Sermon Manuscript

[Video:  “Made for Mission - Bumper” - 0:26]

[Walk Out with John Thompson]

We were Made for Mission.  You were and so was I.  And this morning I want to begin our time together by introducing you to a friend of mine and brother in Christ from The Fountain who was truly made for mission because he’s passionate about missions and has been on many mission trips.  His name is John Thompson and he’s here to share with us about an exciting opportunity coming up this fall where we can participate in a missions project right here at the church.  So John, tell us about this opportunity.  What’s going on and how can we participate?

[John shares for 2-3 minutes.]

Wow.  What a great opportunity!  This is going to be a lot of fun and it will give us all a great chance to make a difference for Jesus right here in our parking lot.  So, church family, be sure to grab a postcard at Connection Point on your way out this morning and mark your calendars for September 12th.  You will not want to miss it.  Can we give John a hand for joining us today?

[Hand claps as John exits the stage.]

Alright.  Let’s get started this morning.  If you have your Bibles, turn with me now to the book of Genesis chapter 12.  Today we will be in verses 1-9.  As always, if you would like to follow along with us online you can do so by using our app.  It’s called Church Center.  So if you open it up and click on Sunday Services followed by Message Notes you will find everything that you need for our time together this morning.

As you turn there let me quickly remind you about where we’ve been in this series and where we are as we enter into Genesis chapter 12.  Two weeks ago we began a series called Made for Mission where together we’re learning about six tasks we can take in order to partner with God and His mission for this world.  And in week one we learned that we need to know God’s story.  We need to know the story of God.  Paul did and he shared with both Jews and Gentiles that it is God’s desire to reach the world for Jesus.  And last week we examined the beginning and ending of God’s story which was all about creation.  God created the world and when sin came into it His perfect world changed.  And throughout the pages of the Bible God shows us how He is going to take us back to the beginning.  Because at the end of the Bible we learn that God is going to recreate the world.  So the story of God begins and ends with creation.  And God has called us to care for His creation.  So we need to know God’s story and care for His creation.  That’s what we’ve learned so far within this series.

But in the book of Genesis we discover that after God creates the world and Adam and Eve sin in the garden that sin quickly changes everything.  God’s perfect world becomes so wicked and so evil that by Genesis 6 He decides to destroy the whole world with a flood and save only a man named Noah and his family.  That’s how much God hates sin.  He’s willing to destroy the entire world and start over just to cleanse the effects of man’s sin.  But as Noah’s family begins to grow eventually so, too, does their willingness to once again turn away from God.  Because in Genesis 11 we read a story called the Tower of Babel where a group of people attempt to build a tower which will reach the heavens and make a name for themselves rather than God.  So God confuses their languages and causes them to disperse.  But at the end of chapter 11 we read about a man named Terah who becomes the father of a man named Abram.  And Abram will become married to a woman named Sarai who is barren and unable to have children.  So God looks upon this man and his situation and sees something special.  Something unique.  Something within him that He can use for His glory.  

And in Genesis chapter 12 we see what takes place next.  Verse 1 says this:

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.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Alright.  Let’s stop and consider this story for just a few minutes this morning.  We’re told that God comes to Abram and says to him, “Abram, I want to talk to you for just a moment.  Let’s play that game ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ because I want to make a deal with you.  If you will put away your foreign gods and begin to trust Me and follow Me only and go to the land that I will show you then I will make you into a great nation and I will bless the entire world through you.”  Verse 4 says that Abram was 75 years old when that happened.  So if you’re here this morning and think that God cannot use you because you’re “too old” and were “built before wi-fi” or “back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth” you’re in good company.  Because God doesn’t choose a “spring chicken” here.  He chooses a man and woman who were “past their prime” and beyond the years of having children.  And He comes to them and says listen, “If you will trust Me and follow Me then I will give you children.  In fact, I will make you into a great nation so that you are a blessing.  And not just any blessing.  You will be used to bless all of the nations of the world.  And think about this.  Every single family and every single person on this earth who blesses you will be blessed and who curses you will be cursed.  So what do you think?”

