The God of Abraham

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0:00 Well, glad you made it. This is historically called Low Sunday because it's like the lowest attended Sunday at a church usually. I don't know if you can believe it. I was hard for me to believe it, but last week was Easter. It feels like that was about three weeks to go for me. I don't know how your week has been. But whether it was one week ago or three weeks ago, Easter is still true.

0:35 Jesus Christ is no longer dead. He is alive. Wherever he sits right now waiting to return, he sits in body, flesh and blood, heart and soul, living and breathing with breath in and out. Jesus Christ is alive waiting to return and ransom us from this world that is falling apart. Easter is still true.

1:05 Jesus is still risen. So that's really great. That's going to be true all year long. You can come back to that whenever you want and then we'll celebrate the resurrection again next year. What I want to do for the next several weeks is think about who this God is, this God that incarnates in the person of Jesus, comes through Christmas, through life, ministry, through the past and week, through the cross, through the grave, up to ascension, who this God is

1:41 that does this thing. Sometimes I mean the full name for God for me is the God of creation and life, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Christ in the church. That this is the full name for God, the God of creation and life, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God of Christ in the church. I looked it up and it's over two dozen times that God is referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the story of scripture. This is when God starts saying which specific God the God is, the God of Abraham, Isaac

2:16 and Jacob. So I want to spend the next several weeks for us looking at what it means that God self-identifies as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. His prophets call him the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Even after the resurrection Stephen in his famous speech to the church leaders before he is the first one martyred, calls God, the resurrected God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

2:46 So this is a significant name for God and we learn a lot about God by thinking about him being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And the place that the story really kicks off to that is in Genesis chapter 12. If you want to look there with me, I didn't put out paper copies of the scriptures today, but if you have a phone you have a copy, I'm sure you can just Google Genesis chapter 12. And we're going to start probably at verse 1, but the first thing to get a sense of this

3:23 like story here in Genesis chapter 12 is to get a context of where we are in the story of scripture right now. Remember where we are in the relationship between God and humanity at this time in Genesis chapter 12, a couple of significant things that happen. Remember first that we have this story, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy because Moses had this unique relationship to God where he would speak to God as another man speaks to a man face to face.

3:55 They had this like, he had this tent of meeting where he going and speak to God. So the scriptures, these first five books, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Moses wrote in conversation with God. And they chronicle the history of the people coming up to the time of crossing the Jordan and going into the promised land. And this story here with Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 comes after the story of creation.

4:25 So that we get the story of creation where we don't get the back story. We don't know why God made the world. We don't know what motivated him to culminate the act of creation with the invention of people and humanity. We don't even know specifically why God had to breathe into humanity the breath of life. The best reason we could come up with for God, why he created the world and crowned

4:57 it with humanity is because he wanted to. We don't know a better explanation than that, that this God of creation does what God wants and God wanted for there to be a world. And so he imagines the world into existence, all aspects and components of it. There are things that you might think about as that one day we could ask God how he came up with it. One of them is I love the way that water clings together because then it can roll through

5:28 streams and down waterfalls. If it didn't stick together, if it didn't have that kind of elasticity, you wouldn't get the sound of a trinkling brook or the rushing sound of a waterfall. I love that the way water works was in God's mind. The other thing that comes by when I think about creation is that I heard this once that the lion has a tuft of hair, the male lion has a tuft of hair on the end of his tail. People can't figure out why the lion has a tuft of hair on the end of its tail except

6:01 for that it uses it to play with the little lion cubs. It doesn't help in balance or hiding or hunting. I love that this act of creation of God that God imagines the world, brings it into existence and then gives it to humanity. And of course, the tragic flaw that spins the story of humanity into existence is though God gave us everything we were sure God was holding out on us.

6:32 That though God spun the world into existence, breathed the blood into us and gave it to us to manage, we are sure that he doesn't have our best interests at heart, this fatal flaw of humanity, this creation. So in order to preserve the future of humanity, he takes this out of the garden, right? Within a couple of generations, he realizes now they're outside of the garden and all desires of their heart are all evil all the time. I don't know if God has an emotional center like we do, but if God has an emotional center like we do, he must be burned a lot.

