06/05/2026
Pastor Douglas invites you to hear his message this Sunday, June 7. It is entitled, "Faith and Obedience," based on Genesis 12:1-9 - New International Version
The Call of Abram
12 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
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.[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”[b]
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring[c] I will give this land.” So, he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
49 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev
Introduction
God directs the steps of his people. When God told Abram to move, he didn’t just say, “Pack up all your stuff and go live somewhere else.” No, he said, “Go to the land I will show you.” If we are faithful to God, he will show us the way to go in life.
God is the one who blesses the lives of his people. When God blessed Abram, it was very clear that God would accomplish all that he had promised. It wasn’t dependent on Abram’s actions at all. It was all about God bringing about his purposes for Abram’s life.
God’s blessings pass to others through those who are faithful to him. Part of God’s promise to Abram was that all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abram. In the context of the blessing, it wasn’t necessarily through people interacting with Abram that this blessing would come (though it did for some). This blessing is talking about Abram’s name and the great nation that would come from him. All people on earth are blessed through Abram’s line and Abram’s descendants.
1. What does the passage say about people?
Abram obeyed God’s directions to move to Canaan. When God directed Abram to move away from his country and his father’s family, Abram didn’t hesitate. He just went. Sometimes as humans, we tend to question God or push back on God’s will for us. But Abram trusted God to lead him down the right path. When people move, they take their family and possessions with them. When Abram set out on his journey, he took his wife and his nephew Lot, along with all of his possessions and the rest of his household. This would give him a good start when he reached his new home.
The Canaanites lived in the land that God promised Abram. When Abram arrived in Canaan, he found that the Canaanites were living in that land. Looking back at Genesis 10, we see that Canaan was from the line of Ham, another one of Noah’s sons. They settled in the land that is west of the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
Abram worshipped the Lord by building an altar. After God promised to give Abram the land of Canaan, Abram built an altar to the Lord. He did the same thing when he settled east of Bethel. He used these altars to commemorate his interactions with God and to call on the name of the Lord. He sought out a relationship with God, and he didn’t forget the things that God had promised.
3. What does the passage say about God’s plan?
God planned to make Abram into a great nation and to bless him. God selected Abram as the one through whom all of earth would be blessed. God promised to make Abram into a great nation and to bless him. We will see how this comes about through the rest of our study of Genesis.
God plans that he blesses his people so they will be a blessing to others. God promised to make Abram into a great nation and to bless him, but this wasn’t so that Abram could revel in his greatness and wealth. Instead, God intended that Abram would use the blessing from God to in turn, bless others. This is God’s intent for all Christians—that we would use the blessings God has given us to bless others.
God planned to give the land of Canaan to Abram’s descendants. In addition to blessing Abram and promising to build him into a great nation, God specifically promised Abram a land for this great nation—the land of Canaan.
4. How does the passage fit into the overarching story of the Bible?
Sometimes it’s easier to understand a passage if you have a little outside knowledge from other passages in the Bible. This section will help provide that outside perspective.
This story is the foundation for so much of what we read in the Bible. God promised to make Abram into a great nation. It seems at first that this promise wouldn’t be fulfilled, but with 25 years (!!) of patience, God eventually gave Abram and Sarai a son through whom this promise would be fulfilled, Isaac. Isaac then had Jacob, and Jacob had 12 sons who would become the nation of Israel. The rest of Genesis is about Abram (Abraham), Isaac, and Jacob (Israel), along with Jacob’s 12 sons.
Then the rest of the Old Testament is about the nation of Israel. God delivered them from slavery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness to eventually settle in the Promised Land, in the land of Canaan, just as God had promised Abram. Once they were settled, the people begged for a king, so God gave them Saul, then David, then Solomon and a whole host of others. The people went through cycles of rejecting God, then repenting and turning back to God. Eventually, they were taken captive, and their lands and homes were taken over by other nations because the people refused to follow God.
Through all of this, God preserved his people because he still had one promise yet to be fulfilled. God promised that all peoples on earth would be blessed through the line of Abram, and that blessing came through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Through Jesus, we can have the gift of eternal life. This is the greatest blessing of all!
From the story, God promised Abraham a threefold promise.
-Descendants (“I will make of you a great nation” — Genesis 12:2)
-Land (“To your offspring I will give this land” — Genesis 12:7)
-Blessing (“I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” – Genesis 12:2).
This promise is pure grace, but it may offend many modern readers. We who want everything to be fair are affronted by the idea of an election. Why would the God of the whole cosmos, the Creator God, choose one particular human being, one particular family, one particular nation, above all the other families/nations on earth? Does God play favorites?
Here’s where it is crucial to read the text closely. God promises a blessing to Abram, but it is not because Abram has done anything to deserve it (contrary to the later explanations of the rabbis). And neither is it for the sake of Abram himself: “I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3).
Abram, as many others have noted, is blessed to be a blessing. The blessing is not for his sake, nor for the sake of his family; the blessing is for the sake of the whole world. Abraham (as he is later called) and his descendants are to be the conduits of blessings for all the families of the earth.
Later texts affirm the same thing. In the immediate context of Genesis, Joseph — Abraham and Sarah’s great-grandson — will save Egypt and the nations surrounding it from famine (Genesis 45:5). (Joseph’s story is the text for next Sunday.) Later, Israel is called into covenant at Sinai to be among all the nations of the world a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). As a priestly kingdom, they are to be witnesses to God in the world. Nations will come to their light (Isaiah 60:3) and will worship on God’s holy mountain (Isaiah 2:2-4). And for Christians, of course, the blessing that is promised through Abraham and Sarah is fulfilled most fully in Jesus.
The three-fold promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 continues to reverberate throughout Scripture. There is tension in the promise. Abraham and Sarah wait many long years for a son. And in spite of God’s promise, the only piece of the Promised Land that Abraham ever actually possesses is the burial plot he buys for Sarah, the place where he himself is later buried.
And yet, Abraham believes in God’s promises. He stakes his life on them. He leaves his father’s household and his homeland and goes to the place that God shows him. He believes in God’s promise of a son even when he and Sarah have already devised another way to fulfill that promise through Hagar and Ishmael. He stands ready to sacrifice his son Isaac, the child of the promise. The writer of Hebrews describes this kind of faith well, speaking of Abraham and Sarah and those that preceded them: “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.” (Hebrews 11:13).
The three-fold promise to Abram is reiterated by God to his son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5) and his grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:10-15). That promise sustains them and the nation descended from them during terrible times.
Hymns for Communion Sunday:
1. K*m Bah Yah (Every Communion Sunday)
2. iWorship 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul)
3. Standing on the Promises #374 (all verses)
Offertory Music: “Shuka Baba: (Come Down, God to be with us. Come down to do miracles in our service. Come to Your People as we bring our offerings.) Swahili song Offered by Evalyne Magare and Rachael Mututa, African Drum and Rumba Shakers
