WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:12.000 So I was here last week and we started off a series that we'll kind of wander through if there's opportunity, meeting the Lord up close and personal. 2 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:41.000 So last week we looked at Adam and Eve in the garden, and this week we'll be looking at Abraham on the journey. And then next time we'll look at Moses on the mountain. And in a way, this is a bit of a highlights package of Bible narratives where the Lord draws near to real people coming up close and personal with a particular character in the Bible storyline. 3 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:49.000 So between last week and this week, we've travelled 2,000 years and we're now at the story of Abraham. 4 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000 And one person described Genesis 12 like this. 5 00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:01.000 It would be an understatement to call this a pivotal passage in the Bible. 6 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Some have called this the single most important passage in the Scriptures. 7 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:18.000 Everything that comes before it in Genesis 1 to 11 leads up to it, and everything that comes after it is fulfilling it. 8 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:27.000 To understand the Lord's purposes in our world, this part of Abraham's story is essential. 9 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:34.000 So our plan for this morning is we'll be taking some time to look at Abraham's story under four headings. 10 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:45.000 And then, just like last week, we'll take a step back and see what we've seen of the Lord and then we'll reflect on how we should respond. 11 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:50.000 So Abraham's story, the journey so far. 12 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:56.000 After Genesis 2, Adam and Eve in the garden, came Genesis 3. 13 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:02.000 The first humans turned their hearts away from the Lord and they went their own way. 14 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:09.000 Rejecting the life giver brought death into the world, and the downward spiral of humanity began. 15 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:20.000 But despite the exile from Eden and then the flood that engulfed the world, humanity continued to go their own way. 16 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:27.000 And in Genesis 11, it was new technology that amplified the evil. 17 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:31.000 Humanity had discovered the brick. 18 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:41.000 Now, you and I know from Lego masters that the real purpose of the brick was to inspire the hearts and minds of young kids. 19 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:45.000 Hamish, Blake and Brickman have taught us well. 20 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:56.000 But in Genesis 11, this new technology of the brick formed a deadly combination with the sinful human heart. 21 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:12.000 Instead of scattering over the face of the earth to fulfill the Lord's purposes in the world, humanity rebelled by clustering together in the plain of Shinar. And they got comfortable. 22 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:29.000 Verse 4 in chapter 11, let's build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves again. The Lord intervened to stop the evil from escalating. 23 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:37.000 He confused their language and stopped their building. And the people slowly scattered over the earth. 24 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:51.000 The Tower of Babel became like one of those half built construction sites where the builders run out of money, an unfinished project and a monument to foolish decision. 25 00:03:51.000 --> 00:04:04.000 In the case of Babel, it was a reminder of how new technology and the sinful human heart can distract and destroy the human race. 26 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.000 But again, the Lord did not give up on humanity. 27 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Genesis 11 continues with a detailed account of Shem's descendants. 28 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:20.000 Generation by generation. A sense of expectation builds. 29 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:25.000 What is the Lord up to through Shem's family line? 30 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:40.000 And so we arrive at Abram, we find him as a 70 year old man living in a place called Ur of the Chaldeans in modern day Iraq. 31 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:41.000 Ur is here. 32 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:55.000 We will see Haran up here and later on Canaan down here. So this is a really significant part of real estate in the world. A lot has happened here. 33 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:08.000 So the commands. Ur was a big city near the mouth of the Euphrates river, important for trade and famous for its temple dedicated to the worship of the moon God. 34 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:17.000 It was in Ur, this center of idolatry, that the Lord came up close and personal with with Abram. 35 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:22.000 He was given a command to leave and believe. 36 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:32.000 Verse 1. Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land that I will show you. 37 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:38.000 Now, at one level, this call to Abram was a geographical one. 38 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:43.000 Leave your place and go to another place. 39 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:54.000 The journey, as it turns out, was to be a journey of more than a thousand miles, walking from Melbourne to Sydney and back. 40 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:31.000 But at another level, this call to Abram was a spiritual call, a call for a comprehensive leaving from his land, his home, his people, his culture, Abram was commanded to leave and believe, to separate from all his cultural markers of safety and status and identity and belonging, and go to an unknown place and follow an unknown God. 41 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:40.000 But the Lord did not stay unknown to Abram for long because with the command came promises. 42 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:47.000 And they were promises that revealed the character of the Lord. 43 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:50.000 So look with me at verses two to three. 