Road Trippin With Rachael

Who?

Abraham is the father of the Hebrew nation. He left his home in Ur of the Chaldeans to travel to Canaan with his wife, Sarai (who would become known as Sarah) and his nephew Lot along with both their households (Genesis 12). As the first of the three men who are referred to as the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), Abraham really sets the stage for both his future family and for future believers in that he isn’t portrayed as being this perfect person. Scripture is clear about how flawed Abraham really is, that he makes mistakes, that those mistakes often have far reaching consequences, and that he isn’t always as faithful as we want to think heroes of the faith to be (Hebrews 11:8). But despite his flaws, Abraham is still faithful – and he always returned to God when he screwed up. 

Covenant

Abraham plays a unique part in scripture when it comes to the concept of covenant. A covenant is a binding legal agreement that is made between two unequal parties, whereby the weaker party agrees to offer up X,Y, Z to the stronger party in exchange for A,B,C with the consequences for failing to faithfully adhere to the covenant spelled out clearly – normally resulting in the ending of life for the weaker party. What is so unique about the covenant that is made between God and Abraham is that (1) God initiates, and (2) God is the one who agrees to accept the consequences for Abraham’s failure to adhere to the covenant. I’m going to post a blog later this month on Covenant Theology so I’ll go into more details there, but it’s also important to note that this is the first time that God makes a covenant with a person for his family. Previously, as with Adam (to be fruitful and multiple) and Noah (that the world will not be destroyed by way of a flood) were made to the representatives of humanity, with the promise not being for a specific family, that is not the case with Abraham. 

What Can We Learn From Abraham?

As we look at Abraham and his story throughout Scripture, I think there are some important things that can be learned from him, even if it is just as an overview. 

1. Faithfulness – Abraham made mistakes and he was far from perfect. Some of his choices are still affecting his descendents today. But Abraham always repented and turned back to God, with his first instinct being to worship. 
2. Consequences – I’ve already stated it, but faithfulness and being a Christian isn’t going to remove the consequences of our actions. Those consequences do affect us, but as with Abraham, it also affected his children to the point that one was cast out with his mother. 
3. God fulfills His Promises – When God made his covenant with Abraham, he told Abraham that his descendants were going to outnumber the stars in the sky. For that to happen, it means that his barren wife would need to be able to have a child, even in her old age. God was gracious enough that he did – he gave them the child Isaac. And from there, we see a man turn into a family, who would become a people, and later they would become a nation. 

In Conclusion…But Jesus

As we look to Christmas, what it is that we can take away from the life of Abraham? We can see that as with the birth of Isaac – the child of promise – there is also the birth of Jesus – the Savior promised. There is a point where Abraham and Isaac go to offer a sacrifice on Mt. Moriah and they didn’t take a sheep with them for the sacrifice (Genesis 22). When questioned about it Abraham tells his son that the Lord will provide. Abraham was called to give up the thing that he loved most – his child – and he had the faith that had been fostered in him to believe that if this is what God was calling him to do, then there was going to be another child or a resurrection of Isaac.

And as Abraham believed, the Lord provided a sacrifice. It wasn’t at that time or place, but there was a sacrifice prepared – it was Jesus. Like an innocent lamb, Jesus came in the for of an innocent baby, who would live a sinless life, and he would be sacrificed for the sins of humanity – where all who believe are saved.