Genesis 12:1–3

0:00 You ever notice how the Christmas season feels different now that you're an adult than it did when you were a kid? I almost started this sermon this morning with the very first sentence that a week ago or so, I got run over by a Mack truck, and that Mack truck, as it is every year, was Christmas. It sneaks up on me these days. Once you're a parent, once you're an adult, once you've got responsibilities and all the rest, the phrase, slow as Christmas, doesn't even really make sense anymore. Because most of what happens between Thanksgiving and December the 25th just feels like a mad dash to get stuff done.

0:38 You got decorations to put up and gifts to buy and this to be done and that to be done. You got to hustle, hustle, hustle, and then throw in a little bustling in the middle of it too. It's just a mad dash from one thing to another. And what you want to say instead is, man, that is lightning quick as Christmas. It's not like that when you're a kid, is it? Christmas seems to take forever to get here. You wait, and you wait, and you wait. Mom, how many days is it until Christmas? Mom, how many sleeps is it until Christmas morning? When I was a kid, my mom made a sort of felt calendar of the month of December, right? And in the little pockets down at the bottom, there were these Christmas decorations, little ornaments that every morning you could wake up and put the next ornament up on the tree. And when the tree was full of all the ornaments, it was Christmas Eve.

1:29 I loved that little calendar. Loved it. It was one of my favorite things, to wake up in the morning and be able to go and grab the candy cane or the wreath or the gingerbread cookie or whatever it was that was next, Santa's face, and put it up on that tree. The problem was my brother loved to do that too. And so that calendar was the occasion of several knockdown drag outs in the Gilbert household. We were waiting. There was a period of waiting on the glory to come. That's what I want to talk with you about today as we finish up our series in the book of Genesis. We've spent the last few months looking at the first 11 chapters of the book. And just for those of you who are wondering, the plan is not to go through the entire book right now, but to return to it every fall. And we'll take a chunk of the book of Genesis every fall. It'll probably take us five or six falls, Lord willing, to make it all the way through the entire book.

2:23 But come next August or September, we'll be returning and picking it up in chapter 12. For now, though, these 11 chapters that we've been studying over the last 10 or 11 weeks have told the story of the very earliest days of humanity. So from Adam and Eve to Noah to the Tower of Babel, the main thrust of every one of these stories and the grand story itself has really been one of encroaching tragedy. Several of the chapters between 1 and 11 are taken up with the story of the flood, and you kind of hope at the end of the flood that that's the end okay we're back to square one we're starting over everything's going to be okay but it turns out no immediately in chapter nine we're back into the drink the whole thing has been one of encroaching tragedy Adam's rebellion against God when he ate the forbidden fruit has plunged humanity and the world into this unending spiral of sin and disaster that humanity even at its very best even when God starts over Humanity seems completely incapable of stopping.

3:23 Even after God grabs Noah, the most righteous man on the face of the planet, and starts the whole thing over, sin almost immediately asserts itself again. And so by the end of chapter 11, humanity's pride and hubris has resulted in it being divided and dispersed all over the world. It's tragedy at the end of chapter 11. Well, today, even though this series was only supposed to run from chapter 1 through the end of chapter 11, today we're going to cheat a little bit and take a sneak peek into chapter 12. We're going to look at God's response to this whole tragic situation that exists at the end of chapter 11. Now, why are we doing that? Why are we taking a sneak peek a little bit into chapter 12 instead of just going on to Christmas stuff? Well, there's a couple of reasons for that. For one thing, I just think it would be a shame to leave off the story on such a low note as chapter 11 leaves us in. I just don't want to end the story in the drink. I want to end the story with an upward looking thing. And guess what? That's exactly what happens at the beginning of chapter 12. So we're going to do that. It's

4:24 going to be almost a year. And so we'll be back in Genesis. And I don't want to leave you on pins and needles wondering if God has another move in this story. He does. And I want to give you a sneak peek at it this morning. Also, this little passage that we're looking at today, Genesis 12 verses 1 to 3. That's our text for the day. Genesis 12, 1 to 3. It's really an excellent kickoff to this Advent season that we have just launched ourselves into here in the run-up to Christmas. Now, for a lot of you, even mentioning the word Advent seems a little strange to you because we evangelicals don't do a whole lot with Advent, do we? We tend to run straight from the fried turkey to the figgy pudding. We want the lights up and the Christmas trees up and the outdoor stuff up and the gifts bought. We want it all done like the Friday after Thanksgiving.

