[Read Genesis 12:1-9]
I often mention the idea that Christians live in a variety of tensions—not anxiety-type tension, but tensions between two ideas/concepts. One of the big tensions we live in is that on the one hand we’ve been set free from our sin in Christ, but we still continue to sin. There’s tension in that. Another tension we see in scripture is the fact that right now Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God, ruling and reigning over the earth, but things are still really messy here because his reign hasn’t been fully established here on earth. There’s tension here.
One of the ways Christians have explained this tension over the years is through the concept of the already, not-yet. Scripture talks about the fact that we’ve already been saved, but are not-yet fully saved. Scripture will talk about the fact that we’ve already been sanctified, but are not-yet fully sanctified. Scripture will say that Jesus has already defeated Satan, but has not-yet fully defeated Satan, or that Jesus Christ is already ruling over the earth, but his kingdom has not yet been fully established. This is an extremely important concept to understand because it’s spread throughout most of Christian teaching.
Whenever you live in an already, not-yet situation you need to live with a certain level of tension. And to build on that a little further, whenever you live with a certain level of tension, there’s always the possibility of losing the tension and falling into one side of the ditch or the other. You can overemphasize the not-yet aspect, which typically results in apathy and inaction. You’ll hear people say things like, “Well, nobody’s perfect…” in relation to a lack of sanctification in their life. Or in relation to Jesus ruling and reigning over the earth, you’ll hear people act like it’s pointless to work and act in this world right now because this isn’t the kingdom—this world is not my home, I’m only passing through.
Yet, you can also overemphasize the already aspect of any of these things. People who overemphasize the already aspect of sanctification will believe that they can become perfect in this life and will look down on everyone else who is not as perfect as they are. Or, people who overemphasize the already aspect of the Kingdom of God on earth will be overly triumphalistic in their understanding of how we engage with culture—overly expecting to win every battle and win every square inch.
The question for us this morning is what does it look like to live as people who are in exile in the world? Or, if you paid attention to the title of my sermon: What does it look like to live as a Pilgrim People in the world? When we look at this morning's passage we’ll see that a massive part of living as a Pilgrim People is living in the tension of the already, not-yet.
It begins with a clear message from God to Abram: “Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house…” (Genesis 12:1, ESV). In response to this, one commentator said, "To leave home and to break ancestral bonds was to expect of ancient men almost the impossible." (Greidanus, 151). This was a massive command from God to Abram. Leave. Leave it all behind.
In order to understand this command, it’s important to understand what some of these terms mean. I think we understand what it means to leave your country, but what does “kindred” mean? In searching through various Hebrew dictionaries, it has a wide range of possible meaning. It could refer to your birth place, your place of origin, or the people of your nation. That sounds kinda the same as country, doesn’t it? The difference is possibly that “country” is referring to the land, and “kindred” is referring to the people.
Then what does he mean by “your father’s house”? I don’t think this means his father’s literal house. Throughout scripture someone's “house” means their family, their relatives, or even their future lineage. So, again, I think this is God’s way of telling Abraham to leave his extended family behind. It seems like each of these three things—country, kindred, and relatives—are closely connected and that it is repeated to emphasize the completeness of God’s command. I want you to leave everything behind and follow me—this also included leaving behind his false gods.
There is some discussion about where Abram leaves from. If you’re just reading this passage, you could easily believe that Abram left from Haran. Yet, that’s not the full story. Just a few chapters later God will say this to Abram, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans …” (Genesis 15:7, ESV). So, God’s call came to Abram in Ur—not Haran. That’s why they left Ur in the first place because of God’s call to leave everything behind.
There are a few reasons why God calls Abram to do this. Calvin points out that God doesn’t call Abram to do this because he finds pleasure in having his people do hard and difficult things. Rather, God is doing this to strip away every false hope from Abram, so that he could be certain that God is the one who is going to do a work in him. It wouldn’t be a result of the country he lived in. It wouldn’t be a result of his family support system. It wouldn’t be the result of his father’s work. It wouldn’t even be a result of Abram’s work. God stripped all of those things away so that Abram could be certain that God is the one who is doing the work.
Not only does God strip away all of those things, but he doesn’t even tell Abram where he’s going. We read, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1, ESV). Leave it all behind and you don’t know where you’re going. I will show you. Earlier, we read that they left Ur for Canaan and later we read that they leave Haran for Canaan. So, you might be tempted to think that they knew they were going to Canaan. I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think they knew where they were going. I think that’s simply an editorial comment—kinda like saying, “They didn’t know it yet, but they set out for Canaan.” That would also explain the weird route they took. Haran is not even close to being on the way from Ur to Canaan. When God told them to go to a place He would show them, they left and started walking, trusting him to eventually show them the land that he had for them.
God didn’t send Abram out empty handed—per se. He sent him with a promise: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2–3, ESV). This promise would be with Abram for the rest of his life—the rest of his family’s life, and to be honest, for the rest of the history of God’s people.
God tells Abram: Leave everything behind, and I will make you a great nation and will bless you. That’s some promise, but it also could easily have been a hard promise for Abram to believe, right? I mean we’ve already been told that Abram was married to a woman who couldn’t have children. So, how was that going to work? Yet, Abram believes the promise.
Notice that the promise is actually much bigger than Abram. Pay close attention to the first line of that promise: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2, ESV). Notice that “so that” in there? That’s pointing to the purpose of Abram being blessed and being a great nation. The purpose of those blessings are so that he would be a blessing. That’s always the goal of God’s blessings. I typically say that we’re not called to sit back and get fat on God’s blessings. That’s never the reason or the goal of God’s blessings. We’re actually called to use the blessings of God to be a blessing to those around us. And actually, God tells Abram that this is going to happen through him to a massive degree to the point that “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3, ESV). God will pour out so much blessing on Abram that eventually the entire world will be blessed through him. That’s pretty powerful stuff.
