Abraham: God Builds a Nation

The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. (Genesis 12:1-4 NIV)

This is Movement 2 of The Story: "God builds a brand-new nation called Israel. Through this nation, He will reveal His presence, power and plan to get us back. Every story of Israel will point to the coming of Jesus, the One who will provide the way back to God."

God uses the most unlikely people to accomplish His purposes. He chose Abram and Sarai to make into a nation through which He would reveal Himself and His plan of redemption. They were unlikely because they were old. Abram was 75 years old and Sarai was 65 years old when God chose them and promised to make them into a great nation. They were also childless. Sarai had been infertile for all those years. Besides that, Abram's family served idols (see Joshua 24:2).

if you are reading this and you are in your 70's, just think of God telling you that you're going to have a baby at your tender age. Seems pretty impossible, doesn't it? So why did God choose Abram and Sarai?

God looked past their age and their childlessness and their idolatry and saw their faith.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8 NIV)

And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered Him faithful who had made the promise. (Hebrews 11:11 NIV)

So Abram obeyed God and followed Him to the strange land of Canaan, and all his troubles disappeared and he lived happily ever after, right? Nope. They experienced famine. They experienced separation from their family. And they experienced the hardest thing of all: waiting. It was 25 years from the giving of the promise to the birth of Isaac. By then, Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90!

Romans 4:18-21 gives us insight into how Abraham and Sarah handled the waiting:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Abraham and Sarah saw what God did in their lives over time, and were fully persuaded God was able to do what He promised. Was their faith perfect? No. At one point they tried to take it all into their own hands and give Abraham a son through Sarah's maid, Hagar. At another point, Sarah laughed at the idea she would have the joy of bearing a son at such an old age. But they held on to their faith and they held on to God.

To be sure His new nation would be founded on rock-solid faith, God tested Abraham one more time when He called him to take his then 13-year-old son, Isaac, to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there. His son, whom he loved most of all. The very promise of God put to an end. It seemed to be an impossible choice. But God was not looking for Abraham's sacrifice. He was looking for his surrender.

And so when the moment came when Abraham was about to carry out the sacrifice, God stopped him and provided a ram as a substitute. This points to Jesus! You see, Mount Moriah is the site where Jerusalem was founded. And the place of the sacrifice of the ram in place of Isaac became the place of the sacrifice of the Son of God in place of you and me.

Through Abraham, God builds a nation to reveal Himself to His world, and to point to the redemption He has planned. Abraham's Lower Story is a major piece of the Upper Story of redemption. And your story and my story align with God's great redemption story as we align our lives with Jesus and His purposes. Like Abraham, we can put all our hope and trust in the God of the Bible and His Son, Jesus Christ. To God be the glory!