Genesis 11:10-12:9: God’s Covenant with Abram

Genesis 11:10-12:9: God’s Covenant with Abram

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Genesis, and today the next passage we come to is Genesis 11:10-12:9, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. It says,

27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 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. 3 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.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 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. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. 

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we’re taught that the heavens and earth will pass away but that your words will never pass away. They’re eternally true, eternally relevant, and eternally powerful. So, help us to see the truth of this text and understand its relevance and experience its power. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

In just a few days, we’ll be celebrating the humble birth of our mighty Savior, Jesus Christ, on a day we’ve come to know as Christmas. Yet, I don’t believe we can fully appreciate the significance of Christmas without having a basic understanding of the backstory. Understanding the backstory makes all the difference in the world when it comes to being able to appreciate something. 

For example, a few years ago, I walked into a movie theater to see the latest Avengers movie at the time—I think it was Avengers: Infinity War—but the problem is that I didn’t really know most of the characters in the so-called “Marvel Cinematic Universe.” I had seen maybe one Marvel movie prior that, so most of the characters I was seeing were completely unknown to me. So, I certainly enjoyed watching the movie, but my enjoyment was limited because it felt like I was sort of coming into it halfway through the story. I didn’t know most of the characters or their backstories and therefore wasn’t able to appreciate the Avengers movie as much as I otherwise would have. And I believe that’s the way it is with Christmas as well. In order to fully appreciate Christmas, we have to understand the backstory. Christmas didn’t happen in a historical vacuum but rather was the culmination of thousands of years of promises God made and preparations he undertook so that the earth would be ready for the coming of his Son. 

And our main passage this morning is one of the most important parts of the backstory that we need to understand in order to fully appreciate Christmas. Chapter 12 marks a major turning point in the book of Genesis. Up until this point, things have been spiraling further and further downward. So, if it seems like we’ve been talking a lot about sin and judgment these past couple of months as we’ve journeyed through the first eleven chapters, that’s because we have. That’s what we find in these chapters. 

Just to review very briefly, after God created the world in chapters 1-2 as a beautiful paradise for the first humans, Adam and Eve, things take a sharp turn for the worse in chapter 3. Adam and Eve rebel against God by eating fruit he had commanded them not to eat and thereby plunge this entire world into a state of sin, brokenness, and dysfunction. Among other things, people become alienated from God, have a sinful nature, and live out that sinful nature in a variety of ways. One of those ways, recorded in the very next chapter, is when Adam and Eve’s son Cain becomes jealous of his brother Abel and meets him out in a field one day and murders him. So, notice the downward spiral beginning to take shape. Now, we’re no longer talking about merely eating forbidden fruit. We’re talking about first-degree murder.  

We then see in chapter 5 that the curse of death that God had pronounced on humanity is indeed a reality. Through a lengthy and detailed genealogy, we see that, in generation after generation, everyone dies eventually. Then, in 

chapters 6-10, we learn that evil has become so pervasive in the world that God has to wipe out the vast majority of the human race all at the same time through a worldwide flood. Only Noah and his family are spared. Yet, even after the flood, we see in chapter 11 that people are still operating in a state of sinful rebellion against God. Some of the worst external manifestations of sin have been addressed by the flood, but the human heart is still just as sinful as it’s ever been. The flood treated the symptoms but not the disease itself. People continue in their rebellion against God and pridefully seek to exalt themselves by building the tower of Babel. So, as you can see, things have been spiraling downward for quite some time now—throughout chapters 3-11. 

But here in chapter 12, we encounter a dramatic turning point. It’s in this chapter that God sets in motion a plan that will progressively unfold throughout the rest of the Bible—a plan to redeem his people from their sins. This is one of the key watershed moments in the entire Bible. Although we’ve seen a few faint glimmers of hope here and there in chapters 1-11, it’s here in chapter 12 that God starts working in a very deliberate and purposeful way to rescue his people from their sins. Now, God’s plan wouldn’t be accomplished overnight. It would take thousands of years to unfold—and, in fact, it’s actually still unfolding today. Yet, it was all set in motion in Genesis 12. If you think of God’s redemptive plan like a lengthy string of dominoes, Genesis 12 is like that very first domino being toppled, with many more dominoes to come throughout the rest of the Bible. Here in this chapter, the epic journey toward redemption has now officially begun. 

Now, the latter part of chapter 11 is another genealogy that gets us from Noah’s son Shem all the way down to Abram’s father, Terah, and, subsequently, to Abram himself. By the way, Abram is the same guy who would later be called Abraham when God changes his name. But, for the time being, he’s just Abram. And we read about him in 

Genesis 12:1-3: 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 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. 3 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.” 

