Good News for All the World

GOOD NEWS FOR ALL THE WORLD

An Exposition of Genesis 11:10–12:3

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: September 11, 2022

Series: The Book of Genesis

Note: Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard   Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

(Chapter 11)

¹⁰ These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. ¹¹ And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹² When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. ¹³ And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴ When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber.¹⁵ And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶ When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg.¹⁷ And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸ When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu.¹⁹ And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰ When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug.²¹ And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²² When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor.²³ And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴ When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah.²⁵ And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶ When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷ Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. ²⁸ Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. ²⁹ And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah.³⁰ Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

³¹ Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. ³² The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

(Chapter 12)

 ¹ Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. ² And 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. ³ 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.” (Genesis 11:10-12:3)

INTRODUCTION

The heart of this passage is the Lord’s call upon Abram. In Genesis 17 the Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham – and Abraham is the more familiar name to us. However, in order to be faithful to the way that Scripture unfolds, my intention is to utilize the name Abram until we have hurdled the name-changing event in Genesis 17:5.

The Lord’s call upon Abram is a key moment in the implementation of His plan for the world. This key moment is, in fact, good news for all the world. But before we get to this momentous call in Genesis 12, we receive some important historical and genealogical information in Genesis 11:10-32.

Since the Lord called Abram not only for Abram’s sake but also for your sake – that you might share in the blessing promised to Abram – this passage has direct and weighty implications for you and for the way that you live your life. The historical information is important because it is the context out of which Abram was called into the better future that God promised. It is in this real space-and-time world where God meets with us and transforms our lives.

THE WORLD MARCHES ON IN DARKNESS (Genesis 11:10-32)

Let’s look at Genesis 11:10-32 and consider the fact that the world is marching on. Noah had three sons – Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Each of Noah’s sons had an increasing number of descendants, as we learned in Genesis 10. Now in Genesis 11:10-32 we get more detailed information about Shem’s descendants, beginning with Shem’s son Arpachshad (in v. 10) and running all the way down to Shem’s great great great great great great great grandsons Abram, Nahor, and Haran, extended to one more generation to Haran’s son Lot.

The history that spans from Arpachshad’s birth “two years after the flood” (Genesis 11:10) to Abram’s departure from Haran when Abram was seventy-five years old (Genesis 12:4), covers around 400 years. Arpachshad was born around the year 1658, and by that I mean one-thousand six-hundred fifty-eight years after God created the world; and Abram departed from Haran about 400 years later. Remarkably, Noah’s son Shem – who stands at the head of the genealogy in Genesis 11:10, was still alive when Abram was born.

As I have mentioned before and will mention here only briefly, the very fact that the author is giving us detailed genealogical information which indicates when the son of promise was born and how long they lived, is highlighting the fact that this genealogical line is especially important. The information about Cain’s line (in Genesis 4:17-24) has less information, then sputters out. The information about Japheth’s line has less information, then sputters out. The information about Ham’s line has less information, then sputters out. But the Holy Spirit saw to it to highlight Adam’s line through Seth in Genesis 5, and now to extend that same line through Shem to Abram in Genesis 11, because this is the line that will eventually lead to the promised Messiah. This is the family line from which will come the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). The sons mentioned in the genealogy aren’t necessarily the firstborn. But whether firstborn or not, each of the sons in the genealogy is – as Arnold Fruchtenbaum puts it – the seed-son, that is, the son through whom the promised seed of the woman would eventually come.[1]

When we have looked at previous genealogies in Genesis 4, Genesis 5, and Genesis 10, I have made the point that what we should be looking for are things that stand out. In terms of “the generations of Shem” in Genesis 11:10-26, one of the things that stands out is the information that Terah had three sons. That stands out – for only one son was named for each father in the previous verses – and it serves as a segue to “the generations of Terah” which begins in the next verse. Once we get to Genesis 11:27-32, we begin to get much more detailed information about Terah’s family, which is obviously setting the stage for Abram.

I said that the world is marching on, and that’s true in the sense that sons and daughters are being born and families are growing and the years – three centuries plus – are passing by. But the world isn’t just marching on; the world is marching on in darkness. How do I know that darkness covered the landscape? Well, consider several things.