5:18 But historically, that's not how the Christian church has done things. Historically, the Christian church has taken a few weeks before Christmas to observe what's called Advent, which means coming, which is, at its heart, a time of waiting. It's a season of waiting, of knowing the promises of God, of knowing what God has said he's going to do, and yet faithfully waiting for God to fulfill them. And so what we're going to do today is look at Genesis 12, 1-3, one of the main promises that God made that we are now, and the Israelites did back then, waiting on in this run-up to the Christmas season. Now, this idea of waiting is not something that is comfortable to us as modern Americans, it's also not something that is normal to us. We don't do a whole lot of waiting. If our society is known for anything at all, it is instant gratification. I don't wait for anything, and if I have to wait on anything, it annoys me to no end. I mean, friends, I get annoyed because I have to do

6:25 three clicks on my phone instead of two to get to an email. If it's too deep down in the inbox, is like, well, forget it. Three clicks is going to kill me. We don't like to wait. And yet waiting is something that the people of God do again and again and again in Scripture. And it's good for us to remember that. Which is, by the way, my dear little who's in Whoville who love Christmas so much, it is why we are kind of as a church easing into the Christmas season. Some of you asked about this. Why? On the first Sunday of December, was this place not festooned with Christmas music?

7:07 Well, my dear Hoos, it is not because I am the Grinch. It is also not because I dislike Christmas. It is because I like Advent. I like the thought of God's people needing to wait. I like the thought of the glory of Christmas sort of slowly dawning. Now, those of you who are, you know, really Christmas fiends, you will get your fill next Sunday evening. We are going to sing our little hearts out away in a manger, right? I don't know that we'll sing that one, but we're going to sing a bunch of Christmas songs next Sunday evening. But part of what I want to do as we sing these songs of Advent, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, you know, all these songs about waiting, is that I want to press on your soul the reality that we are still waiting for God to fulfill his promises.

7:55 See, that's one of the layers of Advent. Advent is actually not a Christmas sort of season. That's not what it is. You know what kind of season Advent is in the history of the church? Advent is a second coming season. Advent is a celebration of and a waiting for the second coming of Jesus. And yet, waiting on that second coming mirrors very much so the waiting that Israel had to do before the first coming of the Messiah. And that waiting, at its heart, was waiting on God to fulfill the promise that he makes right here. In Genesis chapter 12, 1 through 3.

8:27 So that's why we're looking at it today because this is the moment right here in the ruins of Babel and its tower that God launches his long-awaited plan to save the world. So let's look at it. Genesis chapter 12, I'm just going to read verses 1 through 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.

9:01 And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. All right, now, without a doubt, this is one of the most famous little passages in the entire Old Testament. These words, from Genesis 12, 1 to 3, are going to show up dozens of more times through the rest of the story. In fact, you might even say that these words in these three little verses encapsulate and structure the entire hope of the entire hope of Israel, to the point that you could even say that the whole story of the Old Testament is really a longing question, a longing search for the answer to the question, when is God going to keep this promise, and how is he going to do it?

9:41 How is he going to make this happen? And when is that going to happen? Century after century after century passes, and it doesn't happen, and it almost happens, and then it doesn't happen, And then it fails, seemingly. And the question again and again is, when is God going to do this? Now, structurally, if you look down at it, it's a tightly wrapped little present, isn't it? Every word of this thing is full of meaning. And we're going to unfold that meaning as we go through it today. I do, though, want you to see the main structure of it, though. The promise that God makes here in these three verses basically breaks down into two parts.

10:16 Though it's a little bit obscured in English translations, and I think rightly so. We're going to talk about that later, but it basically breaks down into two parts that are each headed by an imperative verb, so a command. It's got two commands in it, though one of them is a little weird. We're going to talk about that one later, but basically what you have is an imperative verb, a command, followed by a promise, a promise, a promise, and then you have another imperative verb, a command, followed by promise, promise, promise.

10:48 Do you see that? The first one's really obvious. You've got the imperative verb right there in verse 1. It's go, right? Go, and then he describes what he's supposed to do. And then you get three promises. I will, I will, I will. The second imperative verb is at the end of verse 2, where it says there, and you will be a blessing, or so that you will be a blessing. Technically, that's an imperative. We're going to talk about that. I think your English translation is right, though. So that you will be a blessing. But in its form, it's an imperative, so you get that again. There's the command, or the imperative verb, and then I will, I will, and the nations will, right?

