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Obeying God into the Unknown

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.

Abram (Abraham as we would later know him) is told by The Lord to take his family from the place they were living and begin on a journey with no idea of their destination. In other words God was calling him to obey into the unknown. God wanted Abram to go; and despite not knowing where he was going, Abram picked up and left as God had told him.

There are two things are going on here:

  • Abram went. Although he didn’t know the outcome, he obeyed The Lord without knowing why he was asked to go. He trusted in God’s sovereignty and God’s call. He simply did as the Lord said.
  • Abram didn’t make any excuses. He didn’t let his old age or the unknown hinder his obedience to God. Abram made no excuses for following The Lord.

Discussion: What are some reasons Abram would risk his family & well-being by going into the unknown?

Talking points: Abram saw obedience to God as more necessary than his comfort. Abram trusted that God knew best for his life. Abram knew that since God was calling him to go, God would also be with Him through his journey. Abram trusted in God sovereign plan.

Discussion: What excuses often get in the way of your obedience to Jesus?

Abram was only beginning on a phenomenal journey that God had for his life. His journey would impact literally millions of people (Jews, Christians, & Muslims all trace their lineage back to him). Although Abram didn’t know the impact of his obedience , he simply trusted God’s promise.

Application: Will you begin praying that God would use your life for His glory? Begin praying that He will give you faith to trust in His plan for your life.

Parents: Help your kids begin to see that God has a plan for their life. We rarely know every step, or even the next step of His divine plan; but helping them see that trusting God through every step of their journey is what He’s calling them to do.

Verses for your day. Proverbs 16:3 – Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

Proverbs 16:9 – The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

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Babel

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 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.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:1-9 ESV)

The people building the tower of Babel wanted to make a name for themselves. They see themselves as self-sufficient with no need for God. They’re essentially “dethroning” God & declaring themselves to be rulers of their own life. Humanity often has the ambition to dethrone God from His rightful place as ruler.

Discussion: What’s the cause of humanity’s desire to “dethrone” God & be self-reliant?

Talking points: pride, greed, entitlement, ungodly desire, rebellion toward God & His commands, and confidence in our own ability rather than God’s.

Discussion: In our culture where do we see the idea of dethroning God & self-reliance taking place the most? Where do you find this most in your own life?

Discussion: What was God’s purpose in causing them to disperse over all the earth?

Talking points: His original command was to be fruitful & multiply (Gen. 9:1 & 9:7) & they were rebelling against it. He was showing humanity His rightful place as sovereign ruler of the world.

The people of Babel literally placed blocks in their way when it came to obeying God. Often we have things in our life that hinders our obedience to God.

Application question: what stumbling block(s) in your life could you remove that would allow you to better obey the God of the universe?

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God takes a break and displays His finest work

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Genesis 2:1-3 ESV)

Discussion: God blessed the Sabbath as a day set apart for rest and dedication to him. Why would God create a day dedicated for His worship? In a world of busyness, what steps can you & your family take each week to assure rest & time dedicated to The Lord?

…then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. (Genesis 2:7-8)

Discussion: God created our bodies from dust… Take a moment and discuss the intricacies of the body & how it points to an all-powerful, intelligent, and creative God. God created humanity in His image & breathed His life into us. What does this say about the value God places on humanity? How can your family reflect that same value to each other, and others outside your family? 

The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:20-22)

Discussion: God gave Adam & Eve responsibility, they had tasks to accomplish… Each & every task had the same goal, honoring God. Discuss how your everyday activities could honor God.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:24-25)

Discussion: God places high value on the marriage of man & woman, stating that the two shall become one flesh. This is the highest of all human unions. What are some basic aspects of marriage? Discuss the significance of each of the following as it pertains to marriage.

Talking points: 1) The man & woman promise themselves only to each other. 2) The man takes responsibility for his wife & the wife for the husband b/c they are one flesh. 3) Sexual intimacy is meant for the union of marriage only.

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…most of whom are still alive

My first semester of undergrad I was taking the introduction class for a degree in communication studies. The professor of this class was a highly educated man who spoke convincingly. He had the ability to teach and communicate ideas unlike any I had ever heard.

Unknown to me at the time of my class he was also a secular humanist with no belief or regard for God and His Word. Throughout the semester he would teach and toss out these highly educated reasons for why humans have the innate ability to achieve anything we would like to and how we have lost the need for God in our society. He concluded that the Bible is unnecessary especially because he presented it as a fabricated book of myths that have evolved over the centuries.

Needless to say, at first I disagreed. I had been raised to believe the Bible was God’s Word and entirely true, but no one had ever told me why. On the other hand my professor had many reasons as to why he believed Scripture was not truly the words of Almighty God. Over the course of the semester and many personal conversations, my trust in the validity and accuracy of the Bible began to disintegrate one class period at a time.

For a several months I battled with the notion of the inaccuracy of scripture. If Scripture is inaccurate I thought, then how could the story of Jesus be true? And if I can’t trust the story of Jesus to be true, my faith is gone. As a college student battling with whether or not to believe the words of Scripture, God opened my eyes in a gloriously transformative way. Around the end of the semester I was reading in 1 Corinthians 15 (also known as the resurrection chapter), and I remember reading the first 11 verses when I came across something. Paul wrote,

Christ died for our sins in accordance to the scriptures, he was buried and raised in accordance with the scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then to over 500 brothers, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Later in the passage Paul says Jesus appeared to him also. I remember thinking, “If Paul is writing to the Corinthians regarding the resurrection of Christ, and some doubt that it happened, he gives the doubters unbelievable confirmation of his word.” You see, when Paul said that Jesus appeared to him, anyone could say, “Oh it was just your imagination, you made that up.”  But when Paul said that Jesus appeared to over 500 brothers, “most of whom are still alive” Paul was saying that if you do not believe what I’m saying, go ask other people who have experienced the same thing and they will tell you likewise. Therefore this confirmed Paul’s word that Jesus is alive “according to the Scriptures.”

