The Story – Week Two

“God Builds A Nation”

Welcome to week two in The Story series!

Today’s message is based on the Scripture selections found in chapter two of The Story. We’lllook at scenes from the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; a.k.a. the Patriarchs (Fathers) of the nation of Israel. The Scripture portions in this week’s reading come from mostly from Genesis; but watch out for snippets from two New Testament books (Romans and Hebrews), in which the lives of these Old Testament characters are interpreted for a Christian audience. According to the Apostle Paul, “The things that happened to those people [the ancient Israelites] are examples. They were written down to teach us.” (1 Corinthians 10:11)

Here’s a summary of the plot points from chapter two of The Story:

God calls Abraham out of the darkness of pagan idolatry [see Joshua 24:2-3] into the light of true fellowship. God works through a covenant, making Abraham and his descendants His chosen people, marking out a special land for their inheritance, and promising to bless all nations through Abraham’s family. When Abraham and Sarah try to make God’s plan work through their own efforts, things get very messy. God keeps His promise, miraculously giving Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age; one generation later Jacob [Abraham’s grandson] will produce twelve sons of his own and the nation of Israel will be born. (Exploring the Story: A Reference Companion)

As you read the adventures of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and especially Jacob, you might be shocked by how “human” they seem. Pastor John Ortberg once quipped that, “In the Old Testament, it’s not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys.” Hewasn’t exaggerating:

  • Abraham fibs (more than once), introducing his wife as his sister. When he’s called on this, he comes clean and says, “OK, she’s not my sister, she’s my wife.” When confronted as a liar, he explains, “Actually, Sarah is my sister and my wife; we have the same father, but different mothers.” And that is the truth. Yikes!
  • Isaac and Rebekah pioneer the practice of preferential parenting, their family dynamics would qualify as “dysfunctional” by anyone’s standards today.
  • Jacob is anunlikely candidate to be selected for a prominent position among the founding fathers of the nation of Israel. He schemes and swindles (and sometimes he’s beaten at his own game!). Worse, he shamelessly barters with God, saying things like, “OK, if you do this for me, then I’ll let You bemy personal deity.”

It’s messy; it’s embarrassing. These characters are so much like…us.

This brings us to the big idea of today’s message: God uses “ordinary” people to accomplish His plans. The fact of the matter is: He doesn’t have a choice. We’re what He’s got to work with, and to put it gently: we’re not much to work with. Fortunately, He’s gracious – He takes us as we are. And fortunately, He’s sovereign – even when we fail, His purposes prevail.

Lewis Smedes, an author and preacher that I greatly admire, sought a word of final advice from a former seminary professor on the eve of his ordination. “There is still one thing you need to know,” his teacher replied; “Remember, when you preach, you will be preaching to ordinary people.” Lewis thought to himself, “Seriously? For this kind of wisdom you get to be a professor in a theological seminary?” Eventually, the professor’s words sunk in, and he realized

To be ordinary is to be too weak to cope with the terrible stuff that is too much for mere humanity. Ordinary people are non-heroes – not cowards, just not heroes, limited folks, afflicted with the malaise of too-muchness.

We ordinary people cannot fit our lives into preformed, Styrofoam boxes. We cannot manage life as well as we would like, at least not in our secret places. We cannot get all the strings tied; it won’t wrap up the way we want it. For us, survival is often the biggest success story we dare hope for. Ordinary people are people who live on the edge, just a step behind the line that separates us from those who fall apart at the seams. Ordinary people are the ones who cry for a sign, any old sign, that it might still be all right even when everything seems horribly wrong.

[Ordinary people are] living, not on the peak of success, but at the edge of failure; not on the pinnacle of triumph, but at the precipice of defeat.

Lewis clarifies: ordinary people are not failures; but ordinary people often feel like failures – at least at some point in their lives. He had in mind examples like these:

  • A husband and wife who are well-liked by everyone around them, they seem happy, but they’re hearts are heavy, full of hardened resentments. Their marriage used to be in distress; lately it seems to be dead. They’re furious; they’re afraid. But on the surface, they appear fairly normal; for indeed, they’re an ordinary couple.
  • Parents who are well-respected by those who watched them pourenormous time and effort into the noble task of raising their kids. For many years, they were proud of their kids – and themselves. Now they’re mystified: one of their kids is “acting out” a drama they can’t understand; another one has committed to a life path they never imagined. They’re a wonderful couple; yes indeed, they’re ordinary parents.
  • A hardworking man who went from self-employed to unemployed in less than sixmonths – he invested everything in his personal dream, and lost it all.
  • A middle-aged woman – locally renowned as a supportive wife and sweet hostess – who feels her back pressed against the wall as she struggles to face up to her closet alcoholism. She can’t bear to keep hiding; but she dreads exposing her secret.