7:05 Right? Because he makes this, he makes water and lions, he makes plants and clouds, gives them to humanity and they promptly are sure that he's holding out on them. And he says, I won't give up on you, I'll start again. And then within a couple of generations, all desires of their heart are all evil all the time. He's so frustrated that God floods the earth and starts over with no answers. This family is decent, they walk out of the boat, they stand up in altar, they wist it to God, and in a couple of generations, they're building a tower, sure they don't need God

7:38 anymore. And God is still at this point in the story of the tower of Babel does not give up. The first thing that we think about when we call God the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is that the fact that God identifies with Abraham tells us that he is persistent and hopeful. So God of creation and life, good heavens, is persistent.

8:08 Humanity's fatal flight is stubborn. Your capacity to doubt God seems endless. You come by it naturally. It's the fatal flaw of humanity and yet we know because God calls Abraham, that God is persistent and hopeful for the future of humanity. Look at the story of Abraham and Genesis chapter 12. God has just separated humanity from the tower of Babel, so let's deal with them in one people

8:40 group at a time. Now the Lord said to Abraham, go to your country and your kindred and your thought and power. Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I'll make your name great so

9:14 that you'll be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That's a pretty comprehensively good opportunity for Abraham. He has a little bit to risk. He's got to leave his family's house and the land that he knows and go out to a new place. But for the risk he gets to be a great nation, he gets the blessing of God and he gets to

9:50 be the source of blessing for the whole world. It's a pretty good deal for Abraham. God is like evolving his judge here. Sometimes when I read the story of Scripture, if you read the narrative and pay attention to the flow of things, it might seem like God is making up his strategy to salvage and save and redeem humanity as he goes along. Like if he has got it out of plan, I don't know why we go through the flood and then battle before we get to Abraham.

10:22 But that's where the story goes. God goes through creation, that falls. He sends him out to the east of Eden and says that continue to live and I'll take solve the problem and that falls apart. Then he fles and says I'll start over with you Noah and then that falls apart at Davo. And so then he does something different. He calls Abraham, what's interesting in this call to Abraham is Abraham has no prior relationship

10:53 to God that we really know of, aside from the relationship that everyone has with God. If God is starting something here throughout the rest of the story of Scripture, God will call the Israel, the people that descend from Abraham, his vineyard. He's going to decide to work with one small group of people and he's going to start with one small person. He's going to make a whole nation that will bless the world out of this one dude. But picking this one dude is funny. Part of the reason Abraham might have been afraid to leave his homeland and go into

11:25 Canaan is Canaan was popular in the powerful countries. World cities, armies, successful vineyards. Like there were some people who could conquer the world that God could have picked. Abraham is not one of them. Most people think that Abraham is part of this group that's referenced a lot in ancient near-east documents called Ha'Piru people. It seems to be like a kind of a catch-all term.

11:58 If you were to transliterate it, you'd be like HA, P-I-R-U, Ha'Piru people. It's kind of a catch-all term for the bottom rung of society. Literally translated in some languages, it's like murderers and robbers. But it's kind of the bottom rung of society. Outlaws, land lists, poor. His parents, if you read the story of Abraham right before Genesis chapter 12, right at

12:29 the end of Genesis chapter 11, you get the genealogy that leads up to Abraham coming out of Babel. And his dad had been on the move from the fertile crescent. His dad had set out to go down to Canaan to follow the road. The road goes up like this through the fertile crescent, then down through the desert to Canaan. But once he gets to Herod, he stops. His dad, the only reason his dad would have been on the move is because there was nothing for him where he was before. I want you to see Abraham come from the bottom rung of society.

13:00 When he says, leave your father's house and the land that you know, he's not leaving behind much. God's going to launch something that takes over the world from the bottom rung from the marginalized and the disenfranchised, from the forgotten and left behind. On top of that, what we find out later is his wife, Sarah, is barren. She's old and never had a kid. Abraham is from the Ha'piri people.

13:30 The social margins of the franchise just goes along and can't build wealth with kids, which is how you might do it. It's not the person that you would think to start something that takes over the world if you and I were starting it. I said that when we call God the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, when we call God

14:02 the God of Abraham, the first thing we realize is that God is persistent and hopeful. He doesn't give up on humanity and he's sure he can do something with Abraham. Could you today benefit from a God who is persistent and hopeful?

