All of us here own something that we are very familiar with: our suitcase. We use them a lot; and we will be using them a lot. Because something we all have in common is this – we travel a lot. Just think back over the past few years, try and count up the number of planes and buses you've been in. Try and remember the number of times you've pulled your suitcase up and packed it up or another journey.
And it's not just us. It is something all of us a lot Christians do, especially those in ministry. There was some research a few years ago which was looking into the profession that travelled the most. At the top of the list were the journalists; second – Christians in ministry.
Many of you know my old friend Chacko Thomas. His life backs up this research. He is an ordinary man from India. But he is a Christian minister. And that has meant he has lived on the road. He has been to 102 countries, which means he's got another 45 to go to till he's been to every country in the world. Maybe Brother Sam has been to more. And I have no doubt that he visited none of those countries as a tourist, but as a witness of Jesus Christ.
We are people who are on the move. It's in our spiritual DNA, it's in our spiritual genes.
And I can prove that....because when you go back to the father of our faith, Abraham, we find that he was a man who was always on his move.
Let's read just the very first part of his story in Genesis
GENESIS 11:27 – 12:9
Just in these few verses we see there is quite a bit of travelling. Arbraham goes from Ur of the Chaldeans
to Haran; then after his dad dies he moves from Haran to Shechem; then – v 8 – he moves on from Shechem to the east of Bethel and in verse 9 we leave him 'journeying on'. If we were to follow the story we'd see he then took a huge diversion to Egypt, then we find him in Mamre, in chapter 20 we still find him 'journeying on', and then of course in chapter 22 we find him waking a very painful journey with his son Isaac, to the land of Moriah, to worship God.
Abraham, the father of our faith, was a man on the move.
All of us are travellers. We have travelled a lot, and we will be travelling a lot. What can we learn from Abraham, the father of our faith?
I think this passage sums up one of the lessons we can learn in this one sentence.
Abraham learnt how to put God at the centre of his travelling, and so brought fantastic blessing to himself and others.
How do we see this in this passage?
In at least four ways.
1. He learnt from his past. (11:27 - 32)
There are clouds of sadness hanging over the opening of Abraham's story. We are introduced to his family – his father Terah, his brothers, his wife – and we are told about two tragedies. The first is in 28 – his brother died when he was young; his brother died before his father. That is one of the worst things that can happen to any parent. But it happens.
A couple of years ago I was at the funeral of a close friend who had died in his fifties. The opening words of his father were these: 'I never expected to be at my son's funeral'. A few days ago I met a wonderful brother from Brazil. He was a true man of God – a leader in his land. He had six children, and he was showing me the picture. Then he said – we had a seventh. Our son was murdered last year.
Children do die before their parents. It happens. But when it happens it is impossible to think that life then goes on as normal for that family. There is a shadow. And so there was a shadow in Abraham's family.
And then there was a second, more famous, tragedy. Abraham's wife was barren. There they were in Ur of the Chaldeans, all their neighbours were having children. But nothing for Abraham and Sara. 'She had no child'.
A dead son, a barren daughter in law – in a way it's not that surprising that Terah, Abraham's dad, decided to leave
Yes, even though the archaeologists tell us that Ur of the Chaldeans was a fantastic place, full of wealth and culture, for Terah it was place full of bad memories.
He wanted to leave. This was Abraham's first journey. The plan was to leave Ur and make a long trek over to Palestine, the land of Canaan. But in we read in verse 31 that when the family got to Haran – the travelling stopped. 'They settled there'.
And then in verse 32 we read the rather sad verse – and Terah died in Haran. He never made it to where he was planning to go, he never got to the land of Canaan.
Tereh left a place that was full of hard memories; but he never pressed on to where he wanted to go.
That's sad...and Tereh isn't the only one it can happen to. There are many people who leave a place that is full of hard memories – a death, a broken family, a business failure, some sort of persecution – but never get to where they really want to go. They get stuck at Haran.
The Bible doesn't tell us why Tereh stopped at Haran – maybe he ran out of energy, maybe the ice cream shops in Haran were too good – we don't know.
But one thing we do know is this. There is no mention of God in this story. There is nothing about God talking to Tereh or Tereh talking to God either when he left Ur of the Chaldeans, or when he settled in Haran.
