It's 27-32. This is the account of Terra. Terra became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran, and Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terra was still alive, Haran died in the ear of the Caldeans in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milka. She was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milka and Iska. Now Sarai was barren. She had no children. Terra took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from ear of the Caldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran they settled there. Terra lived 205 years, and he died in Haran. This is the word of the Lord. Today I want us to begin a new series of study. If you've been in town a while, you know that I like to take chunks of a few months at a time and do a series of reflections from a biblical book or a biblical theme. The theme I want us to take up for the fall, beginning today because this is, even though it's not the first day of the fall, it's first Sunday the fall. See this Sunday or next Sunday. But what I want us to begin reflecting on is the life of a biblical character named Abraham. And I'm calling this series very intentionally the gospel according to Abraham. For you see Christians are very passionate and love, not just the new testament. The gospel is all the letters by the Apostle Paul, but we are equally passionate about the Old Testament. For some very particular reasons. I'll tell you a story that kind of sets it up if you you read in the New Testament of the Gospel of Luke chapter 24. There's a wonderful story about Jesus Christ after his resurrection. And he encountered some guys who were on their way, they don't know that he's been raised from the dead. And they're walking from Jerusalem to their town called Emmaus. They bump into Jesus. They don't know who he is. And he reveals himself to them. And we're told, and this is one of those passages that I think really sets the imagination going. We're told that Jesus Christ walked with them, revealed himself to them, and then the text says, and beginning with Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, he revealed to them all that had been written there. That is, all the Old Testament scriptures, all that had been written there concerning himself, his sufferings, and the glory to come. Now that's, you know, boy, Odo have had a tape recorder. Make sure we, you know, get it all. But Jesus Christ basically sang all this stuff in the first part of the book here. It has a theme. And you want to know what the theme is? Me. It's all about me. And so Christians have always believed that if you want to know about Jesus, you don't just turn to the gospels. If you want to really understand Jesus, you don't just turn to the gospels. You don't just turn to the epistles. You really have to turn to the whole thing. Even the begat parts. Notice today I began as on one of those, you know, so-and-so begat and married so-and-so, and married so-and-so, and then he died and boy was healed. One of those texts, even one of those, you see, is an important part of really getting your hands around who Jesus Christ was. One of the great church fathers, Augustin, put it in the way, by way of a little aphorism that I think we're hanging on to. The New Testament is in the Old Concealed. The Old Testament is in the New Revealed. The New Testament is in the Old Concealed. The Old Testament is in the New Revealed. And when it comes to this particular plan, see Jesus is at the-he is the apex. He is at the center of God's great plan that the whole Bible is about. A plan that is about your life, too. God's great plan. And understand that plan, you see, you have to understand that Jesus is at the center of it all. And not only is he at the center of it all, but there's a wonderful drama around his being at the center of it all. Prophets were told in the New Testament, searched to understand what the plan was ultimately about. We're even told in the book of Hebrews that the angels in heaven longed to know, what is the plan? What's really going on in all this great drama? Even the disciples who for three years were around Jesus didn't quite get it until he had been raised from the dead. And yet, and I just think this is a wonderful irony. Jesus raises from the is raised from the dead and says, but it was all alone written down there in the Old Testament. It was always there. He just weren't looking. You weren't reading. You weren't paying attention. So what I want us to do is look at the gospel according to Abraham. Let's read with our eyes open. Let's fully try to see what the life of this man who lived so many thousands of years ago can tell us about knowing what the real plan is, the real story that sort of underlies all the other stories, the story of Jesus. It's what we call it, the gospel. Now, I guess the first thing we need to talk about is the fact that there is in fact a plan. There's a plan that underlines all the Bible and there is a plan, if you will, there's a purpose that underlies this story of Genesis as well. I have to go back to the beginning. You see, Genesis is a book that means beginnings and it actually does begin at the beginning, our creation. And what happened to that creation? You see, the Bible tells us is that this personal God created a universe for himself. He