Ungodliness Filled the Earth

First, remember what happened in the days of Peleg. Peleg is Shem’s great-great-grandson. Peleg is mentioned in Genesis 11:16-19, but he is also mentioned back in Genesis 10:25, where it says that “in [Peleg’s] days the earth was divided”. In other words, it was in Peleg’s days that the Lord brought judgment upon the peoples who had gathered together to build the city and tower in Babel. The Lord came down and confused the languages of all the people, and “from [Babel] the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” (Genesis 11:9) The city and tower building project at Babel had brought the whole world together in rebellion against God. I don’t mean that every individual alive at that time was a participant in the sin at Babel (after all, Noah was still alive when Babel happened), but I do mean that generally speaking the world’s various clans and nations were actively involved in the rebellion at Babel. Instead of obeying the Lord’s command to fill the earth, the peoples wanted to hunker down in one place. Instead of seeking to glorify the Lord, the peoples wanted to make a name for themselves. Instead of being humble worshipers of the Lord God, they wanted to deify mankind and put a monument to man in the heavens. Babel was a bastion of ungodliness, and when the peoples were “dispersed… from there over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:8), they took their ungodliness with them. Shem had at least five sons, who are identified in Genesis 10:22, and Shem’s descendants were not immune from the rebellion and judgment at Babel.

Shem’s Special Line Failed to Remain Faithful

Second, even if Noah’s faithfulness was carried on in his son Shem, and if Shem’s faithfulness was carried on in his son Arpachshad (the son who is mentioned in Genesis 11:10-13), and if this legacy of faithfulness was carried on for a few additional generations – maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, we don’t know – but the fact remains that by the time we get to Terah, whatever legacy of faithfulness there might have been had been broken. We know this because the Lord spoke through Joshua to the people of Israel, saying, “Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.” (Joshua 24:2) Terah was an idolater. Abram was born into an idolatrous family. They worshiped pagan gods.

We learn an important lesson here. Noah was a faithful man who walked with God. After the flood, God had made a covenant with Noah and Noah’s three sons. But in the space of 100-200 years, humanity had corrupted itself once again in the rebellion at Babel. And with respect to the Messianic line through Shem all the way down to Terah, even here the true worship of God, which had been exemplified by Noah, had been corrupted, and the true faith had been lost. From Babel the peoples had taken ungodliness to the four corners of the earth. And Shem’s special Messianic line had been unable to preserve godliness in its own ranks. The lesson is clear: unless each generation of people is awakened to the majesty of God, it will drift from the faithfulness of previous generations. And frankly, unless God graciously intervenes, humanity tends to go from faithful to unfaithful, and then from bad to worse, over the course of several generations. Only God’s grace can reverse this course. There was no human solution to the darkness of those days, and there is no human solution to the darkness of our days.

In addition to those two big picture details about the idolatry of the world at Babel and the idolatry of Terah’s family, there are a number of smaller details we should pay attention to.

Decreasing Human Lifespan

So third, notice that the human lifespan is decreasing. The average lifespan of the men born before the flood in the Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 genealogies – starting with Adam and finishing with Shem (who was born before the flood), but excluding Enoch who never died but was taken by the Lord when he was 365 years old – the average lifespan of these 10 men was 881 years years. Shem’s father Noah lived 950 years (Genesis 9:29). But when we leave the pre-flood world of Genesis 5 and enter into the post-flood world of Genesis 10-11, something changed. Arpachshad, Shelah, and Eber (Genesis 11:10-17) lived an average of 445 years (that’s a drop-off of almost 50%). Then Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, and Abraham lived an average of 206 years (that’s another drop-off of around 50%). The average lifetime is shortening. The sons of men are like flowers of the field that appear for a little while, and then they’re gone. Death marches on.

Fathers Have to Bury Their Sons

Fourth, notice that fathers have to bury their sons – and this is something that no father wants to do. If you crunch the numbers, you’ll find that Peleg died about 200 years before his father Eber died; the first Nahor died about 50 years before his father Serug; and Arpachshad died about 60 years before his father Shem. This can be deduced from the data given to us, but we are specifically told about Terah’s son Haran. Genesis 11:28 says, “Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred.” In this also, death rears its painful head. Terah had to bury his son; Abram had to bury his brother.

Sarai was Barren

Fifth, Abram’s wife Sarai was barren (Genesis 11:30). How can one participate in the design to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with sons and daughters, when the womb is closed?

