How Many Gospels s3

Sermon #923 Time to Leave Ur

Have you ever noticed how important Bible words and characters can become so common that they lose their significance – words like love, mercy, and grace; names like Adam, Noah, and Moses? It’s not that we don’t realize they are important, but they become so familiar that we may take for granted their relevance to our daily lives. Been there; done that! Friends, this is a big mistake.

Take, for instance, Abram or Abraham. We know he plays a major role in the unfolding of God’s will in the Old Testament, but do we really get the impact his life should have on us? We get a glimpse of the greatness of Abraham when we read how God identifies Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:6, “I am the God of your father--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." With all the people living in the world today – and many claiming to be disciples of Christ - imagine God identifying himself with your name, your immediate ancestor and descendant in such a context - I am the God of Jim, Brett and Joey? Obviously, God is and has been the God of all men and women who walk in faith, but this unique statement sets Abraham on a special plane. What made Abraham so significant? Abraham had faith! Do you have faith? Most people say, “Oh yeah, of course, I have faith.” Wait a minute now! What we are asking is, “Do YOU have the KIND of faith Abraham had? This is great question because ONLY the kind of faith that Abraham has the power to save!

Hear the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 4:11-12, 16, “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised….Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”

Again, the same writer tells us in Galatians 3:7-9, “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

This morning we look to one of the Bible’s great heroes to show us the way; we explore perhaps the most fundamental and encompassing Biblical topics. What exactly does this faith of Abraham look like that so pleases God and can YOU really claim it? First, though, enjoy our song…

Centuries pass from Noah leaving the ark after the flood in Genesis 8 until we are introduced to Abraham in Genesis 11:27 - 12:5, “This is the genealogy of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans. Then Abram and Nahor took wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no child. And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran. 12:1 Now the LORD had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your family And from your father's house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.”

How many times have you read through that account and thought, “Yes, that’s Abraham, all right; that’s what happened,” only to move on without taking what transpired to heart. Before we delve into this too deep, let’s read a couple of other accounts that clarify from where Abram received the charge to leave home. Admittedly,

1 Time to Leave Ur by Brett Hickey, sermon # 923 2 of 4 my first impression was that God called Abram out of Ur; then, I thought he was called from Haran. Which is correct?

Notice the brief reference in Genesis 15:7, “Then He said to him, ‘I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.’"

Now, let’s move to the gutsy, blistering sermon preached by Stephen that made him the first Christian martyr in Acts 7:2-8, “And he said, ‘Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, "Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.” Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years. ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,' said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.' Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.”

If it was not before, it should now be clear that God came to Abraham BEFORE he dwelt in Haran” in the city of Ur. If you’re like me, you expect Ur to be a little town. Urrrr…Ur… Doesn’t exactly sound like a sprawling metropolis and yet this city, which incidentally means “city,” situated near the famed Euphrates, was a major urrrrban center south of present day Baghdad, Iraq. In his book, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census that compiles the population of cities throughout history, Tertius Chandler ranks Ur the largest city in the world at around 2000 B. C. - approximately the time Abram lived there.

The archaeological evidence from Ur is staggering. Baldwin writes in The Bible for Today Commentary, “Details of the city [Abraham] knew in 2100 BC are known from more than a hundred thousand clay tablets….The population at this time numbered at least a quarter of a million whose well-being depended on commerce and manufacture…. ‘Religion at Babylonia at this time was polytheism of the grossest type…more than three hundred distinct gods were worshipped…’” The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology features "Treasures From the Royal Tombs of Ur" in its exhibition of Iraq's Ancient Past. Archaeological discoveries have been made as recent as April 4th, when “Stuart Campbell of Manchester University’s Archaeology Department says [an administrative center for Ur was found that] … goes back about 4,000 years, around the time Abraham would have lived there.”

Apparently, Abram was living the good life in Metropolis of Ur. There would be no reason to leave and every reason to stay, but God said, “Get out!” Get out of your country and leave your family, friends, and everything you have known to a land I will show you.

It is easy to just read over that and think, “Yeah, okay, he had to leave home. That’s pretty good of Abram and Sarai.” If that’s how you have read it, you have missed what’s going on.

Imagine how you would react if God said, “Up and at ‘em. Time to move. I want you to leave Mountain Home, Grapevine or wherever home is for you – not to vacation in Mexico, Europe or some other popular tourist destination for a week or two; not to go on a missionary trip for a month or two, but I want you to leave FOR GOOD and leave everything behind never to return. That was God’s simple message to Abraham. As with most of what God tells us, his demands are not difficult to understand, but merely difficult to swallow.