And I think there is something else we know: Abraham learnt from this. He learnt from his past. He looked back and saw some of the things that had been going on and came to the conclusion there was more to life than just leaving a place where you have bad memories and settling in another place that has decent ice cream shops.
Abraham learnt from his past – and so in the next section we find him very ready for change.
We too can learn from this story.
It is not that Tereh is a big sinner; it's not that Haran is like Sodom – it's just that you sense the story is saying that God had more for him. That this 'settling in Haran' was never the final plan, but Tereh allowed it to become the final plan.
That is something to learn from. Tereh travelled – but there was no talking with God. And so at the end he got stuck.
None of us want that to be our story.
Let's move on to the second part of the story and see what Abraham learned.
2. He learned that God is involved.
The story makes it pretty clear that Abraham was tied up while his father was alive. But in 12:1 we read – Now.
Now – now that Tereh has died, now that Abraham is the head of the family, now something can happen.
God starts talking.
God starts talking because He knew Abraham would be ready to listen. And the message is – Go, move out, start travelling – to the land I will show you and there will be a blessing.
It's so simple. Your father started travelling but he didn't touch base with God. And Abraham learnt from his past that this didn't bring the best. Now he learns that God can be involved. And now he starts travelling – but it is radically different.
Abraham is travelling not because something bad has happened in Ur of the Chaldeans, he is travelling because God has told him to.
As the writer of Hebrews tells us – he hasn't got the foggiest where he is going, but he trusts God's promise that He will be shown.
He learns that God can be involved in our travelling. That's the huge difference between the travelling we Christians do, and the travelling of the tourists and journalists.
So Abraham obeys. V 4 stresses this...Abraham went – as the Lord had told him. You get the idea from verse 5 that it was quite a big move and I can imagine there was a strong 'let's stay in Haran' campaign among his family.
But Abraham had learned that God was involved; God has spoken. So Abraham obeyed.
That's a lesson for all of us. That God is involved in our travels. It is not just that we pack our suitcases like tourists. No, we pack our suitcases with a sense of God's involvement, that God is sending us, and we're obeying.
And like Abraham, often we too don't know where we'll end up...I certainly didn't when I set out to travel in 1982, but God then showed me Pakistan. I had no idea that a certain beautiful Iranian lady would be there, God did. He led me there, I obeyed, and what a blessing. If I had not gone to Pakistan, I would not have met Mojdeh, and so almost certainly would not have been here today.
3. Abraham learned that God appears
Abraham learnt from his past; he learnt that God is involved in our travels – and then in verse 7 he learns that God appears.
It wasn't all just blind unemotional obedience. Abraham's relationship with God changed. He received a revelation. Yes – he believed, yes he had faith...but then by the oaks of Moreh he had this revelation. It all became more real. God appeared.
The order of events here makes God's ways very easy to understand.
First Abraham obeyed and started travelling; then God appeared.
This is also somehting we all need to keep on learning. We are not just dealing with a God who sends us texts. ...do this, do that, go here, go there.
No, we have a God who sometimes switches on the camera button and He appears. We can sense something, see something, we have an experience of God's presence.
My Mojdeh tells a wonderful story about a lady at one of her conferences who was upset that Jesus had not appeared in one of her dreams. Mojdeh told her that God had more for her. And so one night they met for prayer. The lady was quite fidgety and at first it wasn't an easy time of prayer. But – she was obeying. And so she and Mojdeh stayed praying...and then the appearance came. This lady got up and started dancing and moving about the room for about an hour or so. Mojdeh just watched. The next day when she came down for breakfast, everyone knew she had had an experience. The Lord had appeared.
That is something Abraham learned; it is something we too must learn.
4. Abraham learned to build an altar
After this revelation, Abraham does what we all would do. He worships.
So, in the second half of verse 7 we read that there by the oaks of Moreh, Abraham built his first altar to the Lord.
He then moves on to the east of Bethel...and after he has pitched his tent again we see him, building an altar to the Lord.
Abraham has learnt to make God the centre of his travelling.
Yes – he is on the move, but wherever he pitches his tent, wherever he stays for a while, the altar goes up.