44 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.000 Go to the land, I will show you. 45 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:57.000 I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. 46 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:07.000 I will make your name great and you will be a blessing, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. 47 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:11.000 No other God functions like this. 48 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:17.000 Every religious system requires people to do, do, do. 49 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:26.000 But here we meet a God who gives wonderful, generous and comprehensive promises. 50 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:39.000 A land, a nation, a name, a future blessing for Abram and blessing for all the peoples of the world. 51 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:48.000 Instead of do, do, do, the Lord says, I will, I will, I will. 52 00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:01.000 And do you notice that everything that Abram had left land, family, nation was now provided through promises from the Lord. 53 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:31.000 Now you might have already had a little flash forward to that verse in Matthew 19 Peter's statement where he says to the Lord Jesus, we've left everything to follow you. And Jesus replied, everyone who has left houses and brothers and sisters and sisters and fathers and mothers and wives and children for my sake will receive a hundred times as much. 54 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:36.000 Abram was learning about life with the Lord. 55 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:44.000 Obey the command, trust the promise and the Lord will provide. 56 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:53.000 Now do you see the contrast to the people of Babel and their pursuit of a self defined life? 57 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:59.000 Let's make a name for ourselves and let's build ourselves a city. 58 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:05.000 But in Genesis 12 the Lord is revealed as a promise giver. 59 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:11.000 Abram must learn to leave and believe. 60 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:20.000 He needs to turn away from a self made life and trust and obey the word of the Lord. 61 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:26.000 Now Abram's story here is a wonderful example for us of personal faith. 62 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:29.000 But remember the big picture. 63 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:37.000 This Genesis 12 encounter is a key moment in the whole history of the Bible and the history of the world. 64 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:42.000 Remember everything that comes before it was leading up to it. 65 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:47.000 Everything that comes after is fulfilling it. 66 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:53.000 In Genesis 12 the Lord is showing us the rescue plan for humanity. 67 00:09:53.000 --> 00:10:00.000 From Abram and his wife Sarai. The Lord would form a people, the people of Israel. 68 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:06.000 He would place them in their own land and form them into a great nation. 69 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:13.000 They would become God's people in God's land, living under God's rule and blessing. 70 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:24.000 And his purpose in all of this was that through the descendants of Abraham, all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. 71 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:31.000 Now last week we saw ourselves in the origin story of the human race. 72 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:39.000 This week we can see ourselves in the all peoples of of Genesis 12. 3. 73 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:47.000 As the biblical story unfolds, we see how all of these promises are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. 74 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:52.000 But for now we'll stay in the story and we'll see what happens next. 75 00:10:52.000 --> 00:11:03.000 How would Abraham respond as the Lord meets him up close and personal and reveals something of himself? 76 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:12.000 So the journey continues. In verse four, Abram went just as the Lord had told him to. 77 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:18.000 Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. 78 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:25.000 Abram and his clan, including his father Terah, had left Ur and made it to Haran. 79 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:33.000 Haran's about 900km in the right direction, the halfway mark on their journey to Canaan. 80 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:37.000 Haran was another place of idolatry. 81 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:46.000 And at Haran they stopped and they settled for five long years. 82 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:53.000 Now did Terah become unwell too sick to continue on the journey. 83 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:58.000 Were they distracted from the promise and turned back to idolatry? 84 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.000 We don't know. 85 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:08.000 But after five years, Torah dies and Abram continues on his journey. 86 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:11.000 They come to the town of Shechem in Canaan. 87 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:22.000 And just like Ur and Haran, Shechem with its Great Tree of Moreh, was another centre for idolatry. 88 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:37.000 And perhaps because of the spiritual darkness in that place, the Lord appears again to Abram to encourage him with the same promise to your offspring, I will give this land. 89 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:42.000 So Abram built an altar there to the Lord. 90 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:55.000 Abram continues on and comes to Bethel. And in verse 8 there he built another altar to the Lord and he called on the name of Yahweh. 91 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:58.000 This was Abram's new life. 92 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:00.000 Leave and believe. 