being a being in relation to himself, this God of love created us for relationship with himself, to love him, to know him, to bring glory to him. But the story of the first chapters of Genesis tells the story about what went wrong, the fact that we turned away from God. We turned in on ourselves and we turned on each other and because of that sin, the relationship with God is broken. And that is the story that unfolds, the plan that unfolds. We're told that when Adam and Eve sin, when they fall, they're cast out of Eden, they're cast out of that place of integration with God and his love and his purposes. When they're cast out, a promise is given to them. And that promise in Genesis chapter 3 is very simply just as this evil presence has lured them away. We're told that there is going to be a seed from this woman, that is a descendant, a human descendant from Eve, a descendant from this woman who is going to destroy the evil and make things right. You see, even though there's a judgment on them, there's this promise. And the book of Genesis begins to unfold the story of the seed that's going to come. Now, you promise you'll read the book. If you read the book of Genesis, you know that there's a list of 10 generations. Now, that doesn't mean it was 10 generations. It's a literary artistic device known as telescope ink, where significant names are listed for various purposes, but there are 10 names given. And then as part of a literary device in the book of Genesis, at the 10th name, something big happens. The 10th name represents God. If you will, phasing in a major implementation of the plan. And of course, the first 10 is Noah. And that was a big part of the plan. Because you see with Noah, what had happened? Well, God promises through your seed, I'm going to bring a deliverer. But what happened to their seeds? It was pretty, you know, it looked pretty, the plan looked shaky at the beginning. Because what happened? The good seed, the bad seed killed the good seed. That's not a great, you know, a great start for the plan to our eyes, is it? Can the good seed, we find out Abel's bad seed. But what? I mean, Abel's good seed. Canes bad seed. I'm giving a minute. It's, you know, it got in coffee. Let me illustrate. The bad seed kills the good seed. But God has not thrown off another seed set. Another child comes into the world. And those early stories in Genesis, the story of Abel, the judgment that comes. Well, those are the descendants of Cain, the people who begin to turn away from God and turn away with a vengeance. That's the judgment that happens at the Tower of Babel in the early chapters of Genesis. And then there are the seeds you see of Seth. And that is who Noah is a descendant of. So you go 10 generations and then there's Noah and God preserves this promise of the plan. The deliverer who's going to come, he's preserved in the family of Noah while judgment is brought on the rest of the earth. And it continues again. But you see the antithesis. The battle, if you will, continues. God preserving and saving in the midst of those who hate him and turn their back on him. And you come to the 10th generation again. And this time, the name is Abram. And in Abram, you have another major shift of God acting. Now, what is God's action? Well, as you're going to be seeing, he promises, again, this great salvation and blessing that will come to the world by giving a promise of a seed to Abraham, the same thing. Now, let me ask you a couple of questions. I said we're going to talk about what the big plan here is. Here's a big question. Who's telling us this story? When we read this, did that run across your mind? Who's telling you this story anyway? Now, this story, was it written in the time of Abraham? It's written many, many, many years later. In fact, these stories come from the time of Moses, probably originally from the preaching of Moses. And what is Moses doing? Well, remember, the children of Israel did, indeed, go to this land of Canaan, but they had to leave it in the time of famine. And where did they find themselves? They found themselves slaves in the land of Egypt for nearly 400 years, or over 400 years. And Moses was sent as a deliverer to bring them out. And so, he takes people imagine that the humanizing effects psychologically, sociologically, on a group of people who have been dehumanized with the liars of slavery. You know, think of your baggage from your own homes. Maybe if you have any, or your own life. Think of the way lies about you. Think about the ways those things have hurt you, and multiply that by whatever number you want to to get an approximation of what happens to the mind and soul of someone oppressed by slavery. Where murder is a daily occurrence, where lies about your value are pummeled into you with everything around you, where Moses is taking this group of people who have been oppressed. God leads them out into a wilderness of all places, and says, out here in the desert, I will breathe my life with you. The lies will stop, and you will know that the plan is for you. The plan is for your life. That's what this is all about. Moses is telling this story. See, even though it's about Abraham, it's a story that's written for people who've either forgotten, or who don't know that there's a plan, and that plan's for you. That