I mean.  What would you do?  That’s a pretty incredible offer!  That’s a pretty amazing proposal!  And so Abram does what I would hope most of us would do too.  He says, “OK God.  I have to admit.  That’s a pretty good deal.  So I’ll trust You.  I’ll go along with You.  I’ll give you the control of my life and go where You tell me to go.”  And he does.  Verses 4-9 tell us that Abram goes and takes Lot who is his nephew or the son of his brother Haran and he takes his wife and all of their possessions and he goes with God to the land of Canaan.  He was from a place called Ur in the land of Chaldea or Babylon which is in modern-day Iraq and he travels west to the land of Canaan which is modern-day Israel.  And it is there that the Lord appears to him in verse 7 and says, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  So Abram builds an altar to God in that land and begins to “call upon God’s name” and worship Him there.

Now as the story of the Bible continues this initial encounter with Abram becomes huge.  It will later be known as the Abrahamic Covenant.  A covenant is a legally binding agreement between two parties.  And here God enters into a covenant with Abram.  A covenant with promises made to each.  Abram promises to make God his God and to trust Him and follow Him and serve Him.  And God promises to bless Abram and his wife Sarai with children.  But it’s a promise that will not be fulfilled for another 25 years.  Because Abram will be 100 and his wife will be 90 when God finally fulfills that promise to him.  So for 25 years, two and a half decades, Abram has to believe God and trust God and wait for God to do what He promised.  And only then, after 25 years, will he finally see God’s promises come true.  And when that happens he will be given the name Abraham which means “the father of many nations” and his wife will be given the name Sarah which means “princess” because she would be the princess of many nations.  And God will fulfill His promises in His time.  Abraham and Sarah’s son Isaac will be born in chapter 21.

However, all throughout Abram’s story God reminds Abram or Abraham of that second promise that He made.  Because remember God had said, “I will bless you personally by making you into a great nation BUT I will also bless the world through you.”  And what’s interesting is that God will make that promise four more times!!!!  Let me just put them on the screen behind me.  You can write them down and check them out later but in Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 26:4, and 28:14 God comes back to Abram and says listen, “When I make a promise I make a promise!  I told you that I would bless you and make you into a great nation but I also promised you that I would bless the nations of the world through you!  And I will fulfill that promise too!!!”

Fast-forward to the New Testament and in the book of Galatians chapter 3, verse 8.  Paul says something very, very, very interesting about this story.  Let me just read to you that one verse.  Galatians 3:8 says:

8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

So check this out!  Paul says that the Scriptures, foreseeing how God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham by saying “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”  Paul says the “gospel” was preached to Abraham at this moment!  Wait.  The Gospel?  I thought that the Gospel was the Good News of Jesus that brings salvation to the entire world?  And it is.  However, the Gospel that was preached to Abraham was the Good News that God is going to justify the world through the same type of faith that Abraham had displayed!  The same type of faith He had demonstrated!  When he followed God and trusted God and believed that God would one day give to him a son!  That’s what faith looks like!  And so Abraham becomes the “father of our faith” and we become “children of Abraham” when we place our faith and trust in God like he did!  And because God has now sent Jesus we now can place our faith and trust in Jesus because it is in Jesus that all the world is saved.  Both Jews and Gentiles.  Remember.  Abraham was not a Jew.  He was from Babylon.  Jews are descendants of Jacob who was also known as Israel.  But Abraham was a Gentile.  And so God uses Him to create a people for Himself called the Jews who will bring about the Messiah but also to bless the world through Him because He was a Gentile through whom the Jews will come.  Does that make sense?

And it is through Abram’s faith that the world is blessed because through His bloodline comes the Messiah or Jesus who will save all people from their sins but it is through his faith that we are given an example of how we are to put our faith and trust in God and ultimately in His Son who suffered and died for our sins.  And it is Abraham’s faith that will ultimately bless the world.  The world becomes blessed because Abraham trusted in God.  And Abraham’s faith becomes the example of how we are to have faith.  Because people see through his story what it looks like to trust God and follow God and serve God.  And ultimately Abraham shows the world how they, too, can be blessed by God if they are found in him or demonstrate the same type of faith.  They actually become “children of Abraham” through faith.  And this is what God means when He later takes Abraham outside late at night in Genesis 15 and says, “Look up at the stars and count them if you can.  So shall your descendants be.”  God is saying, “There are going to be spiritual descendants who will demonstrate the same type of faith that you are displaying in this moment (because Isaac had not been born) and there will be so many of them that they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky!!!”  Wow!  And this is also why the author of Hebrews writes what he writes about Abraham in Hebrews 11:12, a chapter known as the Hall of Faith chapter, when he writes:

12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

So the author of Hebrews is looking into the story of Abraham and saying, “Wait a minute!  The children of Abraham are not physical descendants, they are spiritual descendants!  They are not the ethnic descendants of Abraham or the Jews but the spiritual descendants which include Jews and Gentiles!  All of us are descendants of Abraham if we have the faith of Abraham!!!”