The altar says that Abraham is a living sacrifice for God. It is a sign that his whole life is on that altar. That is what it means to have God at the centre of our travelling. It is not that God is a tourist guide, giving us advice on where we are meant to go. No, our travelling is – like the altar – an act of worship. And as we know, later Abraham's most precious son would be on that altar. When the servants asked Abraham where he was going – he said, we're going to that mountain to worship. What a journey that was.
It is beautiful to note that Abraham builds his altar for his travels, in response to God's travelling to Him. God spoke to him, God appeared to him, God came to him.
And Abraham's response was to give his all.
We have even more reason to build an altar for our travelling. For God has also come to us – he has, 'pitched his tent' among us (John 1:14), and more – Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son Isaac on his altar. But God sacrificed His son. He made him to be sin who knew no sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's the love of God...that even when we were sinners, he sent Christ to die for us.
Abraham learnt to make God the centre of his travelling and this has brought fantastic blessings to others. Millions and millions of people today look back to that man who heard God and set out not knowing where he was going to and say, Father Abraham. His travelling has brought many to faith.
One of those blessings is also that he speaks to us today
to learn from our past
to learn that God is involved in our travelling
to learn that God appears
to learn that we must also 'build an altar' to the Lord wherever we are.
A great Bible teacher, Watchman Nee, learned from Abraham. In the 1930's and 40's he travelled all over China teaching and preaching. God was involved in his travels; he certainly had an experience of God and he and his wife certainly built an altar to God.
The communists sent Watchman Nee to prison in 1952. Here he endured eight hours or hard labour; eight hours of indoctrination; and eight hours in a small cell. He never came out of that prison. After twenty years he died in 1972. When his niece came to pick up his belongings – hardly anything – the guard gave her a small note that was found on his bed. On it was written this -
Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and was resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee’
Wathman Nee walked the journey God had appointed him; and the result – blessing for others.
When he went to prison in 1952 Watchman Nee after travelling all over China was the leader of about 100,000 house church Christians.
That was about 15% of the then known church. Those 100,000 have had many many children. Today Watchman Nee is the grand father of millions and millions of Christians.
Like Abraham let's make sure we keep on travelling with God in the centre – and there will be fantastic blessing for others.
May it be the same for us, even if we have to change our suitcases a few times.
And it's not just us. It is something all of us a lot Christians do, especially those in ministry. There was some research a few years ago which was looking into the profession that travelled the most. At the top of the list were the journalists; second – Christians in ministry.
Many of you know my old friend Chacko Thomas. His life backs up this research. He is an ordinary man from India. But he is a Christian minister. And that has meant he has lived on the road. He has been to 102 countries, which means he's got another 45 to go to till he's been to every country in the world. Maybe Brother Sam has been to more. And I have no doubt that he visited none of those countries as a tourist, but as a witness of Jesus Christ.
We are people who are on the move. It's in our spiritual DNA, it's in our spiritual genes.
And I can prove that....because when you go back to the father of our faith, Abraham, we find that he was a man who was always on his move.
Let's read just the very first part of his story in Genesis
GENESIS 11:27 – 12:9
Just in these few verses we see there is quite a bit of travelling. Arbraham goes from Ur of the Chaldeans
to Haran; then after his dad dies he moves from Haran to Shechem; then – v 8 – he moves on from Shechem to the east of Bethel and in verse 9 we leave him 'journeying on'. If we were to follow the story we'd see he then took a huge diversion to Egypt, then we find him in Mamre, in chapter 20 we still find him 'journeying on', and then of course in chapter 22 we find him waking a very painful journey with his son Isaac, to the land of Moriah, to worship God.
Abraham, the father of our faith, was a man on the move.
All of us are travellers. We have travelled a lot, and we will be travelling a lot. What can we learn from Abraham, the father of our faith?
I think this passage sums up one of the lessons we can learn in this one sentence.
Abraham learnt how to put God at the centre of his travelling, and so brought fantastic blessing to himself and others.
How do we see this in this passage?
In at least four ways.
1. He learnt from his past. (11:27 - 32)
There are clouds of sadness hanging over the opening of Abraham's story. We are introduced to his family – his father Terah, his brothers, his wife – and we are told about two tragedies. The first is in 28 – his brother died when he was young; his brother died before his father. That is one of the worst things that can happen to any parent. But it happens.