Abraham was told to abandon his comfort zone; he was told to leave his family and what appears to be considerable stability. Abram is no teenager looking for adventure. He’s 75 years old; he has roots. Ur is home, but God says leave. You know how special “home” is. Many congregations, especially across the south, have homecoming meetings because children grow up and must leave rural congregations to go to the big city for work; this is difficult but usually they are close enough to go home once or twice a year. This wasn’t the kind of arrangement God was lining up for Abraham. People today who move away from home know exactly where Time to Leave Ur by Brett Hickey, sermon # 923 3 of 4 they are going and often visiting several times and investigating the area and all about the schools, economy, etc. Abraham, though, knew NOTHING about Canaan. This request from God would be more like asking us to move to Siberia, Australia or the moon.

Keep in mind, there were no maps or mapquest, no google, no highway patrol, no Motel 6 to keep the light on, no McDonalds (well, maybe that was a blessing), no convenience stores, no rest areas. There WERE NO mileage markers so whenever anyone would ask, “Are we almost there?” He could always say, “I have absolutely no idea.”

God not tell Abram to head toward a land that I will GIVE you, but “to a land that I will SHOW you.” Abraham knew precious little about this journey, but he knew enough. He knew two things: he knew where the journey would end – Canaan – and he knew where the next step would put him and that was good enough for Abraham. That’s what faith is all about! Abram had faith; he trusted in God. He knew there would be many ups and downs; he knew there would be crises, disappointment, danger and death all along the way, but he also trusted God – he knew God could be counted on. Meanwhile, his fellow man would live their lives trusting their own judgment or the judgment of other men. This fundamental distinction separates those who truly surrender from those who are only pretenders. Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Genuine faith is like this; genuine faith involves absolute trust. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:6-7, “So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Men and women of faith don’t have to understand all the reasons behind God’s directives; they trust God’s will and His judgments; they walk by faith; they obey.

In the gospels, we see that some of the Jews missed what it meant to be the children of Abraham; John the Baptist confronted this misconception in Matthew 3:7-9, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”

Jesus picked up where John left off in John 8:39, “They answered and said to Him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.’” John 8:57, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." The link to Abraham that mattered to God was not genetic, but in demonstrating obedient faith. This is spelled out in Hebrews 11:8-10, “By faith Abraham OBEYED when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

Genuine faith trusts; genuine faith involves risk; genuine faith perseveres through obstacles and setbacks; genuine faith works; living faith – the kind of faith Abraham had – obeys; this faith – and only this faith - saves. Talk about risk: after being blessed with the son of promise after all these years, God has Abraham circumcise eight day old Isaac. That obedience required faith; faith involves risk.

The problem with people today is not unwillingness to risk, but failure to make the right risks, to trust the right one. There are 10 million auto accidents resulting in 35-45,000 deaths every year in the U. S. alone, yet we not only trust ourselves, our automobilies, our teenagers, stoplights, roadsigns, all the other drivers and even hand the keys over to our teenagers, but yet many will not trust God. We play football and let our sons play football even though there are over 43,000 concussions among high school players every year. We let our children ride roller coasters even though there are over 4,400 injuries per year in amusement park riders under age 17. We swim and let our children swim although according to the CDC, there are 3500 unintended drownings every year.

We risk, but many will not take the risks that accompany faith in God. God is telling you to get out if you are in sin this morning. Believing Jesus is the Son of God is not enough, you must be willing to trust God enough to leave your sin and turn your back on the people and places that are dragging you down and holding you back. Time to Leave Ur by Brett Hickey, sermon # 923 4 of 4

1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’" It is Time to Leave Ur and start heading for Canaan.

Others know they are in religious error – they know God is calling them to “Get out!” and yet they are unwilling to risk leaving the familiar to follow God “after the due order” (1 Chronicles 15:13). This reminds me of John 12:42, “Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue…” It’s Time to Leave Ur!

In the sacred ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, instead of following Christ’s example in sharing one loaf and one cup about one hundred years ago germaphobes panicked and said we can no longer observe communion the way Christ instituted it or we will all get sick and die. And so today, those willing to risk driving an automobile, playing football and even riding amusement park rides coasters where thousands of injuries have resulted are unwilling to risk drinking from the common cup where science says NOT ONE illness has ever been traced. Where is our faith? It’s Time to leave Ur! What are people thinking about? Jesus knew all about germs! Imagine suggesting the cup of BLESSING would carry the CURSE of disease to plague those who follow the Lord’s Command and example. (Matthew 26:27-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:2, 23-26). Maybe we need to hear again what God told Peter in Acts 11:7-9, “And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.' But I said, ‘Not so, Lord! For nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.' But the voice answered me again from heaven, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common.'” The faith that trusts, the faith that risks, and the faith that works is also the faith that saves! Stay with us and we’ll tell you how to get a copy of this message, after our song…

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