plan involves you, which is why we look at it because you see, if I may go yet another level, even though so many did listen and did believe through those centuries, ultimately the people of Israel rejected the promise of this deliverer, the promise of the seed, and judgment came upon them, and they were oppressed in their land yet again. And it is in that context that Jesus Christ comes upon the scene, where everything, again, has become seemingly hopeless. Jesus comes on the scene and shows that these promises, a home, a place where you flourish. Those things aren't ultimately promises just about a little post-estant of land in Palestine, but there are promises about the future of the human planet, because Jesus Christ himself, because he has entered the world, God himself, and has taken upon him the guilt and sin of his people, and has been raised from the dead, because of that with authority he can say, I will inherit the earth, and all the meek, all the poor, those who look to me, the poor in spirit, if you look to me, you will inherit the home with me. My home will be your home. See, that's the plan. He brings the fullness of the plant, so you can see now how a Christian sort of puts the glasses on and looks backwards, and says, you see, because I've seen what God did in Jesus Christ, I can look back and know the story, the plan, of how the promises have come to me, so that you can know. How do I know I have a home? How do I know that I matter? It's because Jesus received all of these promises that God made, and Jesus is going to make good on them. Now, what I want you to see also about this text, it's not just this concept that there is a big plan that culminates in what Jesus Christ is doing, but secondly, I want you to see that within the plan, it's all in the plan. There's nothing in the plan that's not supposed to be there, and look at some of the stuff, or another way to put it is like a good cook, God doesn't waste anything. All the stuff, all the details go into the plan, it's all part of Abraham's story. Did you notice here that the idea of going to Canaan wasn't even Abrams? There's a marker throughout these stories. This is the account of Noah, a literary device to introduce a change of gears. This is the account of Noah, this is the account of Jacob, it's a little marker, but the Abrams story doesn't begin with, this is the account of Abrams, does it? How does it begin? This is the account of Tara, which is to say, God's plan, God's purposes to bless, they encompass all the stuff that goes before in your life. Now, that's a hard thing to swallow for many people, because there's a lot that has gone on in your life earlier, that is very painful to you. Maybe you feel broken because of it. Maybe you feel still a lot of pain in your life because of it, and I am sure, in an age of no man's, it probably seemed with no consequence for Tara to wake up one day, and okay, pack up the tents, we're going to Canaan, where's Canaan? I don't know, but we're going. And then, not only that, but his dad apparently isn't very good at making up his mind, because they never even get to Canaan. They get halfway to Iran, and they settle there. But that's how Abraham's journey begins. His journey begins with choices he didn't even make. They began with other people, other things, consequences beyond his control. But you see, people of faith, Christians look at our lives, even the very painful things, through this perspective, and let me just read you a passage from Romans 8. All things work together for good, for those who were called according to God's purpose. There's a plan that encompasses all of it. It's all being worked together. Now, that's not to say that it's all good. I mean, let's just think of some of these stories we have in the Old Testament. Moses, we think of him in his glory, leading people, a mighty instrument of God, but how much of his life was chef, was preparation, the vast majority of it. Moses spent 40 years as a shepherd in the middle of nowhere. He began his life, was promised a prince of Egypt, right? He saw the cartoon, all the promise in the world, but what happens? One wrong choice, one choice where he commits murder, one choice, and his whole life falls apart, and he finds himself in a dead end job for a long time. The Bible says, when it comes to, if you know God and you believe in his promises, hear this from Ephesians 2, our lives we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do. No matter where you are, no matter where you find yourself, if you look to Jesus Christ, that is true. He is preparing you, and there are significant things he wants to call you to. But there may be long periods of preparation, and there may be things in there you can't explain. You want to ask why? And there's not going to be an answer of why, just a promise that he's working all those things toward this purpose. Take Sarai, toward your Sarai. You notice how this is written about her in chapter 11? No, did you notice verse 30? Now Sarai was barren, in a culture which even more so than now, women were valued solely for their capacity to bear children. That was it. All the pressure in the world, everything in culture said, you must have children and Sarai could not. And you notice even the writer here wants to make sure you hear how tragic that