11:23 So you see the structure of it and how it works. So of those two sets, right, two sets of three promises each, what's the difference? Like what's the difference in the promises? Well, look at it. The first set of promises focuses on what God is going to do for Abraham. Three things. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you. And I will make your name great. Those three things are going to happen for Abraham and his family, right?

11:55 They're to Abraham. The second set of promises is different. Abraham is going to be blessed by those first three promises. But then through Abraham, the rest of the world is going to be blessed. You see that? I will bless those who bless you. Him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. First set of promises is to Abraham, for Abraham. Second set of promises is through Abraham, for the world. That's the basic structure of it.

12:26 Main idea of this text is trust God. Trust God. And if you do, you will stand in awe of the good he will do for you. Trust God. And when you do, you will stand in awe of the good that he will do for you. I want to look at this text, this promise from God, in four points. So four things that God says he's about to do. We're not going to look at all six of the promises because some of them overlap. You'll see how that works in a minute. But four things that God says, three things that God says he's about to do. And then one thing he calls Abraham to do. So number one, the promise of a future king.

12:59 Number two, the breaking of the curse. Number three, the healing of the nations. And number four, the call to faith. So I'll give them to you again. Number one, we're going to look at God's promise of a future king. Future king that is coming. Number two, the breaking of the curse. Number three, the healing of the nations, and number four, the call to faith. So let's look at it. Number one, the promise of a future king. Now, if you've read this carefully, if you were listening even carefully, it might seem to you like a strange thing to say, like, what in the world?

13:31 There's literally nothing here in this text, at least at first glance, that says anything about a king or a coming ruler or really anything royal whatsoever, and you're right. But if you look a little more closely at exactly what God promises here, you start to see that this is actually God's next step in fulfilling the promise he made way back in Genesis 3.15. Genesis 3.15 sets the course of the whole storyline of the Bible when God says, I'm going to send another king who will do what Adam should have done.

14:04 He's going to crush the head of the serpent, toss him out of the garden, set everything right. This new coming king is going to do what Adam should have done. And then the whole story of the Bible becomes, well, where is he, right? Where is this coming king? And this here in 12, verses 1 to 3, is God's next step in that process. So where do we see that God renews that promise and talks about this idea of a coming king? Again, we'll look down at the text. In verse 1 there, God gives Abraham the first imperative, right?

14:38 The first thing that Abraham himself has got to do. and it's to leave the land of his birth, the Ur of the Chaldeans. He's got to leave his country, leave his family, his kindred, his father's house, all the riches that they may have had in Ur of the Chaldeans, and they've got to go to another land that God is going to show him. Now, we're going to talk about that command and what it means, what it required of Abraham later, like what it is at its heart. We're going to get to that later in the fourth point. For now, though, after that command in verse 2 come three promises that God says he's going to do for Abraham.

15:08 So I've already named them for you, but look down so you can see them. in verse two. Three things. I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless you. And I'm going to make your name great. In those three promises, there are two details that I want to draw your attention to. First, look at the third promise there, where God says to Abraham, I will make you a great name. Now, it's easy to read that. I'll make your name great. You know, oh, you know he's gonna Abraham's gonna have his billboards all over town right Abraham's used cars he's got a great name people are gonna know him he's gonna be he's gonna be famous it's easy to read it like that but that's not what it means that's not just a generic kind of greatness see in the ancient world to have a name that was said to be great was the singular and unique marker of royalty so for example in the middle ages you ever heard of charlemagne the great the great king

16:09 of europe charlemagne when you translate that well what it means is charles the great that's what it means and it's just one example of how greatness attached to royalty so if somebody had a great name it was a unique marker of royalty so greatness is what god promises to david In 2 Samuel 7, in that covenant, I will make for you, David, a great name. It's what the angel said to Mary when he promised the birth of Jesus. He will be great, and the Lord will give to him the throne of his father, David.

16:45 It's royalty. So for God to say here that he's going to make Abraham a great name doesn't just mean I'll make you famous. It doesn't just mean that, you know, 4,000 years from now, people will still be talking about you. That's not what it means. What it means is something completely different from that. When people hear the name of Abraham, they're going to think of a royal family. I will make your name great. Now, this, by the way, is an enormous reversal from what we've been seeing so far throughout this whole story.