Terah’s Journey was Incomplete

Sixth, Terah’s journey remained incomplete. Terah and his family lived in “Ur of the Chaldeans” (Genesis 11:28, 31). My plan is to unpack the geography and chronology of these events in next week’s sermon. For now I simply want us to observe that Terah gathered his family and moved. Terah’s intention was to migrate to “the land of Canaan” (Genesis 11:31) – the land of Palestine, which belonged to the Canaanites, whom we learned about in Genesis 10:15-19. Genesis 11:31 says,

“Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.”

We were told in Chapter 10 that Japheth’s descendants “spread in their lands” (Genesis 10:5), that Ham’s descendants had “their lands” (Genesis 10:20), and that Shem’s descendants had “their lands” (Genesis 10:31). But for Terah and his family, where was their land? In Ur of the Chaldeans? Only for a time, then they migrated. Was their land in Haran? They settled in Haran for a time and that’s where Terah died, but Abram’s family had to move on from Haran, as we see in Chapter 12. Where was Abram’s land?

Abram Lacks a Stable Homeland

So seventh, I simply point out that Abram is without a stable homeland.

These seven details that we have mined from the context and text of our passage, give us a picture of the lost and sin-laden and heavy-hearted world that is our world. From Babel ungodly people had spread throughout the earth and taken their ungodliness with them. Shem’s descendants ultimately failed to preserve godliness in their own family tree. The human lifespan was decreasing. Fathers had to bury their sons. The womb of Abram’s wife Sarai was barren. The migration plan of Abram’s father Terah was never completed. And Abram himself was without a stable homeland. At the risk of oversimplification, we might simply say that the world is lost, the visible church often fails to shine the light, and people are hurting.

The world marches on – limps on, stumbles on – in darkness. Then and now, it is right to pray:

O Lord, send forth Your light and save us from this darkness.

THE LORD CALLS ABRAM OUT OF THE WORLD (Genesis 12:1-3)

And in the midst of this darkness, the Lord spoke to Abram:

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And 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. 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.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Most of the genealogical information in Chapter 11 says nothing about geographic location or extended family dynamics. But that changes when we get to Abram’s family of origin. We learn not only of Abram’s father and Abram’s wife, but also of Abram’s two brothers, and a nephew and two nieces, one of whom became his sister-in-law. So we get a window into extended family, and also into geographic location: first in Ur, and later in Haran.

This information helps us to appreciate the weightiness of the Lord’s call upon Abram: “Go from your country”, your land, your place. “Go from… your kindred”, your extended family, your relatives. “Go from… your father’s house”. Abram could not let his primary orientation and loyalty be to his father’s house and his extended family and the places with which he had grown familiar. If Abram was going to be a true worshiper of the Lord, then his primary orientation and loyalty had to be toward the Lord.

The Lord Must Be Your Greatest Treasure

At the most basic level, the Lord’s expectation for Abram is not different from the Lord’s expectation for us. Our Lord Jesus said,

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39)

All of this is just another way of saying, “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) That’s the first of the ten commandments. This command to have “no other gods” means that we ought to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. The Lord must have preeminence in our heart and life, and His Lordship and His commandments must govern how we relate to everything and everyone else. And if He says to pack your bags, bid farewell to your friends and family, and hit the road on route to an undisclosed location, the only sensible response is to trust Him and do what He says. The Lord alone is God, and we are not.

Have you discovered that the Lord alone must be your greatest treasure? Sinful human beings have the illusion that what matters most is their family or their household, or their work or their wealth, or their country or their team, or their possessions or their toys, or their fame or their future plans. But when God calls a man or a woman to become a true worshiper, a true disciple, a true son or daughter of God, all of those other things have to be set aside as the priority of your life. Some of those other things are good things and the Lord wants you to be a good steward of those good things. But good things must never be the overarching priority of your life.

What was David’s treasure?

 “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

David wanted to see the Lord’s beauty and hear the Lord’s instruction.

What was Paul’s treasure?

“But whatever gain I had [in the past], I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order to that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:7-9).

As the song puts it: “Knowing You, Jesus / Knowing You / There is no greater thing”.[2] Long before Paul and David discovered this great treasure, the Lord was inviting Abram to discover it: Go forth, Abram, and discover that I will be far more to you than what your country and your kindred and your father’s house could ever be to you.

God’s Promises to Abram

After telling Abram to go forth to an unnamed location, the Lord made lavish promises to Abram. Let’s walk through these promises. Notice the “I will” statements – these are God’s promises. These are the rock-solid promises that must shape the remainder of Abram’s life. Each of the four promises is carried by God’s “I will”.

