Life lessons for times of transition from the story of Abraham part 3
Scripture
Genesis 12:1-5 And Yahweh said to Abram, “[a]Go forth from your land, And from your kin And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so [b]you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who [c]curses you I will [d]curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” 4 So Abram went forth as Yahweh had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 So Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the [e]persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go forth to the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
We started looking at the life of one of the most important individuals in the Bible last week; Abraham. He is important because God called him to come out of his home country, follow God as the only God, go to a new land which would become a nation that we know as Israel today, and that Abraham would end up being a positive saving force in the world through the Messiah who would come out of his line.
And all of that happened because a 75-year-old man decided to obey God and roll with a lot of changes in his life.
That is the theme of last weeks and this week’s sermon; Abraham as an example in times of transition. All of us go through changes in our lives. And we know that change isn’t always bad.
Somerset Maugham, the English writer, once wrote a story about a janitor at St Peter's Church in London. One day a young vicar discovered that the janitor was illiterate and fired him. Jobless, the man invested his meager savings in a tiny tobacco shop, where he prospered, bought another, expanded, and ended up with a chain of tobacco stores worth several hundred thousand dollars. One day the man's banker said, "You've done well for an illiterate, but where would you be if you could read and write?" "Well," replied the man, "I'd be janitor of St. Peter's Church in Neville Square."
Bits and Pieces, June 24, 1993, p. 23.
But we also know that change isn’t always good either. So, for the Christian, it comes down to what my attitude is going to be. What will I think about as I go through changes? How will my attitude and thoughts help me to successfully navigate to the other side of change?
We have negative thoughts about change.
I’m cursed. I’m all alone. I can’t get ahead. I’m in a perpetual state of panic. I can’t do this. I don’t know which way to go. This can’t end well.
God makes promises to His children concerning Propitiation, presence, provision, peace, power, pointing the way, perspective.
1. The promise of propitiation for sins.
I’m cursed.
The first promise that God will keep is the promise of propitiation. Propitiation is the “act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person.”
God is offended by our sin.Psalm 7:11God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
Christian propitiation is the act of doing something that appeases the wrath of God toward sin, and changing that wrath to mercy and kindness.
1 John 4:10 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Christ appeased the wrath of God, you are no longer living under the curse of God.
It is only when we understand that, that we can claim the promise of propitiation, and all of the other promises. Then there is a second set of promises, after propitiation.
2. The promise of His presence
I’m all alone.
God has always promised His presence to His children.
Deuteronomy 31:8 The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, You are with me.
I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
The imagery here is of a shepherd with his sheep. And right after He says that He is with them He mentions His rod and staff. The rod or club was something the shepherd carried to fight anything that would hurt the sheep. The staff was a symbol of guiding. The shepherd moved his sheep from one location to the next to provide fresh grass, fresh water, and freedom form danger. And that is the promise of God’s presence. He is guiding, He is protecting.
Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
The next of His promises is the promise to provide.
3. The promise of provision.
I can’t get ahead.
Philippians 4:19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
How many needs? All. From where will He supply those needs? According to His riches. On Whose righteousness does this promise depend? In Christ Jesus.
4. The promise of inner peace.
When going through times of transition, one of the things that distresses us most is the internal state of panic.
But one of God’s promises is peace. Inner peace.
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
Notice that last phrase. The peace comes, “because we trust in Him.” It doesn’t mean that we will not have times of chaos. It means that our eyes are on the Lord, not the storm.
Philippians 4: 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Notice in this passage that it promises that God’s peace will guard our hearts. But we have a part to play. Instead of responding to change with anxiety, we are to pray and present our requests to God, with thankfulness. Then notice what comes next.
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
He has promised that His peace will guard our hearts. But we often undermine that peace by what we put into our minds. Going back to the analogy of the storm, let me ask you, how much of your time is spent staring at the wind and the waves, instead of Jesus?
We can spend hours looking at all the evil of the world around us, on the news, in videos, in what we read. All of our conversations can center on the awfulness of the world, how bad our circumstances are, that we are circling the drain.
Instead, we ought to meditate on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy.”
That’s not to say that we refuse to talk about reality. We just choose not to meditate on it. And if we do…
9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Propitiation, presence, provision, peace, power
5. The promise of power.
What causes us distress in times of transition is often the thought; I can’t do this. And you are right, you can’t, but God has promised His power to His people. That whatever He called you to do, you can do. That He will not allow you to be in a place of temptation that you can’t overcome by His power.
Psalm 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?
You say, preacher, you just don’t know how weak I am. Good. It is good that you are weak.
2 Corinthians 12: 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
It is good that you are weak, because God has chosen the weak to give His power. Why? Because, at the end of the day, your life purpose, everyone’s life purpose is to bring glory to God. And if you are so great that you can fix your own problems, you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you are a self-made man. Who gets the glory? You do.
But when you are weak, and God does great things through you, who gets the glory? God. You have fulfilled your purpose.
The problem with the great people of this world is that they don’t always realize who gave them their greatness. Think about it this way. We are all wine bottles in this world. Some wine bottles are decorated and ornate, others are very simple and basic. But ultimately it is not about the bottle. It is about the wine in the bottle.
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
When I am a basic, and simple bottle, it only serves to draw the attention away from me, and onto the wine in the bottle.
Remember the story of Gideon in the Old Testament. God called on him to raise an army to fight Israel’s enemies. Gideon raised an army. But do you know what God told him?