Ordinary people, one and all. Worn out from pretending; they’re too weary to face the truth. In the words of Brennan Manning, they shuffle through life, shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. They’re distressed by the fear that God is deeply disappointed with their lives. They feel exhausted and alone. We can sympathize with their struggles, for we are – all of us – ordinary people.

Lewis’s perspective on preaching to ordinary people is encouraging:

What they all have in common is a sense that everything is all wrong where it matters to them most. What they desperately need is a miracle of faith to know that life at the center is all right…[they need to be reassured that] the secret of grace is that it can be all right at the center even when it is all wrong on the edges. For at the center, where life is open to the Creator and Savior God, we are held, led, loved, cared for, and inseparably bound to into the future that He has for every child whom He claims as His.

Listen to that last part again: “At the center, where life is open to the Creator and Savior God, we are held, led, loved, cared for, and inseparably bound into the future that He has [prepared] for every child whom He claims as His.” What does that mean? It means that God uses ordinary people to accomplish His purposes – because one of His chief purposes is to convince us ordinary people that we are loved by Him with an extraordinary mercy and everlasting love. When that sinks in – seeping deep into “the center” – it will eventually come percolating back up. We will discover abundant mercy; enough for ourselves – and others.

This week, in chapter two in The Story, we’ll see how the life experiences of people in the Old Testament can serve as “examples” through which God can “teach” us important truths about His gracious character and sovereign will. Let’s begin with the opening lines of the chapter, which come from Genesis 12:

Now 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 people on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Notice the verb tense in the opening sentence: “Now the Lordhad saidto Abram.” The verb tense indicates that we’re being told about a conversation that had taken place sometime in the past. To appreciate the significance of this fact, we need to consider the closing verses from the preceding chapter in Genesis:

Terah took his son Abram [who would eventually be called Abraham], his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. (Genesis 11:31-32)

When we first meet Abraham, we see that he was following his father on a daring journey out of their homeland (Ur of the Chaldeans was an ancient city-state located in the vicinity of present day Baghdad) to the land of Canaan (a place that is soon to be known as the “Promised Land” and is associated with the present day nation of Israel). But when they came to a halfway point, they stopped. They didn’t just stop; they settled.

We’re not toldwhyTerah set forth on this family adventure.We’re not told why he decided to stop halfway and settle down. We’re not told how long they stay in Haran.

I imagine that Abraham might’ve felt restless in Haran. I imagine him thinking to himself, “You know you’re not where you’re supposed to be. This isn’t the finish line. Are you willing to keep going?” Some days, he may have felt an ambitious curiosity – a longing to move ahead. Other days, he may have felt an ominous uncertainty – a longing to go back.

When Abraham’s father died, it was decision time. What would he do? Would he remain settled in Haran? It was comfortable. Would he return to Ur? It was familiar. Or would he finish the journey? That’s where this week’s reading in The Story begins – Abraham is standing at the crossroads. God has called him into a risky future. What will he do?

I agree with the Apostle Paul, the Old Testament stories have much to teach us.

From time to time, God calls us to move forward in faith – to take some kind of risk – to follow Him into a future we can’t quite see. Often we hesitate before we commit. And even after we’ve set forth, we can wind up stuck in a place that is less than the best. We find ourselves weighing the options between pressing on towards the new frontier and retreating back to the familiar. The longer we stay stuck, the easier it is to settle.

Sometimesthe decision to “settle” is influenced by those close to us. Abraham may have been held back, somehow, by his father. Maybe his dad said, “Forget it, son; this journey’s too difficult. This looks like a good place to settle down.” Perhaps Abraham felt torn between caring for his father and carrying on the journey.

Other times, the decision to “settle” is influenced by our own doubts. Abraham and Sarah couldn’t have children. Why carry on to a land that would be given as an inheritance to his descendants when he couldn’t produce an heir? He must’ve felt discouraged, maybe he said to himself, “There’s no point in pressing on, I don’t have what it takes to do this.”