“I will show you”

First: “I will show you”. God promises to show Abram the land – the land is simply the land that is promised to be shown him, the promised land.

“I will make of you”

Second: “And I will make of you a great nation”. God promises to turn the one man Abram into a great nation. As we know, God causes Abram to stand at the head of chosen nation through which God will bring the message of salvation to all the world.

“I will bless you”

Third: “and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” God promises to bless Abram. Don’t miss the significance of this promise. God blessed Adam and Eve at the beginning in Genesis 1:28, but in response to their rebellion God brought judgments and hardships upon our world. The ground was cursed because of Adam in Genesis 3:17, and Adam’s son Cain was “cursed from the ground” in Genesis 4:11. God judged the entire world with a flood in Genesis 7. After the flood, it was a new beginning and “God blessed Noah and his sons” in Genesis 9:1, but Noah’s grandson Canaan got cursed in Genesis 9:25 and in due course the nations were up to no good at Babel in Genesis 11, and the Lord nullified their plans. The world marches on in darkness, under the long shadow of sin’s dreadful consequences. Is there anywhere one might look to behold the blessing of God upon the life of a man? Is there any place where one might go to behold the light shining into the darkness? Is there any good reason to think that a man in this world might somehow discover real hope and a promising future? Look no further than Abram. God promises to bless Abram, to show him favor and kindness, to prosper him and make him successful, to provide for him abundantly and protect him from opposition and danger.

Further, God promises to make Abram’s name great. Abram’s name and reputation, Abram’s life and legacy, will be of great consequence. God will make Abram’s name great not merely for Abram’s sake, but – as the text says – “so that you will be a blessing.” God will exalt Abram for the express purpose of making Abram a blessing to other people. This means, of course, that other people will receive blessing through Abram, which leads us into the fourth promise.

“I will bless those who bless you”

Fourth: “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.” As a result of Abram having a great name and being turned into a great nation, he will prove to be a blessing to all the world. Isn’t this beautiful? The whole world corrupted itself again at Babel in Genesis 11, and Shem’s descendants ultimately failed to remain faithful. But now God calls Abram and promises to bless him, not only to bring blessing to his own relatives who are part of Shem’s family tree, but also to bring blessing to every clan, language, land, and nation on the face of the earth. Not apart from Abram, but in Abram and through Abram “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that every individual will automatically share in the blessing. In order to share in Abram’s blessing, you have to be rightly related to Abram: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse”. If you bless Abram, if you humbly recognize that Abram is uniquely blessed by God, and if you honor the God of Abram, and if you esteem the work that God is accomplishing through Abram, then the God who promised to bless Abram will bless you also: “I will bless you” and “I will bless those who bless you”.

Let this sink in: in this dark and sin-laden and heavy-hearted world, the Lord God Almighty who created heaven and earth and everything in it will bless you if you meet Him in the place where He has promised to give blessing. But if you refuse to meet Him there, but instead dishonor Abram and disregard God’s work through Abram, then God will curse you. Life and death hang in the balance.

The mere fact of claiming to have a positive disposition toward Abram doesn’t make you okay with God. To truly have a positive disposition toward Abram means that you believe in the work that God has accomplished through Abram – and God’s work through Abram culminated in the coming of Messiah, the descendant of Abram who offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins and rose victoriously from the dead. Galatians 3:14 says that “in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham [comes] to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” John 3:36 says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Sometimes you will hear people speak of the three Abrahamic religions, referring to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jews, Christians, and Muslims do all claim to hold Abraham in high regard, but that misses the point. What matters is tracing God’s work through Abram as it unfolds throughout the Scriptures – through Isaac and Jacob and the nation Israel and ultimately through the Messiah. God’s promises to Abram ultimately get fulfilled and carried out through Jesus the Messiah. Jesus is the One who mediates the blessing of God to all the world. Trust Him, and you shall be blessed with the gift of eternal life, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and all the riches of salvation.

APPLICATION

Now all the work that we have done in this sermon so far is designed for these final moments when two alternative approaches to life are set before us. There are indeed two ways – one way the way of life, the other way the way of death. So, I want you to notice the profound contrast between the people who attempted to build that city and tower in Babel, and Abram who received the call of God.

Genesis 11:3-4 says, “And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.””