17:22 I mean, think about it. The whole problem in all the first 11 chapters of Genesis has basically been humanity's incessant clawing at the goal of making a name for themselves. You see that, right? That was the whole point of the Tower of Babel. Let us make a name that is great for ourselves. And so God puts an end to it. That's what that odd phrase back in chapter 6 was about. Remember that the sons of God lay with the daughters of men? what that was, was human beings making a bid for immortality, and they get judged for it. It's what Lamech's boast was about. I have killed a man for wounding me. I will take 70-fold vengeance on anyone who harms me. He wanted to be a great man. It's what Cain's founding of a city was about. He didn't want to be a wanderer in the earth. He wanted a place. He wanted to have a great name.

18:16 Ultimately, as we talked about back in chapter 3, it's what Adam's eating the fruit was about. He believed the serpent. If you eat this fruit, you will be like God. And Adam said, I like that. I don't want to be under God. I want to be like God. It was a bid for greatness. And it all failed. Throughout the whole 11 chapters, it all failed over and over again. Those bids for immortality, those bids for greatness failed.

18:49 But here, here, here, here, God says wonderfully at the beginning of chapter 12 something that is utterly unexpected. Because what you'd expect in the ruins of Babel is, oh, you guys want to be great? You guys want to have a great name for yourselves? It's never going to happen. I've crushed that desire in you again and again and again. It's not going to happen. I won't allow it. I'm the king. That's not what he says at all. He says, you want to be great? You want to have a great name for yourself? I will make you a great name.

19:23 The question, though, is how? How are you going to get a great name? And look, this world around you that you live in, that you work in day after day after day, this world will tell you through its words, through its actions, through its patterns, that you are nothing. That you are just a cog in the machine. That your entire role on this planet is just to be born, to work for the state for a little while, and then to die.

19:55 That's what the world will tell you. God, though, God, will tell you that you are meant for greatness. You're meant for royalty. It's just a matter of how you're going to get there. There are two paths, right? Two paths that you can try. You can try to scratch out your own great name in this world. You can try to be remembered for a minute like Ozymandias, right? Or you can look to the one who God has made great and put your faith in him.

20:25 And you know what the scripture said? If you put your faith in that one who is great, Jesus, he says you'll reign with him for eternity. Friends, you were made, you were created by God for something far more than this world wants to get out of you. You were made for eternity. You were made for greatness. The only question is how you're going to get there. I want you to see another thing here. Look in verse 2 where God says he's going to make of Abraham a great nation.

21:00 Now, we tend to read that and we instinctively think, well, that's referring, of course, to the nation of Israel, right? I will make of you a great nation and that great nation is Israel. It's, you know, the whole descendants like the sand of the seashore and all that. So we read it, great nation in what we think is numerous Israel, right? That's how we tend to read that. Well, it's not inaccurate. It is true that God promised many Israelites, numerous Israel, right? So at least in part, it's true.

21:31 But that word nation is a very strange word to use for the nation of Israel. It's a very strange word. It's goi in Hebrew. And it's a word that really is never, ever used of Israel, at least in a good way in the Bible. In fact, there are only a few times in the Bible where Israel is called a goi, a nation. And every single one of those times, just a handful of them, but every single one of the times that Israel is called a nation, it's bad.

22:03 What it's saying is that you, Israel, have become like the nations around you. You, Israel, are a nation. You gross thing. That's what it's saying. Most of the time in the Bible, Israel is called a family or a people. But it's not called a goy. Goy is used for all the other nations of the world. So what's going on there? Well, do you know what Peter, the apostle, calls the new people of King Jesus that form around him?

22:34 The people that unite around King Jesus as their head. Do you know what he calls those people, you and me, in 2 Peter 2, 9? You know what he calls that new people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language, from all of them that unite around King Jesus? He calls us, this new people, this new humanity, he calls us a new holy nation. Do you see the point? Do you see the point? The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not just one family or one ethnicity or one related people.

