STEP BY STEP
Genesis 12
By Dr. Phillip Reynolds
It’s an odd thing to have a song done in your honor. When the composers began working on it, they met with me and asked what I wanted in an anthem. I’m the least musical person in the world, and I said, “I don’t know—just make it big.” And they did.
I prefer having an anthem as opposed to something else. I was in my hometown in the hospital one time. I don’t know how to delicately put this, but I stopped by a restroom. And in that hospital restroom I saw a little plaque and it said, “This bathroom is furnished in loving memory of Condy C. Reynolds.” My father has a bathroom named after him! I got an anthem, Daddy.
We’re
going to be talking about fathers today. We’re going to be talking about the
Father of Faith, Father Abraham. This is the second in the series of preaching
the “Great Chapters of the Bible.” This is part of the Old Testament series.
The first was, of course, Genesis, chapter 1. We talked about God as creator of
all. The first eleven chapters of Genesis contain mega-stories about creation,
about the flood, about the
So today we’re going to talk about the Father of Faith, Abraham. It teaches us what a life of faith is all about. A life of faith is not, we find, about what not to do. It’s not about what not to eat. It’s not about what not to build. It’s about following and trusting and believing. It’s about failing and getting up and following again. It’s about always being willing to take that next step. It’s about the fact that taking that next step, no matter how failingly or reluctantly, it’s always better than not taking that next step.
So let’s talk about Abraham. Before we talk about stepping in faith, we have to talk about his call and how the call came to him. A little background first. Abram was the son of an idolmaker named Terah. Abram was probably involved in the family business, living in a pagan land, but more than that, actively supporting and supplying and enabling paganism by the making of idols. And into that scene God speaks, reaches down and touches an individual who is already an old man.
Writer Michael Bledsoe wonders what it was like on that morning when Abraham received the call of God. He says, “Not a bright day, not a lighted day, I think, not a day that began with excitement and emotional goosebumps, but a day perhaps when he was unshaven, tired, and feeling exceptionally old. A day perhaps when he had given up on human beings for all of their killing, for mothers [mistreating] their children, husbands who had abused their wives, and powerful men who licked their chops at the thought of war. It was within the babel and the brokenness that God spoke to Abram.” Bledsoe goes on, “Even the words of God were not sweet, pious, or comforting. They were words that separated. This was a call to be broken for the sake of wholeness. ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to a land I will show you.’ Now we capture a glimpse of how a sacred journey always begins. It begins with an acknowledgment of separation and a stepping away from the conditions in which one finds oneself. Abraham was being asked to go away from all that which was secure and arranged for him in the world. He was being challenged to accept the fact that God’s land is another land altogether.”
It would be a risky journey, a risky thing for him to do, but I believe something stirred in Abraham’s heart when he heard this call, and something told him, “Abram, this is what your heart has always desired.” I think this faith journey is something that excites and challenges all of us on one level or another. I don’t think, as much as we work for it and plan for it, that what we really want is the status quo and utter security. I think our hearts are always ready for a challenge.
So Abraham gets his. It’s a threefold call: go, be blessed, be a blessing. In the very first verse of chapter 12 of Genesis, “Go.” The second little line in verse 2, “I will bless you,” and a little later in verse 2, “you shall be a blessing.” This is his threefold calling, and it is followed by three unbelievably important words in this Great Chapter of the Bible. Three words that changed Abram’s life and three words that can change our lives as well if we let them apply. Verse 4: three words, “So Abram went.”
So Abram went. This is the first thing that’s special about Abram. God called, so Abram went. I just can’t bring myself to believe that Abram is the first one God called. God may have called already 311 people that week before He called Abram. But what makes Abram important is that he’s he one that responded. God called, so Abram went. There’s no shortage of God’s calling. There is a shortage of those who respond. I don’t think God bats 1,000% when dealing with human beings. But finally, someone said, “Yes, Lord.” So Abram went.
There’s a calling for every single person in this room. The question for us this morning is not, “Why doesn’t God call me?” The question is, “Will I respond in faith like Abraham?” God is calling you to His will and His ways for your life, just as assuredly and just as specifically as He has called Abraham. I don’t know what that means for you in your life. I have my own calling to work out. Maybe it’s a calling to surrender for the first time and take that first step in faith. Maybe it’s a calling about a relationship you’re in and how that may need to be changed or repaired or whatever God may be leading you to do in that relationship. Maybe it concerns your vocation, the direction you’ve taken professionally in your life. Maybe it concerns your church membership. I do not know. But I do believe that God is calling each one of us. What will be our response?
Abram went. Could you put your name in place of his? His response forever changed his life. It blessed him and it made him a blessing to those around him. That’s what happens when we follow. Not smoothly all the time, but that’s the end result. That’s the bottom line. Following God does bless us, and it does bless those around us. We know that. So why do we continue to resist? Three important words: So Abram went.
Then later, three more very important words. Verse 9, another short little phrase: “Abram journeyed on.” A step in faith is always, always followed by another.
Now, I’m going to step aside and try to practice being a prophet a little bit, something that the history of my life has taught me that I’m not very good at. When I get into the business of trying to predict what’s going to happen next, if you’re a betting person, bet the other way. The odds will be with you instead of with me. I’ve made a lot of pronouncements in my life. I’m waiting for one of them to come true. I’m going to do it again, though, with that disclaimer being made.
