Weekly Sunday Sermon - The Faith of Abraham

 Hello!

Genesis 12 is the first chapter of the second division of the book of Genesis. That might seem overwhelming, so lets break that statement down. Genesis can be divided into two big parts: Genesis 1 through 11 and Genesis 12 until 50. 

The first part we have discussed in the past few weeks and there are some repetitive ideas. There is a contrast between godly and ungodly people in the first eleven chapters. There are ungodly people (Cain, Ham, builders of Babel) and godly people (Abel, Seth, Noah). 

There is also a repetition of disobedience in these eleven chapters. People disobey, going further from God and disobeying His command to spread out. A pattern found is they always go east. These verses are the proof of the eastwardness of Genesis 1-11:

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:24

So Cain went out from the Lord’s presenceand lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Genesis 4:16

As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. Genesis 11:2

We will see the importance of the east direction in Genesis 12. Genesis 12-50 is often about the godly people whom God chose to be a great nation and these people all descended through one man: Abraham, formerly Abram.

Genesis 12 is about Abram's call. Abram was a man in the metropolis of Ur, a large city with intelligent people and scientific feats. Ur was a pagan city, however, and God called Abram, the son of Terah, a worshipper of idols. 

The Lord said to Abram to live Ur and to a land that God will show him. At that time, land was important and leaving a land meant leaving your identity. God is asking Abram to leave his land, family, and country to go to a land. It needed a lot of faith to follow that plan but Abram agreed.

God gave him several promises. Abram's descendants would be a great nation, he would be blessed, those who bless him would be blessed, those who curse him will be cursed, and through him there will be a blessing. Abram set out from Ur to Harran, and Harran to the land of Canaan. 

Another of Abraham's tests of faith was when Abraham promised him a nation and many descendants. However, Abram was very old. He had struggles with faith, thinking maybe his descendants came through Ishmael or his inheritance through his servant Eliezer. But eventually when he was a century old, he had a child, Isaac.

The greatest test Abraham went through was in Genesis 22. God asked him to sacrifice Isaac and Abraham agreed. He put God over what he loved, and he was obedient. But God didn't allow him to kill Isaac in the end and Abraham received a lamb to sacrifice. Abraham had faith, however, that Isaac would be ressurected after he sacrificed him. Figuratively, Isaac was "ressurected".

We can not only learn from Abraham's moral traits (faith in God), but we can relate his story to Christ. Mount Moriah, the same mountain the hill Golgotha was located. Abraham almost sacrificed his begotten son Isaac and God did so to Jesus and Jesus was ressurected.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BCN 2025 - Kasihilah Tuhan dan Pimpinan Roh Kudus

 Hello! It's been four months since the last blog. When I started a year ago, one of the first blogs was about BCN 2024. It is the next year already, and now we have BCN 2025. This will be a full summary - last time we did it in 3 parts.  Introduction - What is BCN? BCN, or Bible Camp Nasional (Bible Camp National) is a 3-day 2-night event held by Gereja Reformed Injili Indonesia. While most people who attend are from GRII, everyone can join, though it is limited to grades four to seven. Since it is held in June and after the time students typically graduate from a grade, a "seventh grader" means a sixth grader who had recently graduated, and is now considered a seventh grader, for example. BCN is a summer camp, with its main focus on teaching the Bible to children. Before grade four, most people go to Bible Trip , and after grade seven to  NRETC. BCN has seventeen sessions (sermons), this year over a dozen speakers. The event costs 800,000 rupiahs to enter for  earl...
Read more

People like to say "Jesus is coming soon", and it's incorrect: Argument Series #1

 Currently, a lot of people has reacted to the tension between the United States and Iran by saying "The end times are soon". Not only do they say this because of the "war", but also because of technologies such as artificial intelligence and Neuralink. In this post I want to challenge this claim. Of course, we shouldn't even try to say "this is near the end times", this is misleading, none of us know when, and we cannot even say that it is vaguely soon. Nevertheless, I will still bring up other points. I will go one by one for each claim. #1: The Iran-US-Israel controversy conflict is a sign of the End Times Many claim that chapters like Ezekiel 38, which speaks about Israel and surrounding powers at war, point to today's conflict. There are several approaches when it comes to interpreting Biblical verses. One of them is covenant theology, which is the reformed approach in this area. God has an Old Covenant, which is with the nation of Israel, and...
Read more

Chapel SKC Grade 7 #1

Wednesday 23 July Chapel, SKC, Grade VII #1 By Roy Pangemanan Introduksi Katekismus Heidelberg/Introduction of Heidelberg Catechism A catechism is like a theological explanation usually in the format of Question and Answer and is oral teaching. There are many catechisms, one of them is the Heidelberg Catechism. Personally, I already heard about the name Heidelberg Cathechism once but never knew anythung about it until this Wednesday. Heidelberg is a city in Germany, but at the time it was in the Holy Roman Empire. (The speaker did not say that at the time it was under the Holy Roman Empire, but I added that, he only said that the government was different). The church had just undergone the Reformation and many wanted to know about the Bible, but still needed some direction or explanation. Thus, Frederick III, that governed the area, who was Reformed (Reformed = Sola Scriptura), who was an "elector", commissioned Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus to make a catechism. The ...
Read more