23:08 it's people from all the families of the earth who unite together under one flag the flag of king jesus and that's what god is promising here in this promise to abraham even before it all gets unpacked it's just it's sort of seed form right now but that's what he's promising he's not promising just a great nation in the sense of a lot of israelites he's promising a whole new entity a whole new kingdom a whole new society a nation made up of people from every ethnicity every nationality every family united by one thing only their allegiance to king jesus friends that's what we are that's what we are even as a local church what we are is a local expression of that new great holy nation that's united around king jesus i mean yeah we're here at third avenue we are americans and we are brits and we are chinese

24:09 and vietnamese and there's even a scattering of canucks out there we are lots of different things lots of different ethnicities lots of different families of the earth and all that has deep meaning it's not to say that it has no meaning that you're an american or you're a canadian or you're you're vietnamese it's not to say that has no meaning but when you bow the knee to king jesus you become a citizen first and foremost of a brand new holy nation and in fact friends that is the only nation that is going to survive past judgment day you realize that right i love america just as much as you do but america will not survive judgment day there will be no american flags in heaven there will be one flag the flag of the crown of the universe you're a part if you're a Christian, you're a part of the one nation that will make it past Judgment Day. You're a citizen, as Paul says, of the kingdom of God. Does your thinking reflect that?

25:10 Does your understanding of your own identity as a human being reflect that? Somebody says, who are you? What are you? What's the first thing that you say? I mean, if the first thing that bubbles up is, well, I'm an American, or I'm a Gilbert, or I'm this, or I'm that, I would say meditate a little bit more on it, because what ought to bubble up is, who are you, what are you, I'm a Christian. First thing you say. I mean, just by the way, I've told you this before, but that's a brilliant evangelistic strategy, right? To let the very first thing that you say when you meet someone and they say something like, hey, tell me a little bit about yourself, not be, well, I do this for my job, and I grew up here, and my favorite sports team is this, but start it off by saying, hi, my name's Greg and I'm a Christian.

25:53 I mean, some people will recoil in horror at that, but a whole lot of people, more than you expect, I promise you, will go, whoa, that's interesting. Tell me more about that. I know a lot of Christians. I've never heard anybody front it like that. That must be really important to you. Give it a shot. One of my friends says that that's just a matter, he calls it flopping God out on the table. Just like a big old wet fish. You know, and see what happens. Some people will recoil more than you think will bite.

26:26 Who are you? What are you? You're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Here's the second thing, the breaking of the curse. The breaking of the curse. When you get to chapter 12 of Genesis as a reader, it's supposed to strike you as a deep breath of relief when you read verses 1 through 3. It's supposed to strike you as, you know, to use a sci-fi sort of term, it's like an escape pod shooting out from a catastrophically wounded spaceship, right?

26:57 You're barely escaping the catastrophe. Because that's the situation at the end of chapter 11. What you've got at the end of chapter 11 is palpable disaster. Now, you may be looking at it and going, well, I don't know. Seems to me like chapters 7 and 8 were a bigger disaster than chapter 11, right? I mean, in 7 and 8, that's the flood, and basically all of humanity and every living thing on the earth gets wiped out, right? It's all dead. At Babel, they just get scattered. Their language gets confused, and they get scattered.

27:31 So I think we tend to downplay exactly what a disaster the Tower of Babel was. And the flood seems huge, right? A huge disaster. No problem seeing that as a bad thing. But Babel seems small, okay. So God confused the languages of the people so they couldn't talk to each other as easily anymore. Big deal. It just really seems like small potatoes compared to the flood. Maybe it's even just a little postscript on what is really the story of the flood. But here's what I want you to see and think about.

28:02 It's not that at all. In fact, if you think about it a little bit, if you just start to meditate it on a little bit, I think you'll start to realize that the Tower of Babel and the dividing of humanity was really a worse and way more far-reaching judgment on humanity than even the flood. Let me ask you a question. How much in your daily life do you still struggle with the lingering effects of the great flood? I mean, you got to step in a puddle every once in a while.

28:35 I mean, what effects of the flood are you feeling in your daily life? Not many. That was a particular judgment on a particular generation of people, and it was one and done. Okay. How much do you feel the effects in your daily life of the dividing of humanity at Babel? How much do you feel the effects of tribalism? of division, of racism, of conflict and war and suspicion and groupthink and inability to communicate and disunity.

29:19 In one way or another, quite a lot, I would imagine. Look, the waters of the flood receded. The waters of the flood are a distant memory. We got to look at fossils to find anything out about the flood. But what happens to humanity at Babel? The judgment that God handed down on humanity for our hubris has not only lingered to our present day, but arguably gotten worse. It's festering. It's growing. So by the time chapter 11 ends, the world is already weary.

