Him We Proclaim

Genesis 15:1-21: Summary: God knows when a faithful man has his doubts. He attends a faintly burning wick. The fainting doubts have to do with the promises of God and present circumstances. Waiting is hard, but patience is holy. In that gulf, God reveals His sufficiency for Abram, which Abram questions. God answers Abram that the promise doesn't have an expiration date because it depends on God's ability to raise the dead. Abram will have a son and, from him, children innumerable. The Word is enough. Faith rebounds. Abram believes God. God counts such faith as righteousness. Abram is justified by grace through faith. But there's still the issue of the land. Where will children innumerable find space enough to rest in God? Abram seeks assurance, and God assures him. Animals are sacrificed. A covenant is cut. Abram is put to sleep. On pains of death, God absorbs all the consequences of any breach in the covenant. By blood that will speak a better word, God promises the next phase in redemptive history: an exodus whereby a judgment upon enemies will yield the salvation of all who take cover under the blood. These will possess Canaan. God's promised it to Abram and to his Offspring, Christ. In all of it, God means to encourage us that, from justification to final rest and everywhere in between, grace guarantees glory.

Main idea(s): God is our shield against every fear that He will not finish what He started.

Sermon Outline:

Know for certain: God will vindicate faith. (15:1-3)

Know for certain: God has justified the believer. (15:4-6)

Know for certain: God will give the believer Rest. (15:7-21)

Genesis 14:1-24: Summary: Chedorlaomer is the king of so many kings. Some of them rebel. Their rebellion proves futile. The greater kingly coalition is a force with which to reckon, but powerful people often and wrongly assume themselves above a higher reckoning. Pride is a weed sowing many seeds, and some have been determined to bite. In taking Sodom, the royal coalition takes Lot into captivity, engaging Abram in pursuit, engaging God and His promise. With the help of a few international allies, Abram defeats this mighty coalition with 318 men born in his house. In effect, he now holds the title of king of kings, but only ever so briefly. In the aftermath of victory, a banquet is held in the King's Valley. There is Abram and the king of Sodom and one so far unmentioned: Melchizedek. This king of righteousness (Melchi-zedek) is king of Peace (Salem), as well as prophet (disclosing the Sovereign behind Abram's victory) and priest (blessing Abram, while receiving a tithe from him); and without genealogy, he seems without beginning or end. He's the host of a banquet prefiguring the table of Heaven and he, himself, typifies the true King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ Who wins by forfeit and saves by dying and takes His proper seat by resurrection, Prophet-Priest-King, holding His office forever for those who trust Him.

Main idea(s):For peace with God, we begin to look for a Mediator in the order of Melchizedek.

Sermon Outline:

A miscalculating king of kings. (14:1-12)

A conquering king of kings. (14:13-16)

A foreshadowing king of kings. (14:17-24)

Genesis 12:10-13:18: Summary:Bitter providence sends Abram and family into Egypt. On the precipice, his faith comes under the shadow of fear. Charity might say his intentions were good: the preservation of the couple to whom God had promised the Christ. But instead of trusting God for that preservation, Abram tells a truth in service of comfort and executes a plan that works, though it directly endangers the promise. What works isn't always what's right. What's right isn't always comfortable. God delivers His people by plagues prefiguring the Exodus, whereby Abram's faith is taught to take up his cross and trust in God. But faith loses its way again in the narrative of Lot. Given first-dibs on the land before them, Lot chooses what he perceives to be the best of it, and a lot of the best. If fear will not derail the promise, perhaps the promised can have their faith derailed. The devil has his Edens. And whereas Lot decides to go in the direction of the wicked, Abram, exercising a faith in better condition, settles in the land of promise. The City of God is real and on the horizon, and faith, seeing by the radiance of Christ, will, when healthy, count the best of the world as inconsequential in comparison with the riches of God.

Main idea(s):The salvation of the world rests on God Who is faithful.

Genesis 12:1-9: Summary:God calls Abram to give up the land he knows, its gods, the security of comfort, the familiarity of family, and go to a land yet unknown. God's far-reaching promises overflow, and Abram responds in faith. But obstacles are great, and his faith will be tested. But God, the lover, the initiator, the redeemer, the covenant Lord, will see everything through in his perfect timing.

Outline:

God's grace-filled call

Abram's glory-magnifying response

Genesis 11:10-32: Summary:Moses gives a stark contrast when, amid a genealogy bursting with fertility, Abram's wife Sarai is said to be barren. As is customary, God chooses the weak things in the world to shame the strong. His purpose of grace therefore runs through a woman's womb that's more akin to an empty tomb. The entire scheme and weight of glory depends, not on flesh and blood or human will, but on God Who raises the dead. Redemption rests on resurrection. It rests on Him Who calls things that do not exist into existence. So while the line of grace seems compromised, Terah has died, and Sarai is barren, take heart! God lives! And as promised, He will deliver on the Gospel of the crucified and risen Christ. By Him, Sarai's empty tomb leads to Jesus' empty tomb, and to the putting off of our grave clothes in Him.