So, in these verses, God reveals himself to Abram and calls him to leave everything that’s familiar to him and promises to bless him in various ways. Now, understand that, prior to this point, Abram and his family were thoroughly pagan. They were residing in the city of Ur, which was the world’s leading center for the worship of the moon and specifically of Nanna, the moon-god. We find confirmation that Abram was indeed an adherent of this pagan religion in a statement from Joshua 24:2: And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.” So there’s no doubt that Abram was a pagan through and through. In fact, there’s even evidence from archeological excavations of Ur that adherents of this lunar religion would sometimes practice human sacrifice. I don’t know if Abram himself ever participated in that, but that’s the kind of religion he was involved with. 

Yet, it’s out of this thick spiritual darkness that God calls Abram. By the way, that’s a good reminder for us that God can reach anyone—wherever they are. Maybe you have a friend who seems to have no regard for God and seems completely uninterested in talking about religious things. Or maybe you have a child who’s grown up and now openly rejects what they were once taught about God. It doesn’t matter. No one is too far removed from God for God to reveal himself to them.  

In addition, what we find in these verses is the first statement of what’s often called the Abrahamic Covenant—or God’s covenant with Abraham. A covenant, by the way, is simply a sacred agreement. God makes a sacred agreement with Abram—later Abraham—to bless him in various ways. So let’s look at the various elements of this covenant. 

First, God says, “I will make of you a great nation.” This is particularly amazing since we were told in the previous chapter that Abram’s wife Sarai was barren. Yet, nevertheless, God says Abram will be the father not just of one or two children but, eventually, of an entire nation. God then says, “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” We were told in the previous chapter that, in their prideful rebellion, the builders of the tower of Babel were seeking to “make a name for [them]selves.” Yet, here, God says that’s what he’s going to do for Abram. However, God also makes it clear that Abram won’t just be blessed himself but will be a conduit of blessing to others. 

God then tells him, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.” So Abram will be so blessed that even those who bless him will get some of the overflow of his blessing, though the opposite will be true for those who dishonor him. In fact, notice the severe punishment for those who dishonor Abram. God doesn’t say he’ll merely dishonor those who dishonor Abram but rather that he’ll go a step beyond that and actually curse them. That’s how fiercely devoted God says he’s going to be to Abram. Then, lastly, God says to Abram that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” And that, as we’ll see, is the most significant promise of them all. 

But first, I know I just said this was the last promise, but there’s actually one additional promise later on in the passage down in verse 7. I guess you could think of it as a “bonus promise.” Kind of like an infomercial: “but wait…there’s more!” God says, “To your offspring I will give this land”—talking about the land of Canaan. It’s the same land that the people of Israel would eventually conquer and occupy. That’s why it’s called the “Promised Land”—because God promises it to Abram and his descendants here in Genesis 12:7. 

Now, all of these promises we’ve discussed would later be reiterated and even slightly expanded numerous times in Abram’s life, as we’ll see in our journey through Genesis these next few months. But all the basic elements of God’s covenant with Abram are present right here in chapter 12. 

Yet, returning to what I believe is the most significant part of the Abrahamic Covenant in verse 3, we see that this covenant isn’t just about Abram being blessed but about the whole world being blessed. God makes a covenant with Abram to bring immeasurable blessing not only to Abram himself but to the whole world. And that’s the main idea of this passage. God makes a covenant with Abram to bring immeasurable blessing not only to Abram himself but to the whole world. “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” God says.

Now, how do you think that would be fulfilled? How would God do that? Well Abram would have a child named Isaac, and Isaac would have child named Jacob, whose name was also Israel. Israel’s twelve sons would eventually become the twelve tribes of Israel that we find stories about throughout the rest of the Old Testament. Yet, the nation of Israel never really was a vehicle for worldwide blessing. Instead, they openly despised those who were outside of their nation. And, even if they wanted to be a blessing to “all the families of the earth,” they weren’t really in a position to do that since they themselves were often so far from God. So, how would God’s promise to Abram of worldwide blessing be fulfilled? 

Well, I’m glad you asked—because it’s at this point that we come to a lowly manger in the tiny town of Bethlehem, where the long-awaited Messiah named Jesus made his entrance into the world on the day we now celebrate on Christmas. Jesus is the one through whom God’s promise to Abram all those years before would ultimately be fulfilled. He’s the one who would be the source of immeasurable blessing to “all the families of the earth.” So, understand that sending Jesus to be born in Bethlehem wasn't just this random thing God decided to do one day. It was the fulfillment of a specific promise made to Abram. 

