This morning, we’re starting a new message series entitled, “Unexpected” where we are going to recall the truly unexpected ways in which God worked in the past and some of the unexpected places and times where He showed up.  These reminders of God’s faithfulness and miraculous power and authority will serve to encourage us in our present and give us hope toward our future.

God almost always begins working with His word.  It’s sort of like us guys created in His image.  We talk about how something needs done, we plan it out, we run it past a few others, then we do it.  That’s right, if we say we’re going to get it done, we’re going to get it done.  We don’t need reminded every month that it still needs taken care of.   

The very start of all of creation began with God’s word.  He spoke and it all came to be. 

Amos 3:7

Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing

    without revealing his plan

    to his servants the prophets.

Our journey starts with an unexpected prophetic word from God.  When God speaks, our lives are often in for some sudden and unexpected changes. However, when it’s God leading, it’s going to be an awesome adventure that ends well so long as we hold onto Him throughout the journey.

Genesis 12:1-4

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation,

    and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

    and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,

    and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

    will be blessed through you.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

Now initially, this word of God isn’t entirely unexpected.  Abram’s dad was initially on his way moving his family from the Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan.  When they arrived at Harran, he decided to settle down there.  God was asking  Abram to continue on this journey.  Also, 75 wasn’t that old in this point of history as his dad lived to be 205, his grandad to 119, and his great-grandad to 200 years old.

However, the unexpected part was that God was going to make Abram into a great nation that would bless all the people on earth.  That’s a pretty huge and unexpected promise to make! 

Just as God had chosen one man, Noah, through whom to redeem mankind, God again chose one man, Abram, through whom to ultimately and completely redeem mankind.  This time, instead of killing off everyone else, God chose to set apart Abram and his descendants as His own chosen people.

Also, the previous chapter informs us that Sarai, his wife, was barren and unable to have children.  How could God grow Abram into a great nation?  For Abram to have even a single child was an impossibility!

In any case, Abram obeys the Lord and begins travelling to this unknown land that God was going to show him.  This is how we ought to live as well.  We don’t have to have it all figured out, we don’t even need to know exactly where we are going.  We just need to know the next step that God has called us to make and to start walking in obedience.

God began to richly bless Abram with gold, silver, and livestock as he travelled to the point where he had to separate ways with this nephew Lot because the land couldn’t support the both of them.  He allowed Lot to choose the land that each would move off to.  Abram moved on to, you guessed it, Canaan.

Quite a few years have passed since God first gave His promise to Abram, so He gave Abram a reminder of it.

Genesis 13:14-17

14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, the