29:53 It's weary of its constant rebellion against God. It's weary of its incessant grasping after greatness. And now it's weary under the judgments of God that have been thundering down against them one after the other. So this passage, the first little bit of light we've had in a long time, comes like a drink of ice-cold water with all of its talk of greatness and promise and blessing. I want you to see one thing in particular here. Look down in the middle of verse 2. So the second of the three promises that God makes to Abraham there. Right in the middle.

30:23 I will bless you. That's what he says to Abraham. I will bless you. What does that mean? well some people look at that especially for instance the you know preachers of the prosperity gospel and they say well what that means is that god is going to make abraham rich he's going to give him a lot of material stuff and so the story of genesis is really the story of abraham acquiring things cattle and land and this and that some people think that's what it means but that's not enough. It's just not enough. That's too shallow. That's too little. Where else do you remember God using this word bless in the story so far? Think about it. Yes, Genesis 1. Like as soon as he creates them, the very next thing that the text says after the human beings are created is God

31:23 blessed them. Friends, that was not just with material stuff. For God to bless Adam and Eve in the garden of evil, Eden, sorry, it became the garden of evil, I guess, garden of Eden, for God to bless them was to put them in relationship with himself and to determine to do good to them. When God blesses someone, it brings that person into relationship with him and it secures good for them from his hands.

31:56 God blessed them. It's not just material, but in every way. And in fact, you could say it's the opposite of curse. When someone is cursed, the relationship between them and God is severed and they are put out of God's presence and evil comes to them. That's what it means to be cursed. Adam and Eve were cursed when they were separated from God, cast out of the Garden of Eden and the flaming swords blocked the way back to all the goodness of the Garden of Eden. They were cursed. Blessing is exactly the opposite, to bring someone into relationship and determined to do good to them.

32:28 Okay, do you know how many times in chapters 1 through 11, the whole thing, like 1 through 11, how many times the Hebrew word curse has been used in the story? Exactly five. Five times curse is mentioned. Once to the serpent, two times to Adam. Lamech says the word, and God says the word after the flood. Curse has been a thread that's been running through this whole story.

33:02 In fact, one of the main themes of it is that mankind, after the fall of Adam, is not blessed. He is not in a good relationship with God. He is not in God's presence. He is cursed, cut off from God because of sin. Five times that is said. Now, drop your eyes down to 12, 1 through 3. How many times is the word bless used? The Lord said to Abraham, go from your country, your kindred, and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation.

33:37 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. You see what's going on there, right? First 11 chapters, curse, curse, curse, curse, curse. 12, 1 to 3, no, no, no, no, no. I will bless my people, not curse them. I will bring them into my presence, not cast them out.

34:13 In these three little verses, God takes aim at the separation between himself and human beings. And he annihilates it. I mean, you realize that that's the good news of the gospel. That's the message of Jesus Christ. The whole story of humanity has been one of separation and curse. And here God's promising, I'm going to send somebody. I'm going to send somebody and he's going to put an end to the curse. That separation between me and you is going to be ended.

34:46 That curtain between me and you at the Holy of Holies is going to be ripped from top to bottom. I'm ending the separation. I wonder if you ever feel that separation. I wonder if you feel that curse lingering, that you're separated from God, that you're not in his presence, that you're not in a good relationship with him. Friend, if you do and you're not a Christian, then all you're feeling there is something entirely accurate. And the way to fix that problem, the way to bridge that gulf, the way to end the curse and end the separation is to come to the one that God gave authority to to end it.

35:26 And Paul says in Galatians that Christ became the curse for us so that the curse on us could be broken. Come to the one, come to the one to whom God gave authority to end the curse and the one who actually did when he died on the cross and rose from the dead. And what you'll find is that that bridge is, that gulf is bridged, the curtain is torn, and the separation is ended. That's what Christianity is about. Here's the third thing. The healing of the nations.

35:58 The healing of the nations. So the first part there is the command to go, followed by the three promises in verse 2. And all of that is stuff that God is going to do for Abraham. It's all very tightly packed, and once it comes to fruition, it's going to be huge. It's like the difference between an acorn and an oak. But we can look at it in its acorn form and then sort of trace it out. But that's what's going on. That's stuff that God is going to do for Abraham. The second part of this promise begins at the end of verse 2 with that phrase, so that you will be a blessing, and it's followed by three more promises in verse 3.