93 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:02.000 Trust and obey. 94 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:07.000 Worship the Lord as I learn his way. 95 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:14.000 In the New Testament, Abram is held up as a wonderful example of faith. 96 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:18.000 In James 2:23 it says Abraham believed God. 97 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:28.000 It was credited to him as righteousness and he was called God's friend. 98 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:30.000 So that's the story. 99 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:37.000 Let's take a moment to consider what have we seen of the Lord? And then how should we respond? 100 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:39.000 Three headings for each. 101 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:44.000 He is generous in his promises. 102 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:53.000 Abram began his journey without much knowledge of the Lord, far less than every person in this room. 103 00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:06.000 Yet in the years following, he saw the character of the Lord revealed and he learned this promise Giver can be trusted. 104 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:12.000 Yet Abram died without seeing the ultimate fulfilment of the promises he was given. 105 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:19.000 You and I have the privilege of seeing how the story panned out through thousands of years. 106 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:26.000 We can see how the Genesis 12 promises have been fulfilled over time. 107 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:48.000 As the storyline of the Bible unfolds, this sense of expectation builds. The Promised one to come, the descendant, the offspring of Abraham, the Lion of Judah, the son of David, the Messiah king, a suffering servant. 108 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:57.000 And then the Lord Jesus arrives as the fulfilment of all these promises. 109 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.000 Now we'll see some of that unfold as we work through this series. 110 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:05.000 But for now, let's take note. 111 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:24.000 Jesus Christ is the offspring of Abraham that was promised here in Genesis 12 we see Paul say in 2 Corinthians, no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes, in Jesus Christ. 112 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:34.000 The Lord Jesus is the blessing from God and the one from whom all peoples on earth will be blessed. 113 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:41.000 So let's move to our second observation. He is global in his purposes. 114 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:45.000 Now you and I must humbly realize something. 115 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:57.000 We live in Tasmania and we are the direct Opposite side of the globe from this map. Here we are the ends of the earth. 116 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:08.000 None of us are Hebrews. I expect biological descendants of Abraham. And we are not at the center of of this story. 117 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:17.000 But because the Lord is global in his purposes, Abraham's story can be our story. 118 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:24.000 And it's because of this double meaning of the word offspring. 119 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:32.000 Firstly in the singular, one offspring through whom all the blessings would come. 120 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:37.000 Initially it was Abraham's son Isaac. 121 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:52.000 But we've seen that ultimately it was this future descendant, the Lord Jesus, a physical descendant, the true offspring of Abraham through whom all blessings flow. 122 00:16:52.000 --> 00:17:00.000 But this word offspring is also a collective noun indicating many people. 123 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:15.000 As we read through Genesis, we see more promises using this word. In chapter 13, the Lord says to Abram, look down at the ground and count the dust of the earth. 124 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:25.000 In Genesis 15 he says, look up to the heavens and count the stars in the sky. 125 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:31.000 And in each situation he says, so shall your descendants be. 126 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:39.000 In one way he speaks of the many Jewish descendants from his physical descent. 127 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:49.000 But in another way it speaks of all those spiritual descendants that image the same faith as Abraham. 128 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:53.000 And we are called children of Abraham. 129 00:17:53.000 --> 00:18:09.000 It is through faith in the Lord Jesus, the true offspring of Abraham, that people like you and me can believe and become the spiritual offspring of Abraham. 130 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:13.000 All peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. 131 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:22.000 The Lord is global in his purposes as he spoke those promises to Abraham. 132 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.000 Observation number three. He is grounded in his plan. 133 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:36.000 Part of the reason for having this map as the background is to remind us this is real real estate on this planet. 134 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:42.000 My wife and I went to Egypt two years ago. That's the reason for the camel shirt. 135 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:53.000 And some of you instead of daydreaming up there, you may be puzzling over my camels. You're welcome to, but this happened on our planets. 136 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:58.000 It's a story that is grounded on this earth. 137 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:05.000 One reason I love the narratives of the Bible is how grounded they are on this dusty planet. 138 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:12.000 Abram lived his faith in Haran and Shechem and Bethel and Canaan. 139 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:19.000 He lived as a creature like you and me, eating, sleeping, working. 140 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:26.000 He was a husband, a father, a farmer, a leader, a military warrior. 