Taking Hold of God’s Promises

Genesis 12:6-9
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, April 03, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

The title is, “Taking Hold of God’s Promises.”  We have recently heard how God called His chosen man Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans, in modern-day Iraq, to an unknown land that God would show him.  God made a great promise to Abram when He called him.  He said He would make Abram into a great nation and bless him.  He would make his name great.  He would bless all people on earth through Abram.

The great man of faith, Abram, believed God’s promises.  We know that from our text, but we know it from elsewhere in the Bible too.  Hebrews 11:8 says that Abram obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  Genesis 12:5 shows the depth of Abram’s faith.  He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all his possessions, and all his people, and set out.  In other words, this was a one-way ticket.  Abram did not hedge by leaving some of his possessions behind, just in case.  He did not hedge by sending someone to check it out first, or even by going up himself and checking it out first to see if God’s promises were really all they seemed to be.  No, he heard God’s word to go, he heard God’s good promises, and he packed up all his things and went, trusting in God’s word.

This was no small risk, of course.  Abram seems to have been a prominent man from a prominent clan with much to lose.  Yet he went up to the unknown land, relying on God to direct him and to protect him.  And we know from Genesis 12:5 that he arrived.  He did not go part way or settle somewhere along the path.  He went all the way to where God directed.

In our text this morning, Abram continues to put his great faith in God into practice.  God tells Abram in verse 7 that he has arrived in the land, and so Abram stops.  God makes what appears to be an additional promise, or an extension on his promise:  “To your offspring, to your seed, I will give this land.”  Abram explores the land in order to see the full scope of God’s generous gift to both Abram and his descendants, and Abram worships God.

Taking Hold of God’s Good Promises

Let us look this morning, first, at the way Abram took hold of God’s promises.  God is good, and He makes good promises to His people which He is always faithful to fulfill.  God’s promises are all of grace.  God owes us nothing, and we can earn nothing.  Just consider Abram.  Why was he so blessed to be called by God?  Why was he so blessed to be led to this land to receive it as an inheritance for his children?  Before Abram’s call, we don’t know almost anything about him or about how he lived.

But just because God’s promises are made freely and by grace does not mean that we have no obligation in regard to those promises.  Again, look at Abram.  God says, “Go to the land I will show you,” and Abram goes.  Then, when he gets there, God gives him the land (v. 7).  What if Abram had stayed behind in Ur or in Haran, where it seems that his father Terah had taken him?  What if he had sat there and done nothing, or gone halfway but permanently settled in Haran?  What would have happened then?  Would God have further blessed him?  Would God have given Abram this land?  Would God have blessed his partial or non-obedience?  Certainly not.  You see, God made the good promises by grace, but to receive that promise, Abram had to believe it and he had to act on that belief by going up to Canaan.  As I said earlier, we see that Abram was “all in” from the time that God called him.  He took all these things and went.

Abram believed God’s promises and firmly took hold of God’s promises.  He took bold action to get from promise to fulfillment.  God promised the land, and God gave the land as a gift, by grace. But Abram went up and claimed those promises by faith.  This is, of course, the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5; 16:26).

The same thing happens to us.  We too are given many good promises by God, and we too must claim those promises by faith—a true faith that obeys.  Romans 10:13 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  That is a good promise, but we must claim it by calling on the name of the Lord.  Romans 10:9 likewise promises, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”  That is a good promise, but we must do it.  We must take hold of it by confessing with our mouth, “Jesus Lord,” and by believing in our heart that God raised Him from the dead.  In John 6:37, Jesus said, “Whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.”  In other words, He takes all comers, but we must come to Him, and we must come to Him by faith.

From these verses, it is plain that God invites all to come.  God makes good promises to all.  God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him might be saved.  God makes it available to everyone.  Yet it is equally clear that not everyone will be saved, not everyone will take hold of these promises.  Indeed, only a remnant will do so (Rom. 9:27).  You must take hold of the promise to make it your own, as Abraham did.  Go to the place where God will show you.  Don’t sit there in your Ur of the Chaldeans, or even halfway in Haran.  Take hold of God’s promises and go all the way.