Wow!!!  Pretty amazing.  And the true blessing that we bring into the world is the blessing of faith.  We who are God’s people and who demonstrate the faith of Abraham bless the world by showing the world how they can come to know God, be in a relationship with God, follow God, trust God, and be blessed by God too.  You and I bless the world through our faith and the way we live our lives for Jesus.  And so what God promises Abraham then is still true of us today!  Abraham was told that he would be blessed to be a blessing.  And God says the same to us today.  You and I are blessed to be a blessing.  We are blessed so that others might see what it looks like to know God and to be blessed by God.  We, like Abraham, provide the example.  The example this world desperately needs to see.

The example that people in your world need to see.  I mean.  Do you realize that you have been blessed by God to be a blessing to the people all around you?  Do you realize that if you have given your life to Jesus and entered into a brand new relationship with God through Him that God wants to use you to bless others?  And do you realize that when people see you and see how you live your life with God and see how God protects you and provides for you and cares for you and blesses you that they learn who He is through you?  You see when we trust God and show people our faith by the way we live our lives the world becomes blessed.  

We become a blessing for others.  And that’s a third task that God has given to us as His people.  We were made for mission and so we need to know His story, care for His creation, and bless others.  We bless other people.  And while it’s true we can bless people by loving them and serving them and being kind to them we will ultimately bless them by showing them our faith.  And living out the faith of Abraham.  So that they see us and long for the same.

So the question is “How do we do that?”  How do we bless other people by sharing our faith and showing them how to live for Jesus?  Well, let’s think about how Abram did that within this story and how that speaks into our lives.  Because he trusted God with four areas of his life that if we learn to do the same will cause us to be an example of faith like he was and will bless others.

The first one is this:  Our Physical Wellness.  When Abram left Haran and was led by God to the land of Canaan we were told that he was 75 years old.  Not young.  And as we all get older we have health issues.  Or am I the only one?  I turned 50 this year and last year I had to have a knee surgery and every other week I seem to be finding a new ache or pain.  Our bodies just wear down.  And as we get older and older our health becomes more and more important.  We don’t think much about health issues in our 20’s but in our 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s?  All the time.  Right?  And so by leaving the comforts of home at 75 Abram was trusting God with his physical wellness or his health.

And the same is true for us.  One of the ways we bless people with our faith is by trusting God with our health.  We recognize that our lives are in God’s hands.  So we trust God with those doctor’s visits where we don’t know how it’s going to go.  We trust Him with our heart issues and lung issues and bone issues and joint issues.  We trust Him with our weight issues and with our vision issues.  We trust Him when we have a clean bill of health and when we hear the dreaded word “cancer”.  We trust Him with our health and by doing so we bless those who are anxious and nervous about their own health issues.  So trust God with your physical wellness.

Here’s a second area:  Our Personal Relationships.  When Abram left for Canaan he did so with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot.  He also had servants who were part of his household.  And by leaving the comforts of Haran and going to the land of Canaan he was putting his family on the line.  Their health.  Their protection.  Their lives.  Everything was at stake for them too.  He was the head of the household and by choosing to follow the Lord they were too.

And the same is true for us.  One of the ways we bless other people with our faith is by trusting God with our personal relationships.  Our friends and families.  Because let’s be honest.  We all have friends and family members who are a mess.  They have made decisions we don’t agree with and as a result our relationships with them are not the best.  Children, grandchildren, and others we love.  But when we trust God with our loved ones and tell others we trust God then we show them where we put our faith and where they should put their faith.  And we bless them in the process.  So trust God with your personal relationships.