36:33 But those aren't so much. Those three promises in verse 3, they're not so much about what God's going to do for Abraham as much as they are things God is going to do through Abraham for the nations of the world. All right, so now we have to do a little bit of sort of textual exegesis. So if this is not interesting to you, you can tune out for just a moment, and I will let you know when you should tune back in. But for the next two minutes, those of you who are like exegetical guys, like, let's go, right? This is your time. That phrase that launches the second part, so that you will be a blessing, is really interesting.

37:07 because in its form it's an imperative verb it's a command just like go and yet that is not how our bibles translate it you see that it's translated not so much a command be a blessing as much as a result or maybe even a purpose it's so that you will be a blessing now why is that why do the english bibles that you have shy away from just translating it as be a blessing abraham well it's because that's not how you're supposed to translate it and there are a couple of reasons for that one just the structure of the sentence itself flags us that maybe this isn't just supposed to be a pure command at all because you have to translate it something like i will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and be a blessing, which just doesn't make sense.

38:00 I mean, you could see that being on the back of some book or something, but, you know, that's not how people talk. You don't say, I will do this, I will do that, and be a blessing. You don't do that. Hebrew doesn't do that. So the very structure of the sentence is letting us know that something else is likely going on. Second, though, it turns out that words with an imperative form in Hebrew and in English for that matter, words even with an imperative form can have the sense or the meaning of a result. Okay, so let me give you an easy example so that you can get your head around what I mean there. So I'll say the little principle again, then I'll give you an example. Something that is imperative in form can have the sense of a result. Okay, now an example. In the story of Joseph in the later part of Genesis, there's a time when Joseph meets his brothers and the whole thing happens, right? And there's one little sentence where Joseph wants his brothers to do a certain thing or else he's going to kill them. That's what he tells them. He's going to judge them and he's going to kill them for the evil that they have done. And one of the sentences

39:02 that he says to them is, do this and live. Okay, now you see my point? It's two imperatives. Do this and live. But Joseph is not giving his brothers two commands. He's not saying, number one, brothers, I would like you to do this. Number two, I would like you to do your best to live. It's not what that sentence means. Do this and live is just one command with a result. Do this and the result of you doing this will be that you will live. Happens all over the Bible, happens all over the English language, right? And that's what's happening here in 12, one to three. It's I will bless you and make your name great so that you will become a blessing to others. I will do all of this for you so that this can happen to other people imperative in form but in the sense it's a result so you see the idea okay if you tuned out it's time to tune back in the point is that because of all this kindness that God is going to show to Abraham the nations of the world are going

40:07 to be blessed somehow through him Abraham and all those who would come after him would become the sort of singular conduit the one-way road of blessing and goodness and reunited relationship with God for the entire world in fact God makes that really explicit in verse three look at verse three he says I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse you see what's going on there that is not just a personal protection for Abraham it's not just saying Anybody who's mean to you, Abraham, I'll get him.

40:46 And anybody who's nice to you, I'll get him. Much less is it a promise for the current modern nation state of Israel. That is not what's going on in Genesis 12. What's going on there with that promise is that he's telling Abraham, Abraham, you're the singular conduit of blessing for the world. You and your family and ultimately your one offspring, Jesus, are the dividing line that's going to run right through the middle of humanity and divide those who are blessed from those who are cursed. Those who embrace you and your offspring, Jesus, singular, Paul says, those are the ones who will be blessed.

41:20 Those who reject your offspring are the ones who will be cursed. And of course, you know who that great promised offspring was, right? And Paul looks down at verse 7, 12, 7, and he says, wait a second, that says singular offspring. He says, that's just talking about one guy, not the whole family that's the dividing line. It's just one guy, the offspring. And you know who that is, right? It's Jesus, the son of Abraham. It's what Matthew 1 is all about.

41:54 We're going to study that next week. So whether you'll be blessed or cursed depends on how you respond to him. And it's right there in seed form. I'm going to bless those who bless you. Him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. You're the singular conduit of blessing for the world. Coming to a head ultimately in Jesus Christ. I mean, now you know how that resolved itself in the story of the Bible.

42:30 You know how verse 3 resolved itself. It resolved itself in those who blessed Jesus, I will bless. And those who dishonor Jesus, I will curse. So friend, which are you doing? Which are you doing? Are you blessing Jesus? Are you embracing him in faith? Are you pulling him into relationship with you and you to him? Are you blessing him or are you dishonoring him and rejecting him? I think it's really interesting that it uses the word dishonor instead of curse.