You must take hold of it by faith, as Abraham did.  I want to be clear:  It is all by faith.  It is not as though Abraham earned the promise or deserved God’s favor by trudging up to the land with all his household and all his stuff.  In the same way, we do not earn or achieve our salvation by our actions.  The Bible is crystal clear that God achieves it all.  God promises it all to us by grace, and we must receive it by faith.  Hebrews 11 again says that Abraham left his country and home and went up to the land by faith.  It is not by works.  Romans 4 makes it further clear that all of Abram’s achievements were all by faith and not earned.  Romans 4:13 says that Abraham did not receive the promise by obeying the law, but, rather, through the righteousness that comes by faith.  And we know from elsewhere in the Scripture even that faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8).

But having received that gift of faith, having received God’s good offer, God’s good promises, we must take action by faith.  We must obey by faith to claim or to make ours what God has promised us.

For Abram, that action was to go up to a new land; to receive that new land as an inheritance for his descendants; to have a miracle son in Isaac, the foreshadowing of the seed that would ultimately be fulfilled in Christ; and to become the father of all who are justified by faith.  That is what Abram was supposed to do.

But for us, it is not land, it is not money, it is not political power, it is not many descendants.  No, God has a much, much greater inheritance promised to us.  Our Promised Land is not a nation, not a land flowing with milk and honey, not geographic territory or political power.  No, our Promised Land is eternal life in Jesus Christ.  Our inheritance is God Himself, as we read in Psalm 119:57, for example.

Like Abraham, we must claim these promises by faith.  We must claim them, and we must claim them by faith.  Like Abram, we must demonstrate our faith by our ready obedience—our obedience that proves that we really and truly believe.  Think about it.  If Abraham did not really believe that it was God who appeared to him, if Abraham did not really believe that God was good, if Abraham really did not believe that God would fulfill all those promises, he would not have gone, or certainly he would not have taken all his things with him.  But he fully believed God, and he acted in reliance on that belief, that faith—reliance upon God’s promises and, indeed, reliance upon God Himself.

When we do the same, we are showing that we believe the promises.  So if you are really among God’s elect, if you have really received His gift of faith, then cry out, “I believe!”  Maybe we have to cry out, “I believe!  Help Thou my unbelief!” But cry out, “I believe!  I believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.  I confess with my mouth that He is Lord.  I trust in Him alone for my salvation.”  And God will be faithful to keep up His end of the bargain.

Put your faith into practice by confessing Christ.  Put your faith into practice by obeying His commands.  What are those commands?  For us, they are simple:  Confess with your mouth, “Jesus Lord.”  Commit your life to Him—body and soul.  Trust in Him alone to save you—trust in His person and in His work.  Declare your faith publicly by baptism and testimony as He commands (Acts 2:38, for example).  Join His holy church that He specifically selected for you—not just any old church where you like the music or whatever, but the church that God specifically carved out for you.  Come under the shepherds whom He personally picked for you (Acts 20:28).  Repent of all your sins as He commanded (Matt. 4:17).  Confess and renounce all your sins and find mercy (Prov. 28:13).  Live a holy life out of thanksgiving for God (Rom. 12:1).  Obey him by making disciples of all nations, sharing this good news for all people with all people (Matt. 28:19).

Those are God’s instructions for us.  That is how we take hold of His promises.  So take hold of God’s promises to you:  The great promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ.  The great promise of forgiveness of sin.  The great promise of the elimination of our just penalty of eternal hell, which we deserved and which Jesus Christ paid on our behalf, on behalf of all who trust in Him.

How do you know if you are God’s elect?  This whole thing started with a premise:  If you are God’s elect, keep His commands, take hold of His promises by faith.  How do you know if you are God’s elect?  How do you know if God will give you the gift of faith?  I ask you:  How did Abram know?  He knew when God called him.  And I say to you, God is calling you today.  Cry out to Him for mercy; He will not turn you away.  He promised.  I just read all the promises.  He promised, and His word is always true.  God is calling you; answer the call.

We must take hold of God’s promises by faith, but, like Abraham, we must also take hold of the whole promise.  Notice, first, that Abraham went all the way to the Promised Land, to the land that God promised to show him.  He did not stop or settle along the way at the place that looked nice, or at the place that looked favorable.  No, he kept going all the way.  Now, this is a long journey.  It likely took place over the course of several years.  There was an interlude in Haran.  We do not know how long that was.  But the point is that Abraham kept going all the way until the journey was complete, until God said, “Stop.  To your offspring, I will give this land.”  In other words, “This is the place I spoke to you about way back in Iraq.  This is the place.  Stop here.”