The Apostle Paul spells out the connection for us in Galatians 3:13-14: 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. So, according to verse 14, how does “the blessing of Abraham…come to the Gentiles”? Gentiles, by the way, are simply people who aren’t Jews. So, how does the blessing of Abraham reach beyond Abraham’s biological descendants and impact the whole world? “In Christ Jesus,” Paul says. It’s “in Christ Jesus” that “the blessing of Abraham…come[s] to the Gentiles.” God promised Abram in our main passage that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. And now we see Paul teaching very clearly that Jesus is, we might say, the distribution mechanism for that blessing.   

And Jesus accomplished this, Paul says in Galatians 3:13, by becoming a curse for us in his death on the cross. You see, our sins had earned us God’s curse. Paul refers to it here as “the curse of the law”—God’s punishment on us for being lawbreakers. Yet, we read here how Jesus “redeemed us from [that] curse…by becoming a curse for us.” In his death on the cross, Jesus took the punishment we deserved. He took the law’s curse so that we could receive Abraham’s blessing. He took God’s wrath so we could receive God’s mercy. He took the punishment so we could receive the pardon. 

You know, when an elected official in our country, such as a president or governor, pardons an individual, that elected official issues their pardon simply by signing the appropriate documents. There’s no direct cost or consequence that the elected official has to suffer in order to pardon someone. But that’s not the way it works when it comes to the crimes we’ve committed against God. Instead, the only way Jesus could secure our pardon was by taking our punishment on himself. He didn’t just sign a piece of paper at some luxurious oak desk in a finely furnished office. Instead, he actually took our place on death row. He took the curse so we could receive the blessing. 

And, friends, that’s the only way we can become right with God. Sinful people are only able to be reconciled to a holy God in and through Jesus Christ—on the basis of his sacrificial death and also his victorious resurrection from the dead three days later. So the most important thing any of us can do in our lives is to turn from our sins and put our trust in Jesus for rescue. 

And the Bible says that those who do that become, in a spiritual sense, children of Abraham. If you remember, God had promised Abram, back in Genesis 12:2, to make of him “a great nation.” And, at first, it might to tempting to think of that “great nation” simply as the nation of Israel that was, of course, biologically descended from Abram. Yet, in reality, that’s just the beginning of the “great nation” God would make from Abram. Ultimately, that “great nation” consists of all who put their faith in Jesus. Paul explains in Romans 11 how even those who have no biological connection to Abram can be “grated into the vine,” as he puts it, and so become a part of Abram’s family and a recipient of God’s blessings.  

And then, to top it all off, we find a description of the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to Abram in 

Revelation 7:9-10: 9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”  What a beautiful picture of those for whom Jesus died worshiping him for all eternity!

And here’s what’s really cool—you guys ready for this? You see that word “tribes” in verse 9, where it talks about “all tribes and peoples and languages”? That Greek word translated as “tribes”—φυλή—is the same word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament to translate the word “families” in Genesis 12:3. So, in Genesis 12:3, God promised Abraham that through him all the φυλή of the earth would be blessed, and then in Revelation 7:9, we read about people from every φυλή gathering around Jesus and praising him for his saving grace. All the families of the earth will indeed be blessed—and blessed for all eternity—in and through Jesus. 

So, as you can see, God’s redemptive plan stretches throughout the Bible. It’s first set in motion in the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 12 and finds its final culmination in the book of Revelation. So hopefully you can see now how big of a deal Genesis 12 is in the overall story of the Bible. It’s like the fountain out of which all subsequent blessings flow. 

Also, notice, in all of this, how God’s the one who takes the initiative. In this grand story of rescue and redemption stretching from Genesis to Revelation, God’s the main character. He’s the hero of the story. And we can see that even from the beginning in Genesis 12. Don’t forget that Abram was a pagan moon-worshiper who likely had no knowledge of the One True God and hadn’t done anything to make himself deserving of God’s blessing. Yet, God graciously took the initiative and revealed himself to Abram. He them made the stunning promises to Abram that we read in verses 2-3. Notice that these verses aren’t about anything Abram needs to do for God but about what God promises to do for Abram. We can see that simply by taking a quick survey of all the times the phrase “I will” appears in these verses. God says, “I will make of you a great nation,” “I will bless you and make your name great,” “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse,” and then later on in the passage he says “To your offspring I will give this land.”

So, here’s what we need to know about God’s plan for rescue and redemption: it consists of God, God, God, God, God. The gospel is a message about a great God showing incredible mercy to unworthy sinners. That’s what it was in Genesis 12 with God’s promises to Abram, and that’s what it is for us today. We have to understand that the gospel isn’t a message of us reaching up to God but of God reaching down to us. It’s not about us achieving anything but about us receiving the grace God offers. So, stop trying to work your way up to God and instead embrace the grace he offers you as the free gift that it is. 

