If You Really Want to Know Jesus, Know the Old Testament
Part 5: The Covenant with Abram
October 5, 2008
Genesis 12-134
I spent a lot of time this week thinking about change. On Monday morning I helped Ethan complete his homework before we walked to school and I thought, “This sure is different than last year.” On Wednesday I dropped Grace off for school. She shed no tears. She ran off to play, and I barely got a goodbye and I thought, “This sure is different than last year.” Change is inevitable. It is guaranteed, but the kind of change that our text this morning depicts is not of the typical sort.
Typical change is just the sort I’ve been speaking about with Ethan and Grace. It is the change of time, day after day chugging along, slowing for no one, ticking off each hour, each day. We grow older. We learn more and more. We change. But the change our text is concerned with this morning is not the simple progression of time that alters the surface of everyone. The change is a transformation of the inner life of Abram that changes his head, his heart, his faith, his relationship with God, everything. Abram has a life transforming experience with God.
When we look at the text we see that God comes to Abram taking the initiative in forming a relationship with this man. We’ve already spoken about the change of heart in God that ties God to his creation in grace and justice. Now God seeks to live out of that heart for creation by bringing about a change in his relationship with creation. God forms a relationship with a man, with Abram, so that he might form a people to call his own, and with that people, he might bless the world. The people of God in every form, whether Israel or the Church, have always been called and blessed to be a blessing and issue a call. God has always intended his grace to flow in and through his people to the world, like a cup that overflows, like a fountain that pours out water to all the thirsty. It is only when God’s people stop up the overflowing grace of God that they seek to thwart God’s purposes and draw God’s anger.
So God comes to Abram and says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” This is no small request from God. God is asking Abram to leave the security of his father’s house, to leave his father’s name and inheritance of land and house behind and go. God is asking Abram to leave everything that defines who he is behind and trust that God has a plan and a goal for him and his life.
Abram says, “Yes,” and his life is never the same for he has been transformed from the son of his father and his country and kindred into a son of this God who called him and promised him greatness. He has forged a relationship with God based on trust and hope that together they can change the world through the transformation of Abram’s heart.
Is Abram’s transformation complete and perfect? No. The text makes that perfectly clear almost immediately. Abram travels with his wife and servants along with Lot his nephew, and they head for Canaan, building altars for worship, settling down until a famine came and forced them to head to Egypt. While in Egypt Abram refuses to trust in God’s providence and care, seeking to save his own skin by trickery and deceit. His lies backfire on him of course, and it seems that he will lose Sarai to the Pharaoh until God intervenes. Abrams heart is not truly transformed, but God’s remains pure and gracious.
It is this transformation of lives that God stays true to throughout all the history of God and his people. The prophet Jeremiah spoke, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write in on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” God is after your heart. God desires to transform your lives according to his purpose, so that he might bless you and bless the world through you. All you need to say is YES. Romans 12 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” God is after change in your life, transformation of your mind and heart that his call to care for the world and each other, his blessing to enjoy all that the world offers and your obedience to avoid that which brings only death might come together in your life. All you need to say is YES. 2 Corinthians 5 says, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! … so we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” God desires to transform you life, to covenant with you, to bless you with newness, a fresh spirit, a new heart, so that he might send you, not to the church, but to your neighborhood to transform it, to your schools to transform them, to your homes to transform them, to your jobs to transform them, to Kentucky, to the gulf coast, to Hackensack and Newark, to Westwood and Emerson and Hillsdale … all you need to say is YES.
God’s first transformative step in the world is with Abram, changing his life to bless the world. It wasn’t perfect, but he never let go of that step. He completed it in Jesus Christ, and he offers it to you at this table. Be reconciled with God. Receive Jesus Christ. Be transformed.
If you really want to know Jesus, know the Old Testament.
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