We don’t know the details. The ambiguity allows us to reflect – and see our reflection.

The Story continues in Genesis 12:4,“So [Abraham] went, as the Lord had told him…” Abraham saddled up his camels and resumed the journey. And finally, he arrived in Canaan, where God said to him, “I will give this land to your descendants.”

He’d completed the journey! But his great problem remained: he had no heir.

Abraham was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran; married to a barren woman who was well-passed her childbearing prime. He had in mind to adopt one of his young slaves as a son, and designate him as the heir of the family fortune and the divine promises. But God said, “No, you’re going to have a child of your own.”

Trying to fulfill that promise on his own, Abraham decides to produce an heir through one of his female servants. It was his wife’s suggestion. Unfortunately, he didn’t run the idea by God before he implemented it. He produced a son, but it wasn’t what God had in mind.

The irony is hard to miss: when God gives Abraham a challenge, he hesitates. When God gives Abraham a promise, he hurries. How typical – of myself!

God was patient when Abraham “settled down” in Haran; and God remained patient when Abraham got “worked up” over this crazy scheme to produce an heir. When Abraham settles down; God nudges him forward. When Abraham charges ahead, God slows him down. God realizes that Abraham is limited in his understanding – God alone sees the Big Picture. God is patient with Abraham – and with us – even when we’re not patient with Him.

Eventually, a child was born to Abraham and Sarah. His name was Isaac. He was a “miracle child” – conceived by a barren woman on the eve of her one-hundredth birthday. It turns out this was one of the reasons God kept them waiting – He wanted to demonstrate that nothing is impossible for Him.

In The Story, God isn’t afraid to let the suspense build; to let His characters sweat for a bit in a seemingly impossible situation. It was true then, it’s still true today.

Isaac, the “miracle child” is flesh-and-blood proof that God keeps His promises; he’s also a sign pointing forward to the ultimate “miracle child,” Jesus, who would be born to a young virgin. When we read the Old Testament, we realize – again and again – that God allows things to happen in certain ways because He is setting up scenes that have prophetic significance. By the light of the New Testament, we can look back into the Old Testament and realize that God was setting up “signs” throughout His story that would point to Jesus the Messiah. Most of the signs weren’t recognized at the time; but with hindsight we can see that the Old Testament was set up to illustrate the New Testament.

So we can be assured that God always has a reason for the things He does – even if we can’t see it at the time. His reasons may only be clear to our descendants – all we can do is trust.

Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. They were twins, but Esau was slightly older – by a matter of minutes. Therefore, he was entitled to a special blessing from his father, and a “birthright,” which was a double portion of the estate. Jacob was a swindler, however, and he conspired to fool his dad (who was blind in his old age) and he “stole” the blessing and the birthright. So Jacob wound up scheming himself into the line of Abraham’s descendants that would grow into the nation of Israel. He thought he was pretty smart. But God had foreseen all of this; He had declared Jacob as His chosen “man” before the twins were born. (Genesis 25:23)

Over and over, in both the Old and New Testaments, we see God choosingunlikely individuals to be His key characters. Abraham was very old, his wife was barren – why choose themto be the forbearers of a great nation? Jacob was a deceitful schemer – why choose him for anything?

Later on, God tells the Hebrew people – the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – that they had been selected for His purposes because they were the smallestand the weakest of all nations at that time. God chose David to be king when he was just a shepherd boy. Later still, God summonsordinary folks to be His prophetic messengers.Often the prophets complained that they didn’t have the credentials to stand before great kings delivering pronouncements that began, “Thus saith the Lord…” Amos, for example, was a fruit farmer – he felt completely unqualified to serve as a prophet. But God reminded Him, and so many others, that His call is the only qualification that really matters.

Jesus continued this tradition, choosing fisherman and riff-raff for His disciples. He selected a tax-collector – Matthew – who was regarded by the Jews as a traitor to Rome; and he chose a zealot – Simon – the zealots were zealous patriots – they used to sneak around “shanking” tax-collectors! In the Upper Room, where they’d just eaten the “Last Supper,” Jesus reminded His mis-matched group of disciples how they came to wind up on His team. He told them plainly, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” (John 15:16)

Paul was a persecutor of the Church – hardly a candidate for the first missionary. But God chose Him nonetheless. Looking back in hindsight, we see that God made the right choice. Paul became a brilliant leader in the early church; a passionate evangelist, a gifted administrator, an anointed visionary.