Here’s a third area of our lives:  Our Material Possessions.  Because when Abram left for Haran he did so with all of his possessions.  Everything that he had acquired over his 75 years of life were put on the line.  He likely had acquired a wealth of livestock - sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, and camels.  He had acquired a wealth of people - servants and workers and trained warriors.  Genesis 14 mentions that he had 318 trained men.  He also had acquired physical goods like tents and rugs and bedding and storage containers and tools and weapons.  He also would have acquired goods and valuables like silver and gold and jewelry and woven goods.  He would have had food and water and cooking utensils and weapons for warfare.  And he put it all on the line when he chose to follow God.

And the same is true for us.  One of the ways we bless other people with our faith is by trusting God with our material possessions.  When we give our lives to Jesus He becomes our Lord and Master.  He owns everything we have.  And sometimes we either forget that or act as if that’s not true.  But when we live in such a way that we show others that our house belongs to Jesus and our cars and clothes and favorite possessions and even our finances and retirement and 401ks.  When we live our lives showing others how it all belongs to Jesus then we bless them by helping them to see that God can be trusted with our “stuff”.  With our material possessions.  He can be trusted with our money so tithing is not a problem for us.  Neither is giving from our savings or retirement funds towards something He wants us to do.  And when we do this and live like this we bless others.  So trust God with your material possessions.

The fourth and final area of our lives is Our Spiritual Future.  We probably overlook the fact that when Abram left Haran and chose to follow God that he was putting away all of his false gods and idols.  He was turning away from a polytheistic religion in Mesopotamia where he had believed in many gods and now believed only in One.  A religion where there were many different gods with various degrees of power and now he believed in One God who was all-knowing and all-powerful.  That’s a huge, huge, step of faith.

And the same is true for us.  When we turned away from our former way of life and became a follower of Jesus we gave our spiritual future to God.  We said, “God, I trust You and Your Son so much that I’m going to choose You over all of the false gods and false religions and false choices in this world.  I’m going to trust that You will give to me Your salvation both now and forevermore.  I’m going to trust you with my spiritual life and receive Eternal Life from you.”  And when we do that and receive the peace of God that comes from that decision people will see that and take notice.  And they will be blessed for it because they will see the peace that they can receive when they do the same.  So trust God with your spiritual future.

Four areas of life:  our physical wellness, our personal relationships, our material possessions, and our spiritual future.  Four areas of life that Abram trusted God with and became an example of faith worth following.  And when we trust God in each of those four areas we, too, will become an example worth following.  Because we will be blessed by God and be a blessing for others.

Like a CEO I learned about from Indianapolis named David Palmer.  David was a businessman from Carmel who had served on the Wheeler Mission board for more than a decade.  And while he was there he kept meeting people who said they were looking for a job.  That’s when he prayed a simple but powerful prayer and said, “Lord, would you have me do anything?”  And God said, “I want you to build a furniture business for people who need jobs.  People who struggle with addictions and homelessness.”  And David thought, “But I don’t know anything about building furniture?”  And he didn’t but he was faithful and a company called Purposeful Design was born.  That was 13 years ago in 2013.  Purposeful Design exists to train and employ men to build furniture providing them with both job skills and life skills.  And as they do so they also share faith and teach them about Jesus.

This past week I visited Purposeful Design with Joe Shulz.  As a woodworker, I was interested in seeing what they do.  Their website says that they have employed and trained 242 people and made over 3 Million dollars.  They also have a beautiful facility and make incredible furniture.  You should check them out at pdindy.com  But what I loved most when I visited it was a wall that had pictures of the guys who have been employed there and statements they have made.  One said, “I used drugs and sold them.  Then I had an encounter with a man named Jesus.”  Another said, “God picked me up, sanded me off, put a new coat of stain on me and set me back on the shelf.”  But my favorite was this, “My family loves what’s happening to me.  Purposeful Design definitely has been a big part of that.  Jesus saved my life and if it wasn’t for Him I would probably still be dead like I was before.”

Amazing.  Simply put.  Purposeful Design exists to bless others.  They are blessed to be a blessing to others.  And they do that through employing men and training them to have jobs.  But through their training they also introduce each one of these men to Jesus.  Because they are called to be a blessing.  And the same is true for us.  Like Abram, all followers of God are called to be a blessing and to bless others through the way they share their faith and show others how to live for Jesus.  So will you bless others through your faith?  

Because our challenge for us this morning is this…

Be a blessing by sharing your faith and showing others how to live for Jesus.

Let’s pray.

[Prayer:  For God to help us bless others through our faith and the way we live our lives.]

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