|
|
|
What is the real blessing and how we can get it ? Genesis 11:27 - 12:4 Genesis 12:2 "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."(2) God created a good and beautiful world and gave a mission man to rule over all the creatures. God was so pleased and man was happy (Ge 1,2). However, man and woman disobeyed God and sin entered the world (3). At first, disobeying God seemed to be very small thing. But it was not. Because of sin, man lost paradise. Because of sin, death came; all of the relationships were broken. Adam's first son, Cain killed his brother, the first murder of human history; then, he lived in fear, expecting to be killed at anytime. He became a restless wanderer. As time went on, things did not get better--they got worse. Men deliberately left God out of their lives--especially out of their marriages--and became corrupt and violent (6). The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was full of pain. So God judged the world and destroyed it with a flood. But this did not solve the sin problem (8:21). Even Noah, the one righteous man had sin in his heart. Then God made a plan to solve the sin problem in other way. Beginning in Genesis 12, God called one man, Abram and gave him a covenant promise. And Abram believed God and obeyed his word. God promised to make him a source of blessing for all people. Through today's message, I hope that we will learn about what is the covenant promise of God given to Abram and also what is the covenant promise toward us who walks in the footsteps of our spiritual father, Abram. Part 1. What is the real blessing? Look at verse 4b. "Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran." When God called Abram, he was 75 years old and his wife Sarai was 65. Abram and his 2 brothers, Haran and Nahor, were born and raised in Ur of the Chaldeans. Haran, the father of Lot, died there. This was ancient Babylonia, a region notorious for all kinds of idols. According to Joshua 24:2, Abram's family were also idol worshippers. (Jos 24:2) God first called Abram to leave his country and his people when he was living in Ur. (Acts 7:2,3) At that time, Abram's father, Terah, took his 2 surviving sons and his grandson Lot and left for Canaan. But when he got to Haran, he decided to settle there. Abram was wealthy, but he had one great personal problem. His wife Sarai was barren, so he had no children. In ancient world, having no child was a tragedy to one's family, which was also considered as a curse of god. He had no one to whom he could pass his name and wealth. His family line would end with himself. He may have found some comfort in his nephew Lot, whom he looked upon as a son, but his life was fatalistic and there was a deep sorrow in his heart. At that time when nobody paid attention to Abram, God called him at first. . Let's read all together 12:1-2 "The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go 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.' This call contains a command and a promise. The command is, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. God's call to Abram was specific and concrete. Abram, a man well indulged in his times and culture, was already 75 years old. For such a man to leave the security of his homeland, his family and friends and go into an unknown world was indeed difficult. But if he was to become a man whom God could bless, it was necessary. God wanted him to become independent of bad influence from his family, relatives and idolatrous society. He wanted him to depend on God alone--not on family, friends, or on past experience or the worldy way of thinking and lifestyle. When we begin the life of faith, we must break away from our past lives. Family, home, my own country are not necessarily bad. But when we depend on these human things, we cannot wholly trust and obey God. For some people, the spiritual decision to leave the bad influence of family and friends creates a new and better relationship with them. We become independent by becoming dependant on God. So, the earthly things for our life security must be surrendered for us to take hold of God's word and begin a new life of obedience to God. When our life is deeply caught in the sinful world, God calls us to repent and leave a life of sin and turn to God. God did not call Abram in order to make his life miserable. God said to Abram, "I will bless you and you will be a blessing." "I will make you into a great nation." "I will give you this land." (7) God called Abram to bless him. God's blessing is a covenant promise, for God is a God of promise. When we become Christians, we take hold of God's promise and enter into a covenant relationship with God. In spite of his childlessness, God promised Abram to make him a great nation. This means that Abram would have many descendants. He promised to make Abram's name great. This was a promise to train him until he could become a truly great man. Today, men's value system and conception of greatness has deteriorated. A man who receive God's calling and lives a sacrificial life to fulfill that calling becomes an object of ridicule. So, even those who receive God's calling and want to live according to that calling are influenced by the ways of the world and become corrupt. Every person has a desire for true greatness. But without God's calling, no one can be great. A man's greatness is found in his inner character. He is great because of what he is, not because of what he has. God would make Abram great. A great name also implies honor. Abram would be honored and respected by all men. But the greatest blessing of God is to make him a source of blessing to others. God promised Abram that he would be a blessing. All peoples on earth would be blessed because of him. Abram would not live and die as a useless old man. Through him and his descendants, God would pour out the greatest blessing. God's promise to make Abram a source of blessing for all mankind was finally fulfilled in Jesus. God sent Jesus to die for our sins and be raised to life so that all who believe in him might be saved from sin and death. (Acts 3:25,26) Likewise, God calls us into a covenant relationship