Compare those words with God’s words to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 – “Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And 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. 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.”

Do you see the contrast? The men at Babel represent the way of human sinfulness, whereas the call of Abram proceeds on the basis of God’s promise.

The Way of Human Sinfulness compared to the Way of God’s Promise

The way of human sinfulness reasons like this: we will come together in defiance of God’s plan. By contrast, God tells Abram to leave land and kindred, and trust the Word of God.

The way of human sinfulness reasons like this: we will make something, we will build something, we will accomplish something, we will do it. By contrast, God makes it very clear to Abram that God will do it – God will make and God will bless. Come and behold the works of God rather than the works of men!

The way of human sinfulness reasons like this: we will “build ourselves a city and a tower” – a great city that is secure and glorious and full of people. By contrast, God tells Abram: “I will make of you a great nation” – a great nation that is secure and glorious and full of people. Do you crave the society that man builds, or do you hunger and thirst for the society that God builds?

The way of human sinfulness reasons like this: “let us make a name for ourselves” – sinful men want to build their own identity and manufacture their own fame. By contrast, God tells Abram the stunning truth: “I will… make your name great.” It is not wrong for a man to have a great name. The question is: do you seek a great name as if it is something for you to achieve by your own strength and according to your own agenda, which amounts to rebellion against God? Or do you humbly submit to God’s purpose and plan, and trust Him to make of your life whatever He wants to make it? God makes much of His humble, meek, and faithful people – and He will clothe them with glory on the day of resurrection.

The way of human sinfulness sooner or later reaches a dead end: the builders at Babel didn’t want to “be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (although that is the very thing God had instructed them to do), but in the end their city was emptied and they ended up being dispersed over the face of the earth anyway. By contrast, God promises Abram: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The builders at Babel wanted to build “a tower with its top in the heavens”, but their little project came crashing down. Abram, however, would have lasting and global influence – for through him and his seed, God would bring the light of salvation to all the world.

What about you?

Think about yourself as an individual, and as the member of a family, and as a part of the church, and ask yourself: which way are you going? Are you operating according to the way of human sinfulness? Are you living your life on the basis of your ideas, your plans, your resources? Are you trusting in your own works, your own ability to build your life, your future, your identity, your influence? Are you a self-made man? Are you part of a family that thinks much of itself but little of God? As religious people, are we preoccupied with our works and our resources and our ministries and our strategies? Are we busy trying to crank out little blessings for ourselves?

Or have you discovered the way of life? Have you discovered what it means to sit down and stop your deadly doing, and to let the promise of God be spoken over you. Listen to God’s promises:

I will show you my salvation (Psalm 91:16), I will bless you (Genesis 12:2), I will protect you (Psalm 91:14), I will be with you (Isaiah 43:2), I will lead you in paths of righteousness (Psalm 23:3), I will make a way in the wilderness (Isaiah 43:19), I will supply your needs (Philippians 4:19), I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5), I am with you (Isaiah 41:10), I will make my face to shine upon you (Numbers 6:25), I will strengthen you (Isaiah 41:10), I will help you (Isaiah 41:10), I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10), I will guard you with my peace (Philippians 4:7), I will work in you and through you what is pleasing in my sight (Hebrews 13:21), I will build my church (Matthew 16:18) – not with bricks (Genesis 12:3) but with living stones (1 Peter 2:5), I will preserve you as a living stone in my spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5, 5:10), I will display my glory through you my people (Matthew 5:14-16), and I will bring you safely into my heavenly kingdom (2 Timothy 4:18).

“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5:24)

At the heart level, are you trusting in your own ability to work and build and secure, or are you trusting God to work on your behalf, secure your future, and bless you and keep you as a participant in the great family that God is building through Abram?

Don’t fall into the trap of paying lip service to God’s promises and God’s faithfulness, only to spend most of your time anxious and acting as if it all depends on you. Instead, learn to swim in the ocean of God’s lavish promises. Make God’s faithfulness your glad preoccupation. Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand, and let him show you what it means for you to live as His handiwork. 

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord and makes the sovereign Lord his refuge.

ENDNOTES

[1] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Book of Genesis (Ariel’s Bible Commentary), Fourth Edition. San Antonio: Ariel Ministries, 2020: p. 209-212.

[2] From the song “Knowing You (All I Once Held Dear)” by Graham Kendrick. © 1993 Make Way Music.