Paul couldn’t be making up the story of the resurrection because if he was doing so, there were over 500 people to dispute him. He therefore puts himself on the line by saying, ‘If my testimony is untrue I’ll be called a liar; but what I’m saying is so true that I give you permission to go check me on it!’ It was in that moment where God restored my faith in His Word. Not only did Jesus come to earth, live, die, and raise from the dead according to the Old Testament; Paul could not have been lying because people would have called him out on it. God used the simple but intentional phrase, ‘most of whom are still alive’ to confirm in me the validity and truth of His Word.

I want to encourage you in two ways:

  • If you struggle to believe the validity of God’s Word, ask Him to show you how true it really is.
  • The Bible is so intentional that God wants His people to know the truth of His Word; He went to great lengths to ensure that you and I can trust Holy Scripture.
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Satisfied

“And at mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.’ So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.” (Ruth 2:14 ESV).

For some time Ruth had been taking care of her bitter ole mother-in-law, and in our text she is now in Boaz’s field gleaning from his barley harvest. She had been working all day long with little rest, and now it was time to eat. Like any of us would have been Ruth is hungry from all of her hard work. She sits down at the table with Boaz and all of his workers and eats all the food she wants until she can’t eat any more. She even has enough left over to take back to Naomi! First off it was a big deal that Boaz allowed Ruth “the Moabite” to sit at his table because by doing so he was saying to her and the rest of his people, “I see you as one of mine.” But secondly, she goes from a traveling, sojourning stranger in Israel, to an accepted Moabite at the table of Boaz, eating enough to satisfy her, and then some! She left the table lacking nothing. She was completely and graciously filled.

In John 6 Jesus is talking with a crowd of people who are looking for a sign in order to believe Jesus in the messiah, and he tells them in verse 35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” By making this statement Jesus is saying that He is the life-sustainer, the one who satisfies hungry people completely. He is not talking about physical hunger, but rather spiritual and emotional cravings that we so often seek elsewhere.

Many times in our everyday life we look for so much to satisfy our deepest longings. As imperfect beings we look to things other than Christ to satisfy those. Ruth came to Boaz (the picture of Christ in that text) and ate at his table until she was satisfied, Jesus looks at those seeking a sign and tells them that anyone who comes to Him will never hunger or thirst again. Jesus is simply saying, “You want to be accepted? Come to me.” “You seek approval from everyone; instead come to me, and based on who I am I’ll approve you.” “You long for emotional stability; I alone give that freely to those who ask.”

Whatever it is today you seek to satisfy the longings in your life; maybe it’s your job, your family, or some hobbies. I encourage you to instead go to the ultimate and complete satisfier of all your longings, The Lord Jesus Christ.

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Your Failure Is Not Your Identity

“Ruth the Moabite.” This is a common phrase in the book of Ruth. In chapter 2 alone she is referred to as ‘Ruth the Moabite’ three times.  Had she been known as  ‘Ruth the great’ or ‘Ruth the wonderful’ that would have been one thing, but Moabite? This was not only her ancestry, but also a stigma. The Moabite lineage stems all the way back to Lot, Abraham’s nephew.  Lot lived in the sinful city of Sodom with his daughters, and was taken out of there only because God had to send his angels to take them out before he destroyed the city! After Lot and his daughters left Sodom and were living in Zoar, there was absolutely no man to be found to give Lot’s daughters a son to carry on his line.  Lot’s daughters then decided to deceive their father by getting him drunk and sleeping with him, and the oldest daughter had a son and named him Moab…  WOW! (The full story is in Genesis 19)  What an unbelievably terrible story about your ancestors. This would be comparable to discovering your great grandfather was the absolute worst Nazi general, who was responsible for killing most of the Jews during the Holocaust; nobody wants that to be their identity, but this was Ruth’s. She was “the Moabite.”

Her failure had become her identity. The writer of Ruth intentionally and divinely placed her identity in the text, but according to our story it didn’t matter to Boaz that Ruth was a Moabite. Boaz was able to look beyond Ruth’s stigma to meet a need that only he could meet. This is such a beautiful picture of Christ!

How many of you reading this blog have allowed your failure in this life to become your identity? You have let your major failures define who you are! God is speaking through this passage to a generation of failures saying, I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t care what others say about you, it doesn’t matter how you feel about yesterday, you may not can forgive yourself but I will… I will accept you; I am willing to lower my status and risk losing everything for the sake of taking care of you & giving you the value you’ve been looking for your entire life.

Boaz gave Ruth value and did not discount her because of her failure. Praise The Lord Jesus that He’s done the same for us by way of the cross! As followers of Christ our past sin and failure has been nailed to the cross, therefore canceling our record of debt to God, which was our sin (Col. 2:14-15). Your new identity is therefore now a child of God, a son or daughter of the king, someone who’s gone from spiritual death to eternal and abundant life!

Paul said: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Embrace your new identity.