Abraham kept going all the way to God’s place, and so must we.  Like Abram, we may not know how to get there.  We may not know what the path is.  But God knows, and God will direct us along the way as we go.  God knows, and He will deliver us safely there.  He will stand behind us and say, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isa. 30:21).

To understand Abraham’s journey, we have to understand the times.  This is a long way.  There were no flights, there were no trains, there were no cars to take.  He had to probably walk or at least go with animals—camels and the like—the entire way.  And he had to pass other very reasonable-looking places along the way:  Babylon, a big city; Asshur; Carchemish; Tyre.  In a journey that probably took years, including that interlude in Haran, Abraham kept on going until he reached the place that God promised.  He did not settle for what was “good enough.”  He did not settle for what seemed good or acceptable to him.  But he kept on until he arrived at the place God promised.  He kept on until he got to God’s best.

We must do the same.  God calls us as Christian people to a heavenly journey.  Let us not settle for less than the heavenly destination.  Let us not settle for the things of this world that might seem attractive, that might seem easier in the moment than to keep along the narrow way:  money, power, ease, children—whatever that thing is that seems good to us.  Let us not stop along the way and settle for less, but let us keep going all the way to God’s good destination.  Let us keep going, trusting that even though these other things might look okay to us, God has better things in store.  God will lead us to His best.  Let us trust that God’s best is better than whatever seems good to us along the way.

Following God’s Direction

In addition, we must follow God’s directions along the way, for we do not know the path and we do not even know the best way to the destination.  God may take us there on a flat and level path, or it might be mountainous and rocky, or windy.  It may be in the pleasant temperatures and cool breezes, or it may be in the blistering sun.  It may be with the howling wind blowing in our faces and making the journey difficult.  We may even have to go through the valley of the shadow of death.

Parts of Abraham’s journey seemed to have been easy, along the King’s Highway.  Parts of it seemed pleasant and other parts seemed to have been more difficult.  But he kept going, and he kept turning where God said to go and where God said to turn, all in faith, all trusting that God was leading him to the best place by the best route.

Let us do the same.  Maybe God will take us by the easy path of career success, a handsome husband or a beautiful wife, a picturesque home, and photogenic and overachieving children.  Or perhaps we will go a harder route, the route of singleness, the route of childlessness, the route of widowhood or health struggles or poverty, the life of a wandering Aramean (Deut. 26:5).  Whatever it is, we will go, and we will keep on going by faith; faith that God is leading us to the best place, faith that God is taking us by the best route.

We will keep on going, secure in the promise that the land to which He is leading us—eternal heaven—is a good land, that it is the best land.  So we will not grumble or despair along the way.  We will not linger in Haran or the fertile Beqaa Valley that Abram had to pass through.  We will keep moving, eager to see what God has for us up ahead.

Notice that Abraham not only kept going all the way at God’s direction, but he also stopped when God said to stop.  This can be harder than it appears.  Remember that Abram came from the capital of the world, more or less, from a literate city of probably more than 100,000 people.  It was a giant city for its day.  (GTB)  He passed through essentially the whole of the empire on his way to the Promised Land.  He passed Babylon on the Euphrates with its nine gates and paved streets.  It must have been an impressive place to pass through.  He passed through Asshur on the banks of the Tigris with all its culture and through Damascus with its riches and luxury.  Yet he moved past all of that and stopped at a relative backwater when God said to stop.

That can be tough to do.  He must have been tempted to continue southwest to Egypt, a cultural and literate place more like the Ur which he had left.  He might have been tempted to do it, but he did not do it.  He left when God told him to leave, and he stopped when God told him to stop.  “This is the place.  To your offspring, I will give this land.”

As a man of great faith, his desire and practice was to be in God’s will and in God’s place.  The application for us is fairly obvious:  Go where God sends you and stop when you get there.  Don’t keep on going, looking for something better.  It can be a temptation to stop at the better-looking things along the way, and it can be another temptation to say there might be something even better up ahead for me.  Don’t ever wonder if there is something better out there than what God has for you.  There is nothing better for you by definition.  By definition, the best is where God directs you.  So go to the place where God sends you.  Go to the church where God sends you (Acts 20:28).  Be planted in the city where God plants you.  Be under the delegated authorities that God places over you.  Don’t get distracted by secondary things or personal preferences.  Those can play a role in helping indicate if this is the place that God has for you.  But remember, they are always subordinate to the ultimate question:  Is this what God has for me?  What is the will of God for me in this situation?