Main idea(s):For God so loved the world that He raised the dead in Sarai's womb.

Sermon Outline:

The progress of Shem's living line. (11:10-26)

The problem of Terah's dead ends. (11:27-32)

The purpose in God's resurrecting power. (various)

Genesis 11:1-9: Summary:

The Fall of Adam is at home in the world. Not all unity is worth keeping. The world is united in language, but under the dominion of sin. As they move away from Eden, they move away from God, His Word, His Christ, His City, His centrality, as well as the truth about themselves. Against God's commission, they exhort each other to settle in Shinar and use their ingenuity to create something solid and lasting as a testament to their greatness, or at least that's what they would like to do. They build a tower at the center of the City of Man that signifies a prideful invasion of the City of God. God comes down to the City of Man and offers His estimation of Man's capacity: it is great in the exercise of sin. In love, God will not let them go as far as they want, which is a dead end. He divides their speech as an order to cease and desist. The Kingdom of God cannot be gotten by Man, but it will be given to as many as believe in the Name above all names, Jesus Christ. By Him, divided sinners will be united under grace at the cross as one people sojourning to the City of God.

Main idea(s):

For God so loved the world that He exalted His Name over our own.

Genesis 10:1-32: Summary:

Sons are born to Noah's sons. In this table of nations, we're reminded of God's global purpose to redeem a people for Himself, His glory and our good, from the power and curse of sin. In this, we're to observe the love of God that will be poured out from the line of Shem and finally through His Son, Jesus. It's the love that reconciles us to God even while we were His enemies, the love that, piercing His Son, is strong to pierce the soul of any, the love that lifts up Christ with power to draw all peoples to Himself, the love of God for the world that will culminate in the gift of Christ for all Who believe in Him.

Main idea(s):

For God so loved the world that He prepared and endured it until His Son should come to save His people from our sins.

Sermon Outline:

The sons of Man and God's everlasting purpose for the world. (10:1)

A host of enemies and God's long-suffering patience with the world. (10:2-20)

The line of Christ and God's saving power afforded the world. (10:21-32)

Genesis 9:18-29: Summary:The flood has ended. The ark has emptied. A covenant's been cut. What kind of world will follow? What has the flood actually achieved? Are God's people fully at rest? The text gives us the world that falls out from the ark, beginning with Noah's sons. We quickly find that the war within has not finally concluded, as Noah and his son, Ham, blow past the free bounds of righteousness into the bars of sin. Shem and Japheth, in contrast to Ham, do righteousness. In this new world, the old war between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman persists. In response, Noah, the object of Ham's sin, curses Ham's son, Canaan, while blessing the God of Shem and Japheth. It will soon be acknowledged that the whole world still abides under the curse of sin and death, and yet there's hope in the lines of Noah. 'Dwell in the tents of Shem,' one of the great-grands of Abraham and his Offspring, Christ. Noah dies, but not without leaving God's hope for a world that remains in need of the Christ through Whom the accursed may instead receive the blessing of Heaven.

Main idea(s):Though sin abides a problem in all mankind, God's Christ abides the definitive Savior of all who take refuge in Him.

Sermon Outline:

The world outside Noah’s ark. (9:18-19)

The war within Noah’s tent. (9:20-23)

The win within Noah’s lines. (9:24-27)

The witness of Noah’s life (and death). (9:28-29)

Genesis 9:1-17: Summary:God blesses Noah and his family, recommissioning them for his service. It takes the form of a covenant, God committing to their care, even in knowledge of their sinful hearts. The bow set in the sky will be a reminder to all of God's mercy, and their sin, and his forbearance against a coming day of judgment.

Main idea(s): The sanctity of life, the foundation for government, the obligation to deal with murder, God's merciful covenant with creation, encouragement for walking in God's mission

Sermon Outline:

God's blessing (9:1-7)

God's promise to remember (9:8-17)

Genesis 8:1-22: Summary:In the belly of the Ark, raging storm without and perishable stores within, God remembered faithful Noah and his ecosystem. Divine remembrance leads to a calming of the storm. Day by day, the waters abate, the land drys, and Noah draws the nearer to salvation completed. As the Ark rests on dry ground, it's successfully completed its purpose. Those who believed have been spared the justice of God. Not a drop remains to touch them. God calls Noah then to go out and begin again what He commissioned Adam to do. God's purpose goes beyond Noah. He's after a humanity that reflects His glory to the world. Accordingly, Noah worships the Lord by building an altar upon which he offers clean sacrifices that are pleasing and moving aroma to God's own heart. It's figural of the sacrifice God will make, the Sacrifice that satisfies God's justice, cleanses the human heart, and certifies a new creation that will never come to an end.

Main idea(s):God never forgets, but always remembers His people, bringing them, through Jesus, to rest in/as a new creation, free from wrath, and on worshipful, Christ-diffusing mission.

Sermon Outline:

The God of the flood remembers Noah. (8:1a)

The God Who remembers acts for and through Noah. (8:1b-19)

Noah worships the God Who so remembered him. (8:20-22)