was. He says, now Sarai was barren, and then he says it again, she had no children to make sure you hear it. Do you know what Sarai's experience was like? Until she was a very old woman, her prayer life was basically an experience of feeling like her prayer should be sealing. Her one prayer went unanswered year after year after year. That was what her experience was. But God had a plan, you see. And no matter what your experience is, don't you see the only thing that is required for a story to change is for it to be caught up in a greater story. And that's how the first part of the sermon affects the second part of the sermon. Is no matter where you are, no matter what has happened to you, the gospel can be your story. God's purposes can become your purposes. Think of David being oppressed by a cultural system that said because you're the youngest, you're nothing. You'll never inherit anything. You'll never go anywhere. You will not have the advantages of others. And not only that, animosity and his family shoving him down, pushing him out, but God used all those things to teach him the courage he needed to do the great things that God had prepared him for. See it was all part of the plan. It was all worked together. You may not get your whys answered. Why did God allow this? Why did God allow that? Why do you need to work this into the plan? This is not a good part of the plan. But the promise is exactly that that I'm at work. You see, think about what I'm saying about Jesus and plug it into your life. There's no such thing as a Christian cynic. There's no such thing as a Christian skeptic. Why? Faith simply won't tolerate it. Why won't faith tolerate it? Because you're building your life on the premise that God raised somebody from the dead. Okay, there are no dead ends. What is your whole life? What does it mean to be a Christian? I build my whole life that God took all the brokenness the world could throw, all the judgment that would ever rightly come at evil. And he focused it in a single point on his son. And he swallowed it, he absorbed it, dead itself. The enemy that we all fear, he swallowed it, and he overcame it. And that is now the world literally turns in the other direction now. Things work differently. And that is where I begin and I plant myself. And that is my story. My story, that story you see. Paul says, well you're crucified with Christ. That is my brokenness. My emptiness is now caught up in his life. So the his story becomes my story. A simple way to put it is the gospel changes everything. There's no circumstance in your life whether inflicted by another person. Maybe you have psychological wounds. And it is part of the way you wake up every day. Maybe you have physiological issues. Maybe there are, maybe you have a chemical imbalance or you fight depression. There are things about your temperament that you wish you could change, but you cannot. There are things about your health. You wish you could change, but you cannot. There are things about your record and your past. Can we give anything? If you could change it, but you can't. Don't you see, the gospel changes everything because you are part of his story now. And all of it, let me see, if resurrection is your future, help foolish to talk about plan B. There is no plan B. The gospel changes everything. Everything about you. Everything about your story becomes caught up in his story so that new birth and new life is what dominates. It is what characterizes the Christian. Christians are not merely mouth, cheap smiling optimists, but they are resurrection hopefulists. We are always hopeful because there is a story that changes us. So, if you are unhappily single, if your marriage seems hopeless, if your career is out of steam and you feel like your gifts are just being misused, maybe you feel like you have messed up raising your kids. No, I know you feel like you have messed up raising your kids, or you may even look at your age and say, most of my life is behind me. Here is a story of the gospel that takes a man at the end of his life. Isn't it wonderful how scripture does that? It takes people at the very end of their lives who have made unbelievable mistakes and says, watch, that's what the gospel is. There is no aspect of your life that a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in him, cannot breathe life. And such a life that you can say, this is why I was put on the earth. This is why I am here, all that woven together for this purpose. That is the gospel that changes everything. Let's pray. Our Father, thank you for the stories, thank you for the stories of scripture that are more than stories, their truth, their history, their real lives. And we thank you that you were still in the business of weaving stories into your story. We thank you that you're still in the business of taking our mistakes, of taking our brokenness and healing it and uniting us to the life, the risen life of your Son Jesus. I would pray for this church, for each person here, that his story, the story we see in Abraham's life, that is the story of Jesus and his victory would be the color that breaks out in every aspect of our own story, that it would be an uncontainable reality that catches up every part of our being. We pray this, we ask this and the name of the great Redeemer Jesus. Amen.