141 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:36.000 He had to learn trust, obedience and worship in real places and in real life. 142 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:41.000 The Lord made this world and placed you and I in it. 143 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:47.000 He takes real people like you and me and Abraham. 144 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:55.000 He calls us away from a wasted life pursuing worthless things. 145 00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:02.000 And he invites us to join his life giving plans for the world. 146 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.000 Real life in real places with him. 147 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:20.000 It's in the ordinary and everyday context of life that he meets us up close and personal and calls us to follow Him. 148 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:25.000 So let's personalise things and move to some application. 149 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:32.000 How should we live having heard this story and seen these things? 150 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:35.000 Three ideas to get us thinking. 151 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:40.000 Firstly, leave and believe. 152 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:47.000 Because the Lord is generous in his promises, we should leave and believe. 153 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:50.000 Human beings are wired for worship. 154 00:20:50.000 --> 00:21:02.000 But due to the brokenness of sin, our default mode is to worship ourselves or some other created thing instead of our Creator. 155 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:05.000 And this is the essence of idolatry. 156 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:13.000 Idolatry is full of false promises and misplaced hope. It never leads to life. 157 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:18.000 It distracts, it deceives, it destroys. 158 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:23.000 Because at its heart it defies the Lord. 159 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:27.000 It is rebellion against his good ways. 160 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:31.000 The way of faith is not like this. 161 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:38.000 When the Lord comes up close and personal, comes near and speaks to us. 162 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:46.000 It's in order to set us free and to give us life in his kindness. 163 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:54.000 With words of command and words of promise, he calls us to leave and believe. 164 00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:01.000 We live in a noisy world and we have noisy souls. 165 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:04.000 And these two things are connected. 166 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:11.000 For Abram, he had to leave the noise of his culture. 167 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:17.000 You and I are also surrounded by the noise of our culture. 168 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:21.000 So many voices clamoring for our attention. 169 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:28.000 Distractions, false promises and false offers of the good life. 170 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.000 We need to leave the noise. 171 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:35.000 We need to draw near to the Lord. 172 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:40.000 We need to tune in and listen to his voice. 173 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:47.000 And when we do, our noisy souls have a chance to relax. 174 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:58.000 As we hear the voice of the Lord and as we believe and obey his word, our souls can finally rest. 175 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:02.000 Like Abram, we must leave and believe. 176 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:11.000 We must let go of the false promises of our culture and and grab hold of the true promise giver. 177 00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:14.000 He can be trusted. 178 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:25.000 Hear these words from Psalm 145. The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and he's faithful in everything he does. 179 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.000 The Lord upholds all who fall. 180 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 He lifts up all who are bowed down. 181 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:37.000 The Lord is near to all who call on Him. 182 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:44.000 To all who call on Him. In truth, the Lord fulfils the desires of those who fear Him. 183 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:49.000 He hears their cry and he saves them. 184 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:56.000 No other idol compares to the Lord as he's revealed in these words. 185 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:00.000 The way of faith is wonderfully simple. 186 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:05.000 Leave and believe and follow his way. 187 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:10.000 Trust and obey and worship the Lord. 188 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:16.000 One more thought here. Notice how Abram built altars wherever he went. 189 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:19.000 What can we learn from this? 190 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:30.000 Faced with the false worship of Shechem and Canaan, Abram chose to worship the Lord and to make that worship visible. 191 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:42.000 Now, you and I may be the only true worshiper in our workplace, in our neighbourhoods, our basketball team, our biological family. 192 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:59.000 We must make our worship of the Lord visible, not with glamour and glitz, but with humble, joyful, loving, grateful service of people. 193 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:05.000 Which brings us to our second application. Be a channel of blessing. 194 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:14.000 Because the Lord is generous in his promises and because he's grounded in his plan, we are channels of Blessing. 195 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:25.000 In Genesis 2, we saw the Lord as the life giver giving life to us so that we could then have life through us into the world. 196 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:35.000 In Genesis 12, we see the Lord as the blessing giver, giving blessing to us and through us. 197 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.000 And it's the same Lord at work today. 