A couple of years ago I was at the funeral of a close friend who had died in his fifties. The opening words of his father were these: 'I never expected to be at my son's funeral'. A few days ago I met a wonderful brother from Brazil. He was a true man of God – a leader in his land. He had six children, and he was showing me the picture. Then he said – we had a seventh. Our son was murdered last year.
Children do die before their parents. It happens. But when it happens it is impossible to think that life then goes on as normal for that family. There is a shadow. And so there was a shadow in Abraham's family.
And then there was a second, more famous, tragedy. Abraham's wife was barren. There they were in Ur of the Chaldeans, all their neighbours were having children. But nothing for Abraham and Sara. 'She had no child'.
A dead son, a barren daughter in law – in a way it's not that surprising that Terah, Abraham's dad, decided to leave
Yes, even though the archaeologists tell us that Ur of the Chaldeans was a fantastic place, full of wealth and culture, for Terah it was place full of bad memories.
He wanted to leave. This was Abraham's first journey. The plan was to leave Ur and make a long trek over to Palestine, the land of Canaan. But in we read in verse 31 that when the family got to Haran – the travelling stopped. 'They settled there'.
And then in verse 32 we read the rather sad verse – and Terah died in Haran. He never made it to where he was planning to go, he never got to the land of Canaan.
Tereh left a place that was full of hard memories; but he never pressed on to where he wanted to go.
That's sad...and Tereh isn't the only one it can happen to. There are many people who leave a place that is full of hard memories – a death, a broken family, a business failure, some sort of persecution – but never get to where they really want to go. They get stuck at Haran.
The Bible doesn't tell us why Tereh stopped at Haran – maybe he ran out of energy, maybe the ice cream shops in Haran were too good – we don't know.
But one thing we do know is this. There is no mention of God in this story. There is nothing about God talking to Tereh or Tereh talking to God either when he left Ur of the Chaldeans, or when he settled in Haran.
And I think there is something else we know: Abraham learnt from this. He learnt from his past. He looked back and saw some of the things that had been going on and came to the conclusion there was more to life than just leaving a place where you have bad memories and settling in another place that has decent ice cream shops.
Abraham learnt from his past – and so in the next section we find him very ready for change.
We too can learn from this story.
It is not that Tereh is a big sinner; it's not that Haran is like Sodom – it's just that you sense the story is saying that God had more for him. That this 'settling in Haran' was never the final plan, but Tereh allowed it to become the final plan.
That is something to learn from. Tereh travelled – but there was no talking with God. And so at the end he got stuck.
None of us want that to be our story.
Let's move on to the second part of the story and see what Abraham learned.
2. He learned that God is involved.
The story makes it pretty clear that Abraham was tied up while his father was alive. But in 12:1 we read – Now.
Now – now that Tereh has died, now that Abraham is the head of the family, now something can happen.
God starts talking.
God starts talking because He knew Abraham would be ready to listen. And the message is – Go, move out, start travelling – to the land I will show you and there will be a blessing.
It's so simple. Your father started travelling but he didn't touch base with God. And Abraham learnt from his past that this didn't bring the best. Now he learns that God can be involved. And now he starts travelling – but it is radically different.
Abraham is travelling not because something bad has happened in Ur of the Chaldeans, he is travelling because God has told him to.
As the writer of Hebrews tells us – he hasn't got the foggiest where he is going, but he trusts God's promise that He will be shown.
He learns that God can be involved in our travelling. That's the huge difference between the travelling we Christians do, and the travelling of the tourists and journalists.
So Abraham obeys. V 4 stresses this...Abraham went – as the Lord had told him. You get the idea from verse 5 that it was quite a big move and I can imagine there was a strong 'let's stay in Haran' campaign among his family.
But Abraham had learned that God was involved; God has spoken. So Abraham obeyed.
That's a lesson for all of us. That God is involved in our travels. It is not just that we pack our suitcases like tourists. No, we pack our suitcases with a sense of God's involvement, that God is sending us, and we're obeying.