Don’t get distracted by secondary matters, but always ask the big question:  Is this what God has for me?  Is He speaking to me, “This is the place.  To your offspring, I will give this land”?  If that is so, then stop in that place and don’t keep going.

The same is true with finding the right church or finding the right job or finding the right place to live.  It is also true in other areas of life, such as in looking for a husband or a wife.  Perhaps he is not quite the husband you imagined:  tall, dark, and handsome.  Maybe she is not quite the runway model you convinced yourself that you should be looking for.  Don’t worry about those things.  Ask, instead, is this the person God has for me?  That is the way of blessing.  If so, praise God and stop there.  You are not “settling” for someone any more than Abraham settled for the land that God gave him.  You are not settling; you are receiving God’s best.

The same application for our careers.  The same application for our children, whether we have any, how many we have, whether we have boys or girls.  The same with our house or whatever else.  In all areas of life, friends, don’t stop short of God’s best, but don’t blow past it either in a rush to something else.  Listen carefully as you go throughout your narrow Christian walk.  Listen carefully to those words:  “To your offspring I will give this land,” and then stop and rejoice.  Stop and rejoice, for God has led you to His best.  We must take hold of the whole promise.

Exploring the Promised Land

We see a curious thing in verses 6 through 9 of Genesis 12.  Abraham does not settle down in the land right away.  Instead, he seems to have traveled through the length of this land God had promised him.  Verse 6 says he went to Shechem, which is on the northern end of the land.  Then verse 8 says he went down and camped between Bethel and Ai.  That is another thirty miles down the road.  And verse 9 says Abraham continued toward the Negev in the south of the land.

This seems strange.  After all, Abraham had just traveled more than 1,000 miles, probably on foot, but maybe on some kind of camel.  That is a long way to travel.  Even if it took place over several years, even if it was broken up by an extended stay in Haran, that is still a very, very long way and a hard way to travel.  So why, having reached the place of which God said, “This is the land” would he keep on going?  And remember, it is not just Abraham.  He has a wife, he has a nephew, he has all his household and all his people.  That is a lot of stuff to truck around the Promised Land.  So why keep on moving?  Why not just stop at Shechem, the first place he seems to have stopped in the land?

I freely admit that many interpretations of this are possible.  Maybe Abraham just did not like the Shechemites.  Maybe he wanted to locate the best property.  Perhaps he liked to wander around in action-packed travel, seeing the maximum things in the minimum time.  My view is that Abraham was excited to explore the whole land that God had promised him.  He really believed God’s promise, “To your offspring I will give this land,” and so he wanted to see the whole thing God had promised him.

As Abram arrives at Shechem, he hears this exciting news.  Perhaps it was the first time that God had made that promise:  “To your offspring I will give this land.”  Abraham believed God.  Now, he himself never got to own this land.  God promised it to his descendants.  Yet Abraham was quite sure that it would all happen.  Again, he was a man of great faith.

God said it, and Abraham believed it.  So Abram was excited to go and see all that God promised.  He was excited to lay his eyes on the hills between Ai and Bethel, and even the desert and the wasteland of the Negev to the south, because these were God’s good promises.  And so Abraham set out to see them all and to know them all and to fully grasp all that God had given to him and to his descendants.

The application for us is:  Let’s do the same.  We can be tempted to take it easy and settle for the easiest solution.  We can make all kinds of justifications:   “I have traveled over a thousand miles.  I made it across the line into God’s Promised Land.  I am saved.  I am in the kingdom of God.  That is good enough, and there is no need for me to go further.”

Making it into God’s kingdom, being saved by grace alone—that’s pretty good.  It is quite remarkable.  It is more remarkable than even the long journey from Ur to Canaan.  But God promises us so much more than bare salvation.  If that is all He was going to do for us, we would be saved and then go to glory immediately.  No, God promises us much more.  God has things for us to do in this life.  God promises us that we can live in this world and yet say “No” to sin and “Yes” to righteousness every day.  We can live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives until He comes again (Tit. 2:12).  Yes, the devil will tempt us, but we do not have to give in.  We do not have to sin.  We can be holy as God is holy (1 Pet. 1:16).  We can submit to God.  We can resist the devil, and, amazing statement, he will flee from us (Jas. 4:7).  We are not called to live insular lives, holed up in an enclave, bracing for the attacks of the world and the attacks of the devil.  No, we are to go out into the whole land and to shine our light into the darkness of the world.  And, friends, I tell you, light wins (John 1:5).