with himself in order to bless us and make us a blessing. Each of us can become a source of blessing to others when we accept God's calling. However, if we hold our blessing only for ourselves or for our own families, then something is fundamentally wrong. Such believers among the Jews nailed Jesus to the cross. When our faith is based on God's covenant, not only are we blessed, but we become a source of blessing for our families, our neighbors and for the world. Now we are hopeless and selfish sinners. However, God called us and put hope in us. God's promises plant hope in our mind. Hope is like the bright sunlight that dispels the dark clouds of fatalism and despair. Hope is like the morning star that rises in the sky in the darkest hours just before dawn. Praise the God of hope. God also promised to protect Abram from a hostile world. Look at verse 3. Those who cursed him would be cursed; those who blessed him would be blessed. He promised Abram's descendants the land of Canaan as an inheritance--even though the powerful, belligerent Canaanites were already there. Part 2. How we can get the blessing? Let's read together 12:4. "So Abram left as the Lord had told him..." We don't know about Abram's mind exactly at that time. All we know is that he believed the word of God and that he showed his belief by obeying God's command. In the New Testament, when Peter received Jesus call, "Follow me", he left his boats and nets and followed Jesus. James and John left their father and servants in the boat and followed Jesus. (Mk 1:16-20) Abram heard God's word and began his life of faith based on God's word. We also must take hold of the word when we receive God's calling and begin our christian lives. The clear word of God must be in every life of faith. If our faith is based on our feeling, we will find that such a faith doesn't last long. Faith that begins with only an emotional experience is like opium, a temporary relief from fear and anxiety. The results are bad. The author of Psalms says "Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path". The word of God should always be the ground of our faith. Abram chose the way of obedience to the word of God. He did not have even one child, but God promised him that his sons and daughters would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abram believed God's promise and left his country, his people and his father's household. He received God's word and he gave up his own way of thinking. The things that God wants to gives us seem to have no practical value. Following God's word seems losing time & benefit in our life. However, Obedience to God's word is Bible-centered faith. If we obey one word because it is the word of God, we will receive a great blessing. Such faith reveals us the deep secrets of faith and the life-giving power of faith. Living in the present world is not easy. But even so, our Lord tells us to seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness and all the things we need will be given to us. In this competitive society, putting faith first is very hard. But when we do this, God keeps his promises and blesses us with far more than we could expect. We have many things to learn about Abram's faith. But what is the most important thing to learn is faith that is based on the word of God. When I was sophmore in University, I had decided to go to military service because my school grade was terrible. I want to forget about all things and get a fresh start of my university life after discharging military service. However, at that time, my shepherd challenged me with the word of God, Genesis 12:1-2, which says "leave and go to the land I will show you." Then I replied. "Yes Lord. I will leave center and go to the military service." However, my shepherd told me to stay in school and keel schooling, which means that I should put off my military service until after graduate. My shepherd worried that my newborn spiritual life after attending summer bible conference would be withered while military service. I could not follow the direction because it would make my life changed beyond my control. So, I had a fear in mind. One day, after struggling with my shepherd, I went down to my home at Cheoung-Ju. Even after arrived at home, my mind was not comfortable. I felt like losing my life and falling into a failure. That night, God forced me to accept the word of God with tears. I accepted both the God's command and the covenant promises through the word of God, Genesis 12:1-2. Next morning, I packed my bag and said good-bye to my parents and start living in tent with other shepherds in Seoul. From that time on, the God's command and promise became my key word of life. However, my life did not go as I wished. I felt like a failure in campus life when graduated. To make it worse, I failed a graduate entrance exam. Finally, I went to military service. After military service, I was among the jobless person under the IMF bailout program of Korea. But, now I find that God has been leading my life to a source of blessing according to the covenant promise given to me. God knows me more than I do. Through a life looking like a failure, I came to learn that God's purpose on my life is neither self-centered nor self-seeking. God's blessings to my life is for me to become a blessing to others. So, God changed my name to Manynation Kim. Whenever I heard my name called, the meaning of the name challenges me. God want my life to become the father of manynations serving all kinds of people over the world, which I realized, is the real blessing and real greatness. If my life had gone as I wanted, I could not know what is the real greatness nor what is the real blessing of my life. I thank God for blessing my life according to Genesis 12:1-2. When I accepted the promise of God and left my home and start a new tent life, God must have been so glad. I believe that God has himself attached to the promise since that time. May God bless my life according to the covenant promise God gave to me. May God also bless all of you to be a source of blessing wherever you are according to God's covenant promise in Genesis 12:1-2. |
| 
|