43:04 Friend, you don't have to curse Jesus. to find yourself on the wrong side of the line, all you've got to do is dishonor him by ignoring him. So what is it for you? Are you blessing him? Or are you dishonoring him? It's a question that will decide humanity's future. Number four, finally, the call to faith. The call to faith. The thing to notice here is that all of these promises, All six of them that we've been looking at are made unilaterally by God.

43:41 There's not anything that Abraham has to do to make them happen. There's no program that he's working through. God just says, I'm going to do that. In fact, when this whole thing, when this promise in 12 becomes a formal covenant later on, three chapters from now in chapter 15, it's only God. It's not Abraham. It's only God who has to, so to speak, sign that covenant. It's a one-way covenant, and Abraham just watches as God does it. But look at verse 1. God calls Abraham to do one thing and one thing only.

44:15 And what's that? Well, it's go, right? Leave your family, leave your lands, leave your father's household, whatever riches you've built up over the generations. Leave all of that. So it's go. But what is it at its heart? It's to trust God. I mean, I know, I know, it's go. Like, he's got to put one foot in front of the other. He's got to actually go somewhere. But what I want you to see is that at its core, to go was to trust. Going was trusting.

44:47 I mean, the act of going in itself was kind of incidental. And when Abraham set out from his own country, that was an act, not just of putting one foot in front of the other. It was an act of profound trust in God to do what God said he was going to do. I mean, look how it's described. Leave your country. Leave your family. leave your father's household. Friends, that may be a very normal thing for us in a modern world with airplanes and cars and all the rest, but in the ancient world, it's unheard of. It was not a normal thing in the ancient world for a young man to strike out on his own to make a name for himself in the world apart from his father and his father's household.

45:23 You didn't do that. That was suicide. To leave your country, to leave your kinsmen, to leave your father's household was basically to commit suicide. It was death. Nobody just went out and made a name for themselves. So Abraham, when he left, he was leaving everything behind. His entire past, his entire identity. And to go to what? What was he going to? I mean, look at it. Look at what he says. Leave, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you?

46:02 He didn't even know where he was going. It's not like God said, listen, I got a deal for you. There is this land that is flowing with milk and honey, and that's where I'm, it's called Canaan, and that's where I'm taking you. No, it was just leave everything you've ever known, and I'll show you where you're going. Friends, that was a profound, profound act of trust for Abraham to do that. I mean, you and I have trouble doing that with people we know and love very well about tiny little things. If I walked up to you, right, and grabbed your hand and said, close your eyes, close your eyes.

46:36 Now, come with me. I want to show you something. You'd be like, what the heck? No, like, I mean, if I did that to my own family, they'd be like, what the heck, right? Because we don't trust people easily, especially when they don't tell us where they're taking us. And yet, Abraham did it. And that's why Abraham becomes this prime example in the Bible of a man of faith. It's why it's said a little bit later in the story. Like the great sort of verdict on Abraham's life is Abraham believed God.

47:10 It's not that he went. That's incidental. It's Abraham believed God. And that was credited to him, his righteousness. Look, being a Christian is really just like this, which is Paul's whole point in saying that when we become Christians and put our faith in Jesus, we become the children of Abraham. because we become like our father, faithful Abraham. Same idea. We embrace Jesus Christ, and the result is cascading blessing.

47:43 Abraham embraced God, cascading blessing. Same idea. Only now, the imperative from God to you and to me is not go. It's come. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Friends, I know you've got a to-do list in this Christmas season that is a mile and a half long. I know you've got 100,000 things on your must-do list.

48:16 But friends, that must-do list for the Christmas season is one that you made for yourself. There is only one thing on the to-do list that God has given you. come to Jesus and be saved. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you and honor you this morning as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the offspring of Abraham, the son of David, the son of God.

48:52 Lord, we honor you as the long-awaited Messiah, as Emmanuel, God with us, who came into this world as a man to live the life we ought to have lived, to die the death that we deserved, and then to rise again to secure our inheritance with you for eternity. Our God, we pray that in this Christmas season, in this Advent season, you would help us to remember these things and be encouraged by them and be encouraged to follow after you hard all the days of our lives. We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.