Judges 7: 2 And Yahweh said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, lest Israel honor themselves, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
I am going to win this battle for you Gideon. But, with the size of the army that you have gathered, some people will think that you won because of your superior force. I want their to be no doubt at the end of the day why you won this battle; by my power.
It’s good that you are weak.
1 Corinthians 1: 26 For [q]consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to [r]the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, 29 so that no flesh may boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, [s]and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the[t]Lord.”
Propitiation, presence, provision, peace, power, pointing the way,
6. The promise to point the way
I’m cursed. I’m all alone. I can’t get ahead. I’m in a perpetual state of panic. I can’t do this. I don’t know which way to go. These are the things that we say when change comes. “I don’t know which way to go.”
But God has made a promise to those who are His.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
“He will make your paths straight.” The “He” here, in Hebrew is emphatic. It should be translated, “He, Himself.” What it is saying is that God Himself is personally involved in directing the way of those who have put their trust in Him. Let’s put it this way. We often imagine that God is too busy for us. You know, He’s dealing with war in the middle east. He dealing with Putin and the Ukraine. And I pray to Him asking for help with some direction in my life. So, we imagine, our message gets written down, and carried to God by some low-level angel. “Sorry to bother you God, Bruce wants to know whether to go right or left.” “Can’t be bothered right now, Clarence, tell him to do whatever you think is right.”
No. “He Himself will make your paths straight.”
And the second thing, He will make your paths straight. Some translations say, “He will direct your paths.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/proverbs/3-6.htm
he himself shall make them straight, or level, removing all obstacles out of the way; or they shall, under God's direction, prosper and come to a successful issue; they shall be virtuous, inasmuch as deviation into vice will be guarded against, and happy, because they are prosperous.
We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. God has promised to guide you.
James 1: 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
And God keeps His promises.
Propitiation, presence, provision, peace, power, pointing the way, perspective
7. The promise of perspective.
When we go through times of change, sometimes we give in to our fears. We think, “This can’t end well.” “This is the end.” That’s the mood of our age today. Have you noticed how many of the current movies and shows are built around some disaster hitting the world, and the resulting apocalyptic world that the survivors are left to live in?
It used to be that many movies were about a crisis, then a hero comes and wins over the crisis, and the world is saved.
Now what you get is destruction, and survival in a burned up or devastated planet. Madd Max, The Hunger Games, A Quiet Place, A Handmaids Tale, I Am Legend, Walking Dead, Planet of the Apes. The basic plot is the same. Some disaster came; plague, aliens, the undead, war, oppressive regimes. The world is ripped apart. And the movie is about the horror of life for the survivors. Their existence is reduced to staying alive from one day to the next.
That can be how we think when turmoil comes in our lives. “This can’t end well.” But God has made you a promise in Scripture. He has promised you perspective. The promise is not that you will never see evil days. But that God can take even those days, and work them out for your good.
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
You know that verse, and it can become so familiar that we lose the sense of its meaning. It means that if you are God’s child, there is nothing in your life that God isn’t using to work for your good. That doesn’t mean that everything in your life is pleasant. It doesn’t mean that you have no pain. But He uses everything for your good.
How does He work it out for good?
Genesis 50:20 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to do [j]what has happened on this day, to keep many people alive.
Deuteronomy 8: 2 And you shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 And He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. 16 In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you [e]in the end,
Deuteronomy 23: 5 Nevertheless, Yahweh your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but Yahweh your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because Yahweh your God loves you.
Psalm 119:71 71 It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.
Isaiah 3:10 Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, For they will eat the fruit of their deeds.
Zechariah 13:9 And I will bring the third part
through the fire And refine them as silver is refined And test them as
gold is tested. [e]They
will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, ‘They
are My people,’
And they will say, ‘Yahweh is
my God.’”
Romans 5: 3 And not only this, but [c]we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
2 Corinthians 4: 15 For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is [d]spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 5: For we know that if [a]the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,
Ephesians 1: 11 In [g]Him, we also [h]have been made an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who first have hoped in [i]Christ would be to the praise of His glory.
Philippians 1: 16 the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; 17 the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition [k]rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me affliction in my chains. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your [l]prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20 according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 [m]But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know what I will choose. 23 But I am hard-pressed [n]between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better,
2 Thessalonians 1: 5 This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. 6 [b]Since it is right [c]for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give rest to you who are afflicted [d]and to us as well at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with [e]His mighty angels in flaming fire,
Hebrews 12: 6 For thosewhom the[f]Lord loves He disciplines, And He flogs every son whom He receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we [g]had [h]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of [i]spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our benefit, so that we may share His holiness. 11 And all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, but to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. 12 Therefore, [j]strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
James 1: 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 And let perseverance have its perfect work, so that you may be [c]perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
1 Peter 1: 6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various [a]trials, 7 so that the [b]proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which [c]is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and [d]full of glory, 9 receiving as the outcome of your faith the salvation of [e]your souls.
Revelation 3: 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent.
He has promised you perspective. I know that we would all prefer that He make all problems and suffering go away. But that isn’t what He chose to do. If we belong to Him, if we love and follow Him, if we accepted His forgiveness in Christ, then we trust His will. And His promise is perspective. We can look at change, struggle, transition, suffering, and even evil differently than the world. We can declare that God is using it all for our good.
Now, remember that all of this came out of our study of the life of Abraham. We were learning certain truths about life from the life of Abraham.
God is in control. He has chosen us. He keeps His promises. Now we continue with these lessons in times of change by understanding how Abraham responded. We should respond to times of change in certain ways. Abraham sets that example for us.
be a blessing, walk by faith, expect trials, do the work, be present.