My granddaughter is visiting this week, and while she’s with us this weekend, she is going to take her first step. You heard it here first. She’s going to take her first step. Now, of course, since I said that she’ll do it two weeks later when she’s at home with those parents of hers. But I want her to do it while she’s here with us. And won’t that be a great thing? You’ve been there with your children or grandchildren or your favorite little niece or nephew; you’ve seen them take that first step and it’s thrilling. You tell the story over and over again about how it happened and you hope to capture it on video and you compare notes with the other parents just to make sure your baby walked earlier than their baby. That’s important, right? We do all those things.
What would you do if that first step were that baby’s only step? What would you do if he or she took the first little baby step and a year later still hadn’t taken another one? I know what we would do. We would go to the doctor. We would seek out a pediatric orthopedist. We would say, “What’s wrong with this child? This child took one step and hasn’t taken another. Something must be wrong. Check this little body out and see what’s going on.”
And don’t you think God feels that way about us and our spiritual lives? Can’t you see God sitting with the heavenly court saying, “What’s wrong with this child of mine? He or she took one step in faith toward forgiveness, embraced Jesus as Savior, but no more!”
We take that first step of faith. That step, they tell us, leads to heaven. But can’t you see God saying, “Where’s the next step? Where’s the following? Where’s the step from Jesus as Savior to Jesus as Lord? Where’s the discipleship? Where’s the servanthood? Where’s the sacrifice? Where’s the deepening in grace? Where’s the risk-taking? Why won’t he take another step? Why stop here?” God is asking. There is always another step. I think we’re in a room full of folks who have taken the first step. And some have taken a few more. But for all of us, no matter how far along we are, we’re not through. There are more steps. What’s your next step? I don’t know. It may be a big one for you. Maybe you secretly do know and it scares you a little bit. Steps can be risky. Maybe there’s a mountain left to climb and it scares you. But aren’t you glad? Aren’t you glad that God has confidence in you that you can climb that mountain with His help, that you are capable of that next bold step?
Maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s not big. Maybe it’s smaller and shorter but more personal step. And maybe that’s a challenge as well. Maybe it’s just a step or two across the backyard to mend those fences with that neighbor or that friend (take that as literally or as metaphorically as you want). Maybe that’s the step to take. Maybe it’s just a step across the living room to say, “I love you.” But there are steps for all of us to be taken. We are not through.
“So Abram went” has to be followed by “Abram journeyed on” because, if it’s not, we don’t have much of a story to tell from Genesis 12, do we? In fact, we don’t have a great story in the Bible. It probably wouldn’t even be worthy of inclusion in scripture if Abram’s first step had not been followed by others. “So Abram journeyed on” is what makes the story holy.
Now I wish I could stop. We don’t want to talk about the portion in verse 10 and following. We’d like to just leave that out. We would like for this great chapter of the Bible to end in verse 9, because if you were listening earlier as the scripture was read from the second half of this great chapter of the Bible, it just gets crazy, doesn’t it? His next step got him in trouble. Down to Egypt he stepped, went down there and said, “Sarah, they’re going to like you. Say you’re my sister instead of my wife. They might cause me a lot of trouble if they find out we’re married. Just say you’re my sister. Let them take you for a wife.” Bad step, Abram. I don’t care how you theologize it or put it in historical context or try to understand it or rationalize it away, that was a bad step. That was just a bad step. He messed up.
Don’t you know that his friends and ancestors that came after him told and retold this story of Abram’s ridiculousness? Don’t you know that they kept telling it and embellishing it and hooting about it and laughing about it? It had to be retold over and over again; that’s how it got in the Bible. I doubt Abram told it on himself. I think others must have carried on and on about it. But that’s okay. That’s what children do with their fathers. Part of having children, part of being a father is getting made fun of. I’m sure that happened to our Father of Faith. They told ridiculous stories about this old man Abraham. They told this one, I’m sure, and they told others, I’m sure. There was a lot to tell here.
Can’t you see them telling the stories? “Remember the time Abraham came by us in the camp, you know, Sarah wheeling away in her wheelchair and Abraham chasing after her in the walker, ‘Sarah, Sarah, God told me we’re going to make a baby; come back here, Sarah!’” And they just hooted and laughed and slapped their knees at that story. “You remember the old man? You remember him chasing his old wife around?” And they’d just laugh and roll and retell it again. That’s all right. That’s part of a father’s job: to do the thing he should do, even if it provides a little too much entertainment for the children.
Garrison Keillor said, “Joseph Stalin wasn’t a good father. You don’t exile or execute those who make fun of you and tell stories on you. A good father smiles and stands quietly as an example, even sometimes a ridiculous one.”
But you are our dear Father of Faith, an example to us. Thank you, Father Abraham. He stands as an example. Sometimes as an old fool. Sometimes getting it wrong, but always a fool for God, who, above all else, shows us how to follow God’s call. He showed us that the most important things are following, trusting, and believing, even if we don’t always get it just right. He journeyed on.
In three-word sentences we learn from him. So Abram went. Abram journeyed on. And his example leads us from the Old Testament to two other three-word sentences we find in the New Testament: He is risen. God is Love. Abram’s belief in his calling leads us in faith to believe in ours, to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, risen from the dead by the Lord of Love. Thank you, Abram, for teaching us how to follow the short sentences of faith.
Let’s pray.