14:42 Could you today benefit from a God whose love for you is kind of dogged and resilient? Who is kind of his pursuit of you is unhindered by your persistent doubt? Whose capacity to accomplish future for you is not limited by what you bring to the table?

15:24 Could you use a God who is persistent and hopeful in the season of your life? I feel like I'm coming up against lately. A lot of people who are kind of really tired, trying to think of a prettier way to say that, it doesn't get much.

15:55 People are tired right now. Like just kind of exhausted. Like I realized I was looking at something from the fall and realizing the emotional state in the fall we were so confused. I talked about it in the fall often as feeling like I was managing an open-ended calamity. There was calamity coming and I don't know when. So I am constantly preparing for things being terrible and I don't know how long they'll

16:27 be terrible, when they'll get better, if they're going to get better. And holding our lives together, our emotional state together, our work together, our children together, holding our optimism for the future together for a year with open-ended calamity is actually exhausting. This year, if you have the capacity to run analogies, could be analogous for our lives.

16:58 Just like, we just smashed all together. If you try and carry the responsibility to provide for your future, if you try and shoulder the task of ensuring your ending, if you try and take within your hands and your mind within your creativity and your capacity to provide for yourself off into the future

17:29 forever, you will eventually run into a furious wall of exhaustion. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This lifts people up out of their own capacity, sets them up on a platform and promises them the future. This is why we love that the God of Easter is the God of Abraham because the God of Abraham is proved truthful by the God of Easter.

18:01 The God of Abraham sets people up on a platform, promises them the future and gives it to them freely. This morning, I was here preparing, setting up chairs, realized we needed coffee. We can't have Sunday morning without coffee.

18:34 I realized the day I've been preaching for like ten years. I don't think I can preach without coffee. I left. I drove through downtown over to the coffee shop to get some coffee. The drive through this neighborhood has changed in the last two or so years. When I come out of the parking lot, I go left on Jackson, then left on Westmoreland. I take Westmoreland down to Emilia.

19:04 I turn right on Emilia. Anybody driven on Emilia recently? It looked completely different. There are big, shiny buildings. There's a college campus opening up. We're building more and more buildings. The roads are paved. We are shaping the world. I was driving there to get coffee. I remembered that quote. I tried to find who it is. It's been quoted so many times that nobody knows who started it. Voltaire, Pascal.

19:35 God created man in his image and man returns a favor. Have you heard that? How easy it is for us to shape God to our notion of what is good, to take our highest values and extrapolate them up into an ideal and say that is God. That God's like a better version of us. As we turn into the season of Easter and begin to settle into the reality that the God of creation and life incarnated in a person lived a life, went through the past

20:09 and went through death, out of tomb, up into a sentient and sent the spirit down to us, it's good to remember who this God is so that as we live in the light of the resurrection, we don't get enamored with our own capacity to shape the world and thereby without realizing it shaped God. Our God, the God of Easter, is a very specific God. I think part of the reason that God called Abraham at the time that he did is because people were far away from the Garden of Eden already and they were forgetting who the one

20:44 true God is. They had started to make powers and things. They had started to get enamored with their own capacity and forget the character of God and show he located his character in a single person and said, I will identify with this. This person, these people, you will see my traits. When we call God the God of Abraham, we see that God is a God who lifts people up out of nothing and with persistent hope preserves the future for them. A lot of rain.

21:15 It's important for me that you all know that it makes me feel better.

21:58 Do God is without creation and life, but not just any life. The type of life that he gave to Abraham, un-mated, free gift to trust nature forever. Un-mated, trusting and hope.

22:29 You guys have got a creation and life, but not just any life. The kind of life that he gave to Abraham with significance and purpose, with support and direction. You guys have got a creation and life of the kind of life that he gave to Abraham. Your God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of Christ and the church. It makes all the difference that we know specifically who our God is. I'm glad that we get to be in the continuation.

23:00 We together are part of Abraham's blessing. God's blessing to the world through Abraham. That we are a continuation of the people of Abraham. And together with Abraham's people throughout time, we wait for the God of creation and life. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Christ and the church, to finally make good on all of his promises. And to return from where he waits and take us to that blessed home.

23:37 Let me pray. Hey Lord, thank you for the testimony of your work through Abraham. Because people of faith to live in that same testimony today and this week that you give life freely with hope and persistence to each of us today. From Jesus name we pray. Amen.