198 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:47.000 How will the Lord bless the people of your workplace, your school, your family, our city? 199 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:55.000 He will do it through his people because he's designed us to be channels of blessing. 200 00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:00.000 And that blessing comes from the abundance of the Lord. 201 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:05.000 You may have heard of the economics of scarcity. 202 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:21.000 If I give away my time, my money, my ideas, my passion, then I will be empty and lacking because I've given away the economics of abundance says this. 203 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:26.000 All I have has been given to me by the Lord. 204 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:48.000 He overflows with blessing and generosity so I can confidently give generously of my time, my money, my creativity, my passion, my everything, knowing that he will continue to provide for me. 205 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:53.000 We must live from his resources, not our own. 206 00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:06.000 What would it mean for you and I to take this to heart and embody it in our lives and be a channel of blessing? 207 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.000 The last one. Look beyond your people. 208 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:26.000 Because the Lord is generous in his promises, because he's grounded in his plan, and because he is global in his purposes, we should look beyond our people. 209 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:37.000 Now we've been using Abram's story as an example of how to trust and obey and worship and how to be channels of blessing for those we live amongst. 210 00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:43.000 But we must remember that Genesis 12 is a history changing story. 211 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:54.000 This is the moment that the Lord commits Himself to his rescue plan for all humanity through the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. 212 00:27:54.000 --> 00:28:06.000 We've heard through the service how the Lord desires that people from every tribe and every tongue would hear of the Lord Jesus and receive blessing through Him. 213 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:12.000 And this vision is repeated again and again throughout the Bible. 214 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:19.000 Now you and I have a primary responsibility amongst our own people to make Jesus known. 215 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:34.000 It's such an encouragement to hear of teams going out in Summerhill, in Kings Meadows, in the city on the northwest coast sharing the message of Jesus. 216 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:50.000 But it's a global Reality that there are more than 3 billion people who are unlikely to hear the message of Jesus in their lifetime unless something changes to push that home. 217 00:28:50.000 --> 00:29:07.000 If every Christian person on this planet had a conversation today with every person that they knew in person, there would be 3 billion people who would not have had that conversation. 218 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:15.000 They simply do not have in person contact with a follower of Jesus. 219 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:28.000 Where the Emeris are going in Albania, they've got far more opportunity to have conversations with people who have not heard the name of the Lord Jesus. 220 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.000 We can be thankful from this particular church. 221 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:49.000 As Dan reminded us, people have gone to Afghanistan, to Mongolia, Nigeria, Spain, Albania, Korea to live the message of Jesus. 222 00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:51.000 But there's still more to be done. 223 00:29:51.000 --> 00:30:07.000 We need to regularly look beyond our people and keep looking to the frontiers, to that third of humanity who are living in places with so few followers of Christ. 224 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:13.000 The tower builders in Babel, they clustered together. 225 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:20.000 They refuse to spread out to fulfil the Lord's life giving purposes for his creation. 226 00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:23.000 Will we be like them? 227 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:38.000 Or will we as teams have some like Abram who will go and others that will sacrificially pray and support and send and encourage? 228 00:30:38.000 --> 00:31:05.000 Is he calling some of us here to be like Abram? To leave our people and go to a land that he will show us to be a channel of blessing, to build an altar to Yahweh, there to embody a life of humble trust and obedience in order to make the worship of the Lord visible in that place. 229 00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:11.000 What a wonderful way to spend your earthly life. 230 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:13.000 So let's bring this together. 231 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:21.000 It's good to gather like we are doing today, to learn and grow together as disciples of Jesus. 232 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:31.000 But let's remember, our purpose in gathering is so that we can scatter and reach this world for Jesus. 233 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:43.000 We must regularly come to the Lord with open ended prayers asking for his guidance in how he wants us to respond. 234 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:55.000 So let's pray now and I'll lead us in an open ended prayer. 235 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:02.000 Lord, what would you like us to do? 236 00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:06.000 Please show us how to respond. 237 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:19.000 Please help us as we seek to reach out to our people in our neighbourhoods, our workplaces, our families, our city. 238 00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:31.000 And please help us also to look beyond to the many people groups of the world who have no one seeking to reach them. 239 00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:40.000 Lord, please show us how to be a channel of your blessing for the people of our world. 240 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:42.000 Amen.