So, Abram believes God, and leaves everything behind to go to a place he doesn’t know, trusting that God is going to make him a great nation, that God is going to bless him, and that God is eventually going to bless the nations through him. He and some of his family leave Ur and head to Haran. There was a major trade route from Ur to Haran—it kinda functions like an interstate today. So, if you’re told to go, and aren’t sure where you’re going, then hop on the interstate and start going until you receive further directions. From Haran, then begin to drop down to Canaan and we read, “When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”” (Genesis 12:5–7, ESV). This is the fulfillment of what God had promised. God showed Abram that this was the land he was going to give to his offspring. This was the place God had promised Abram at the beginning of the journey. This was part of the promise.
Yet, notice the tension here—notice the already, not-yet. If you think about it, there were hints of this in the promise God made to Abraham. He said, “…him who dishonors you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3, ESV), which means that there are going to be some people who are not going to like Abram. There’s going to be some conflict. But, I want you to notice one line: “At that time the Canaanites were in the land.” (Genesis 12:6, ESV). There’s the tension. This is the land I’m giving your offspring, BUT the Canaanites live here now. Almost like, this is your home, but not yet. Or to say all of this a different way: Abraham is an exile in the midst of the Promised Land. Talk about an already, not-yet situation.
So, how does Abram handle that situation? We read, “So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.” (Genesis 12:7–9, ESV). I have to admit, at first I didn’t understand what was happening here. I asked myself, “Why in the world is Abraham still going? Didn’t God just tell him that this is the place? Why did he head to Bethel? Why did he keep heading to the Negeb?” Then, as I looked at a map I began to understand. The Negeb is the southern edge of the Promised Land. Abraham kept going, walking throughout the land that God had given him.
Yet, Abram did more than continue to wander aimlessly in the land that God had given him. He walked throughout the Promised Land as an exile and built altars. He built an altar to the Lord by Bethel and he built an altar to the Lord by Shechem. Why? I’ll let one of the commentators explain, “Clearly Abram is reclaiming this land for the LORD. Just as Noah before him had dedicated the cleansed earth to the LORD by building an altar to the LORD (8:20), so Abram now dedicates the Promised Land to the LORD. In this land, the LORD will be worshiped and obeyed…In this land, not the Canaanite gods but the LORD will be King. This is the LORD's country!” (Greidanus, 154).
And to add to that point, this took some guts and some dramatic boldness. I mean, the Canaanites aren’t known for being a nice, gentle people. They were known for being cruel and vindictive. Yet, here we see Abram walking throughout their land as an exile—as a foreigner—building altars and claiming their land as God’s country. That requires some guts and boldness. To ramp things up even more, remember that reference earlier to the oak of Moreh? Most likely that was a shrine where the Canaanites worshiped their gods. So, Abraham strolls up to one of their places of idol worship, as a foreigner, builds an altar to the one true God, and claims the land as God’s. Do you realize how bold that is?
This is how we are to live as Pilgrim People in the world—as people who are in exile in the Promised Land. It’s important to realize that we are in the Promised Land—and I’m not talking about the United States. I’m talking about the entire earth. God has promised that his people will inherit the earth. And we’re living here in the tension of that promise—we’re here as exiles. How do we live when we’re surrounded by enemies? Surrounded by idolatry? Surrounded by people who dishonor us? So, how do we live in that tension?
Well, the temptation is to lose the tension. Some are tempted to get angry and fight to take what is rightfully ours—to be a warrior. Some are tempted to do nothing and complain about how bad things are and how difficult life is—to be a victim. Neither of these are quite right.
Rather, living as Pilgrim People means living as those who are trusting in God’s promise by faith. We trust that God will do what he said he will do. That God will bless his people and make them a great nation. That God will use us to be a blessing in the earth. That eventually God will use his people to bless every nation of the earth. That God will eventually give us the earth as an inheritance.
So, we go through life like Abram went through the Promised Land. Not like a victim, and not like a warrior, but as someone who fully trust’s God’s promises. Going wherever he tells you to go. Being willing to leave everything behind. Continually trusting in God’s promises. Continually worshiping God for his grace and mercy and blessings in our lives. Continually using God’s blessings to be a blessing to the world around us. That means, slowly but surely working our way through the land that God has promised us, slowly but surely building altars, slowly but surely claiming every square inch for Jesus Christ. We don’t live in the world like victims, or like angry warriors, but we live in the world like farmers. Faithfully planting seeds that will reap a harvest. This is what it looks like for the Kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven. This is what it looks like to live in the tension of the already, not-yet.
This already, not-yet tension is the tension of Advent. And as we make our way through this season of Advent, leading up to Christmas, we’re reminded that none of this happens apart from Jesus Christ. In Galatians, the Apostle Paul tells us that the promises given to Abram were ultimately about Jesus Christ: “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Galatians 3:7–9, ESV). It’s through faith in Christ that we become children of Abraham—children of God. It’s through faith in Christ that we receive the blessings of God.
It’s also through faith in Christ that the nations will be blessed and the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. As people turn to Christ in faith, receive forgiveness, receive the blessings of God, and have their hearts changed, it begins to spread. My favorite thing to say is: changed hearts, change lives, which change families, and communities, and states, and nations. Changed hearts slowly but surely go through life building altars, reclaiming every square inch for Jesus Christ as they trust in the promises and blessings of God, longing for the day when we will here these word spoken from Revelation, “Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”” (Revelation 11:15, ESV).