I understand the temptation to be insular.  I understand the temptation to sit tight behind the little fences in our little pleasant corner of the kingdom of God on earth.  After all, it seems like we have all that we need, especially here.  We have friends.  We have family.  We have facilities.  We have a school.  We have plenty of resources.  We have community life.  Why do I need to go out there and deal with it all?  Why go out there where people may mock me because I believe in God; where people will hate me or reject me, or some people will judge me, or I may be tempted to sin, or people will try to destroy me?  Why should I go out there and deal with it all?  I say, go, because God promises the victory.  In Matthew 28:19–20 Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”; in other words, teaching them to obey the word of God.

We are not to shrink back and be destroyed (Heb. 10:39).  We are not to fear, for God has promised us that He will go with us to strengthen us as we do His work (Isa. 41:10).  He who is with us has overcome the world (John 16:33).  He is with us always, even to the end of the age.  He is with us now.  He will go with us, and He will keep going with us (Matt. 28:20).  Let us remember that promise and let us go.  Let us go throughout the whole land.  God is with us, and because He is with us, we are more than conquerors, super-conquerors, through Him who loved us.

You say that you are not a great speaker?  Well, neither was Moses.  But God helped Moses, and God will help you.  In Luke 21:15 Jesus promises, “I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to . . . contradict.”  You say you are not naturally brave; rather, you are naturally timid.  Well, Peter was not naturally brave.  He cowered before a servant girl.  Yet we see Peter later in Acts 2 boldly speaking to the masses at Pentecost, and in Acts 4, boldly speaking to the mighty Sanhedrin.  Remember, he says, “We must obey God rather than men.”  What accounts for this?  It is not Peter’s natural articulation or natural bravery.  We already saw that he cowered before a servant girl.  What accounts for this?  The Holy Spirit.  Peter was full of the Holy Spirit, and the same Holy Spirit dwells in us today.  If Peter can go out by the Holy Spirit and spread the word, we can go out by the Holy Spirit and spread the word.

Brothers and sisters, let us not be satisfied with a small piece of the promises of God.  Let us not shrink back in fear or settle for the easy way.  But let us, like Abraham, believe all of God’s promises and explore all that God has promised, to claim all that God has promised for us.  Let our practice be, as William Carey’s was, to attempt great things for God and expect great things from God.

Abraham went all over that Promised Land because he really believed God’s promise, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  He believed it, he was excited about it, and he acted on that belief and excitement.  Let us be excited about what God has promised for us and let us act in accord with that excitement.  Let us take action according to God’s promises.

Worship God

The last point is that we will worship God.  Aside from exploring the land and taking hold of God’s promises, the other remarkable thing that stands out from verses 6 through 9 surround Abraham’s worship.

Upon arriving in the land, upon receiving God’s great promise, “To your offspring I will give this land,” Abraham builds an altar to God and worships Him (v. 7).  And upon exploring the land, upon going throughout the land and seeing all that God had promised, the great bounty for him and for his offspring, Abraham builds another altar in verse 8.

Abraham was, first and foremost, a worshiper of God.  Wherever he was, he made sure to have an altar to worship God in the prescribed way, not at the high places, not under the spreading trees like the godless Canaanites, but on an altar with sacrifices of atonement, which, ultimately point to Christ.

We do not know when Abraham first became a worshiper of God.  He was a descendant of Shem, the blessed line descending from faithful Noah.  But apparently something had gone wrong between the blessing of Shem and the birth of Abram.  Joshua 24:2 says, which, by the way, was spoken at the same place (Shechem), “Long ago your forefathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.”  So at least Terah worshiped other gods.

Perhaps it was a both/and style of worship, a mix of the worship of God and the worship of other things.  Perhaps they had stopped worshiping God altogether.  I do not know.  Either way, though, we see that Abraham in the land is different.  We see him worshiping God alone.  We do not see him worshiping other gods.  Abraham is now different.  He is now a worshiper of God alone.  He has seen God.  He has heard God.  He was called by God and so now he worships God exclusively and consistently.  So wherever he goes, there is an altar for Abraham to worship and for his household to worship—Sarai and all the servants.