However, part of receiving that gift is renouncing everything in our lives that’s contrary to God’s will. God calls us out of our sin, just as he called Abram out of the pagan city of Ur and away from everything that was familiar to him. Again, Genesis 12:1, Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” 

We then read, in verses 4-5, about how Abram followed God’s call. It says, 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. We then read in verses 8-9, 8 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. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. 

So, think about what a monumental act of faith this was for Abram. We have every indication that Abram was very comfortable in the city of Ur. He had lived there for a long time and was quite settled there, he was surrounded by his family and the support he could expect from them, and he was quite prosperous. Not only that, the only thing Abram has to go on for this major life decision is what God tells him in the first three verses. And God doesn’t even give Abram all the details about where he’s supposed to go. Imagine that God told you, “Hey, I want you to put all your stuff in a moving truck and leave your home here in Pittsburgh, leave your job, leave everything that’s familiar to you, and start going that way to a land I’ll show you.” That’s essentially what God says to Abram, meaning that Abram had to trust God even more than he otherwise would have had to. For all practical purposes, Abram might as well have been blindfolded as he went where God led him to go. 

I remember, one time when I was in college, some of my friends blindfolded me on my birthday and “kidnapped” me and took me to a restaurant, where they finally removed the blindfold. But during that journey, I just had to trust them that they were taking me to someplace good and not just dropping me off in the middle of nowhere or something like that. Going along with the “kidnapping” required a significant amount of faith in my friends. Yet, of course, the faith required of Abram was even greater—much greater. God was calling Abram to risk it all in obedience to his command. 

And, as we see, Abram did as the Lord told him. Hebrews 11:8-10 tells us, 8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 

So make sure you understand the relationship here between faith and obedience. Abram’s outward obedience was simply the manifestation of his inward faith. He wasn’t earning or achieving anything but was simply exhibiting his trust in God. And it’s no different for us today: faith and obedience are inseparable. We should never imagine that we have faith in Jesus if we’re not stepping out in obedience to him. 

And when Jesus calls us to follow him, it’s a lot like God’s call to Abram. Jesus doesn’t make any specific guarantees about what our future will be like on this earth. He promises us eternal life—that “city with foundations” that Abram was looking forward to—but he doesn’t promise, for example, that all of our earthly problems will magically be fixed or that we’ll have a life of comfort and ease. Jesus actually doesn’t give us any specific details about how our lives will turn out but only gives us the promise that he’ll be with us in our lives every step of the way. He then calls us to venture out in faith, with our total trust and confidence in him to take care of us. That’s what’s involved in becoming a Christian. You have to be willing to leave your life of sin and put your life in God’s hands, surrendering it all to him. Nothing short of that qualifies as true, saving faith. 

Also, for those of us who have already put our faith in Jesus in this way and been rescued from our sins and become Christians, I believe there are also a few questions that God’s call to Abram in Genesis 12 should lead us to ask of our lives. What is God presently calling you to do in life? Where is he calling you to go? How is he calling you to get out of your comfort zone? 

For example, I appreciate one lady in our church who was willing to step out in faith a few weeks ago by agreeing to host a Community Group in her home next semester even though she’s never done that sort of thing before. She specifically told me it was a significant step of faith for her. Praise God for that! So, what about you? How is God calling you to step out of your comfort zone in faith-driven obedience to him? 

Maybe he’s calling you to publicly profess your faith through baptism even though that might offend certain family members. Or maybe he’s calling you to have a difficult conversation with someone—perhaps to warn them about a very troublesome path they seem to be heading down or perhaps to resolve some sort of tension in your relationship. Or maybe he’s calling you to have a gospel conversation with someone in your life and tell them about Jesus even though you’re not sure how they might respond. Or maybe God’s calling you to broaden your horizons on Sunday morning and, instead of just talking to people you already know at church, get out of your comfort zone and make it a habit to introduce yourself to people you don’t recognize and who are likely guests with us in order to help them feel welcome. 

Or, for those who count themselves a part of this church, maybe God’s calling you to step out in faith in the area of generosity and start contributing according to the biblical pattern of a tithe, or a tenth, of your income. I know from personal experience, during certain seasons of my life especially, that level of generosity takes a significant amount of trust in God to provide for our needs. Or maybe God’s calling you, as he did Abram, to literally go out to another land as a cross-cultural missionary in order to spread the gospel to the furthest corners of this world. So, there are plenty of ways in which God calls us as Christians to step out in faith, just as he called Abram to do in Genesis 12, with our total trust and confidence in him.