-Gen 18:24 (pleading with the Lord over Sodom and Gomorrah…his cousin Lot’s life and family…from 50 to 10)
What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?
-this nation had to be birthed in compassion for the lost…it’s destiny was to provide a Savior for the lost world…
** greatest desire you can have is compassion for lost people…
4. on costly sacrifice Gen 22:1-18
-the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son Isaac…actually put him to death on a sacrificial altar in Gen 22 is disturbing and deeply puzzling…
-I mean, here is Isaac, the son of promise, the son born to Abraham and Sarah through whom this whole future nation would come…and now Abraham is supposed to kill him and end the whole plan? makes no sense at all…from a lower story perspective…
-let me read the high point of the story…22:9-12…
-in God’s upper story, this was the final test that Abraham needed to pass so God could seal the deal with the birth of this new nation…read verses 16-18…
-you see, costly sacrifice had to be part of the DNA of this nation…because…many centuries into the future, a descendent of this nation would make the ultimate, costly sacrifice of all history…
God was foreshadowing in the lower story of Abraham and Isaac, the greatest moment in His upper story – the sacrifice of His one and only Son…
Jesus, God’s one and only Son, would be taken up a hill to a cross, where He would be killed for the sins of the world as a perfect, innocent sacrifice…
And this time, God wouldn’t stop the knife from plunging into His Son’s body…
God sacrificed His own Son on the cross so that our sins could be punished and our lives redeemed by His innocent blood…
** this gospel is for you…
Conclusion
So that’s what was going on with Abraham and Sarah from God’s upper story perspective…
-what’s going on in your lower story perspective?
-you never know what God is up to in His upper story script writing…
-so next time you have a choice between human or spiritual power…what you choose is important from an upper story perspective…even if it doesn’t make sense down here…
-next time you can stay safe and comfortable or take a step of courageous obedience…
-next time you can respond in compassion to the lost and needy…
-next time you are challenged to make a costly sacrifice…you’re working with God to align your lower story with His upper story…
-it’s exciting to think how God wants to use you to build something for His kingdom…
Prayer…