And like Abraham, often we too don't know where we'll end up...I certainly didn't when I set out to travel in 1982, but God then showed me Pakistan. I had no idea that a certain beautiful Iranian lady would be there, God did. He led me there, I obeyed, and what a blessing. If I had not gone to Pakistan, I would not have met Mojdeh, and so almost certainly would not have been here today.
3. Abraham learned that God appears
Abraham learnt from his past; he learnt that God is involved in our travels – and then in verse 7 he learns that God appears.
It wasn't all just blind unemotional obedience. Abraham's relationship with God changed. He received a revelation. Yes – he believed, yes he had faith...but then by the oaks of Moreh he had this revelation. It all became more real. God appeared.
The order of events here makes God's ways very easy to understand.
First Abraham obeyed and started travelling; then God appeared.
This is also somehting we all need to keep on learning. We are not just dealing with a God who sends us texts. ...do this, do that, go here, go there.
No, we have a God who sometimes switches on the camera button and He appears. We can sense something, see something, we have an experience of God's presence.
My Mojdeh tells a wonderful story about a lady at one of her conferences who was upset that Jesus had not appeared in one of her dreams. Mojdeh told her that God had more for her. And so one night they met for prayer. The lady was quite fidgety and at first it wasn't an easy time of prayer. But – she was obeying. And so she and Mojdeh stayed praying...and then the appearance came. This lady got up and started dancing and moving about the room for about an hour or so. Mojdeh just watched. The next day when she came down for breakfast, everyone knew she had had an experience. The Lord had appeared.
That is something Abraham learned; it is something we too must learn.
4. Abraham learned to build an altar
After this revelation, Abraham does what we all would do. He worships.
So, in the second half of verse 7 we read that there by the oaks of Moreh, Abraham built his first altar to the Lord.
He then moves on to the east of Bethel...and after he has pitched his tent again we see him, building an altar to the Lord.
Abraham has learnt to make God the centre of his travelling.
Yes – he is on the move, but wherever he pitches his tent, wherever he stays for a while, the altar goes up.
The altar says that Abraham is a living sacrifice for God. It is a sign that his whole life is on that altar. That is what it means to have God at the centre of our travelling. It is not that God is a tourist guide, giving us advice on where we are meant to go. No, our travelling is – like the altar – an act of worship. And as we know, later Abraham's most precious son would be on that altar. When the servants asked Abraham where he was going – he said, we're going to that mountain to worship. What a journey that was.
It is beautiful to note that Abraham builds his altar for his travels, in response to God's travelling to Him. God spoke to him, God appeared to him, God came to him.
And Abraham's response was to give his all.
We have even more reason to build an altar for our travelling. For God has also come to us – he has, 'pitched his tent' among us (John 1:14), and more – Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son Isaac on his altar. But God sacrificed His son. He made him to be sin who knew no sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's the love of God...that even when we were sinners, he sent Christ to die for us.
Abraham learnt to make God the centre of his travelling and this has brought fantastic blessings to others. Millions and millions of people today look back to that man who heard God and set out not knowing where he was going to and say, Father Abraham. His travelling has brought many to faith.
One of those blessings is also that he speaks to us today
to learn from our past
to learn that God is involved in our travelling
to learn that God appears
to learn that we must also 'build an altar' to the Lord wherever we are.
A great Bible teacher, Watchman Nee, learned from Abraham. In the 1930's and 40's he travelled all over China teaching and preaching. God was involved in his travels; he certainly had an experience of God and he and his wife certainly built an altar to God.
The communists sent Watchman Nee to prison in 1952. Here he endured eight hours or hard labour; eight hours of indoctrination; and eight hours in a small cell. He never came out of that prison. After twenty years he died in 1972. When his niece came to pick up his belongings – hardly anything – the guard gave her a small note that was found on his bed. On it was written this -
Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and was resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee’
Wathman Nee walked the journey God had appointed him; and the result – blessing for others.
When he went to prison in 1952 Watchman Nee after travelling all over China was the leader of about 100,000 house church Christians.
That was about 15% of the then known church. Those 100,000 have had many many children. Today Watchman Nee is the grand father of millions and millions of Christians.
Like Abraham let's make sure we keep on travelling with God in the centre – and there will be fantastic blessing for others.
May it be the same for us, even if we have to change our suitcases a few times.
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