It also appears that he built the altar at Shechem and worshiped there to mark a special occasion:  God’s fulfillment of the promise, “Go to the land I will show you,” Abram’s delivery to the Promised Land, and God’s further promise to give that land to Abram’s offspring.  So he marks the occasion by building an altar and worshiping God.

It is right to worship God on special occasions as a sort of Ebenezer, or memory marker, for the good things God has done.  God brought Abram on that long journey to the place he did not know, and Abram arrived with the entire household.  So it was a right occasion for special worship of God, who had carried them safely through.  This is why we mark various special holidays:  Christmas, Easter, anniversaries, and other special occasions with special worship and thank offerings to God.

But there seems to be a second reason for this special worship:  God’s glorious and likely new promise, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  We have to understand what this meant to Abram in context.  God had promised him offspring.  He did not have any offspring at the time this promise was made.  He was already seventy-five years old, and yet he would have offspring.  And they would not just subsist, they would not just get by, they would not just live as day laborers in the land; they would thrive.  Indeed, somehow they would possess that whole land.  And they did it.  In Joshua 24:2, at Shechem, at the same place, they came and worshiped God and marked all that God had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt so many years later.

Abraham was worshiping God and celebrating God’s past faithfulness but also something new:  offspring, a land, a hope, and a future.   It is easy to see the parallels for us.  God has saved us and joined us to His body of believers, to His little part of the kingdom of God in our part of the world.  We have many earthly blessings in this place:  homes, families, children, grandchildren, and so on.  We have a church and a school and jobs and careers and so on.  So we have much to look back on and celebrate God’s faithfulness to us, much to look back on and worship God for providing to us.

But we have more than that.  We also have a hope and a future.  In this church, we are blessed to have a second generation and a third generation and the beginnings of a fourth generation.  God has given us not just issue but godly issue—children and young people who have a genuine heart for God and for God’s church.  God is raising up godly men to lead His church into the future, and godly men and women to forge the way ahead.

It seems that the promise of Deuteronomy 28 has come true for us:  The Lord has sent a blessing on everything we have put our collective hand to.  And He has established us as his holy people in this place.  When we examine our lives, we see that our baskets and our kneading troughs have been blessed, that the fruit of our wombs has been blessed, that we have been made the head and not the tail.  This is a vision that was given to our Pastor many, many, many years ago when he was a college student, and it happened.  It happened not because we are great but because God is great and we have believed His promises and have tried to put them into practice.  We have, although imperfectly, been careful to pay attention to the commands the Lord has given and to follow them.  We have present blessing, but we also have a hope and a future, a great God to worship, and much to celebrate.

And we have even more to celebrate than all of that.  We have eternal life in Jesus Christ.  We have blessed assurance of pardon.  We have forgiveness of sin.  We have a restored relationship with eternal God as our loving Father, with Jesus Christ as our Redeemer by faith, and with the Holy Spirit to live in us and move us to obey the Lord our God.  We have trusted in Christ alone for our salvation, and we are saved.  He holds us in His right hand, and no one can snatch us away.  We, God’s elect, will persevere to the end and go to glorious worship of God forever with all the elect from all time and with all the elect in our time all over the world.  We, friends, have much to celebrate, much to worship God for.  Let us give our God the sacrifice of praise every day as we consider what He has done and what He will do for us.

We are going to study Abraham some more.  We are going to see that he, of course, was not perfect.  But I want to make clear that Abraham was a great man—imperfect, as we have seen and will see—but great, a man of faith who lived by faith and who obeyed by faith.  A man made great by the call and blessing of eternal God.  We should strive to be like Abraham.  We too can be great, for the God who made him great is our great God as well.  Let us hear God’s call.  Let us leave all and go to the land that God will show us, the Promised Land of eternal heaven.  Let us obey God and let us go as Abraham did.  Let us trust in God and follow His directions along the way and arrive.  And let us dwell in the land, worshiping God who is both worthy of praise and who has done great things for us.

God’s promises to His people are indeed great and they are indeed trustworthy.  Let us take hold of them by faith and let us live a life of worship to God our Savior.  Amen.