FROM BAD TO WORSE
What do you do when God calls you out of your comfort zone, and instead of things getting better, they go from bad to worse?
In this series of lessons, we look at the love of God and his plan (his mission) to bridge the gap between us and him. We look at his mission to bring us back into a relationship with him. In bridging the gap between us and Him, He calls for us to become His disciples and members of his family. Becoming God’s disciples and fulfilling his mission, plan, and purpose for us at times may feel uncomfortable. This discomfort has been the experience of many in the past. How did they respond, and what were the results? God has a mission and a plan that involves you. In this series, we look at God’s call for us to get out of our comfort zone and partner with him in fulfilling his mission (his plan and purpose).
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Let Us Inviting God’s Presence:
Holy Father, help us remain steadfast in even the most trying circumstances. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
God’s Mission, My Mission (Lesson 3)
‘God’s Call to Mission
Part 3 of 6
Becoming a Blessing to the Whole World
God’s instructions to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3, in a sense, was a call out of his comfort zone. It was a call for mission. It was a call to fulfill God’s plan and purpose for him.
God asked Abram (whose name God changed later to Abraham) to leave his country and his people and go to another land.
God’s asking Abraham to leave was part of His plan to use Abraham as an avenue to fulfill his divine purpose of saving us humans.
It was God’s purpose to fulfill his promise to Adam and Eve through the seed of Abraham.
Abraham did just as the Lord commanded Him. Just like Abraham, God also has a plan for you.
In contemplating God’s call for you, whatever it may be. We can be sure that God will keep his promise.
The following verses show us that God kept the promise He made to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
God’s promise in the Garden of Eden: Genesis 3:15
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
God’s Promise continues with his promises to Abraham in Genesis 17:19
19 Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. (Genesis 17:19) (Split
God’s promise in Eden continues in Numbers 24:17
17 “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near; A Star shall come out of Jacob; A Scepter shall rise out of Israel, And batter the brow of Moab, And destroy all the sons of tumult. (Numbers 24:17)
God’s promised seed in the Garden of Eden continues in Isaiah 9:6
6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
Then Daniel 9:24-27 provides more details about the promised seed and when the promised seed the deliverer would come.
24 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
25 “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.
26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.” (Daniel 9:24-27)
Finally, in Matthew 1:21, we find the birth of the promised seed given in the Garden of Eden.
21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
God promised that Someone would come to resolve the sin problem brought about by Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden.
Someone is Jesus. Jesus came from the family line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Hebrews 11:9 tells us Isaac and Jacob were heirs to the promise that God made to Abraham.
Hebrews 11:9
9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; (Hebrews 11:9) (Split)
How much did Abraham know or understand about the Promised Son (the promised seed)? We don’t know. But we do know, based on Hebrews 11:8, what Abraham did. For it says that
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
Abraham is an example for all of us. God expects us to move by faith!
Suppose you are called by God to go, “not knowing” where you are going. How would you respond? How did Abraham respond? Continue to Part 4 of this video: Abraham’s Call
God’s Mission, My Mission (Lesson 3)
‘God’s Call to Mission
Part 4 of 6
Abraham’s Call
What do you do when God commands you to do something and things don’t get better? As a matter of fact, things go from bad to worse. What do you do when it seems like it could not get any worse, but it gets even worse?
God commanded Abram (later called Abraham) to leave his home and country. So, Abram went to the land God commanded go into. However, right from the start, things didn’t look too good for Abram.
We find in Genesis 12:6 that the Canaanites were already living in this land that God had promised to Abram.
6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. (Genesis 12:6)
Who were the Canaanites?
The Canaanites were polytheistic; they believed in many gods, such as the moon god, the sun god, the goddess of fertility, and so on.
They were known for their cruelty and violence. Therefore, it is no wonder that soon after Abram got there, God appeared to him and promised, “ ‘I will give this land to your children and to your children’s children’ ” (Genesis 12:7, NLV).
Considering the circumstances, Abram needed encouragement.
But things did not get better for Abram. As a matter of fact, they continued to get worse, at least from the start.
Genesis 12:10–13:1 tells us what happened once Abram arrived in Canaan and the mistakes He made. Reading from the Clear Word Bible
Gen. 12.10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
Gen. 12.11 And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance.
Gen. 12.12 “Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.
12.13 “ Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I* may live because of you.”
Gen. 12.14 So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.
Gen. 12.15 The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house.
Gen. 12.16 He treated Abram well for her sake. He Rhad sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
Gen. 12.17 But the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
Gen. 12.18 And Pharaoh called Abram and said, “ What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
Gen. 12.19 “Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.”
Gen. 12.20 So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.
Gen. 13.1 Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South. (Genesis 12:10–13:1)
Evidently, Abram must have felt that he was in a hopeless situation. It had to be pretty discouraging when he arrived in Canaan after leaving his comfortable home and most likely prosperous life in his homeland, only to go to a country filled with people who did not know God and lived lives without any respect for one another. It says in Hebrews 11:8
8 “He left his home without knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8, NLV).
If it was not enough to be in a land of cruelty and violence, one of the first things that happened when he got there was a famine, a food shortage!
This food shortage was so bad that Abram had to leave the place where God told him to live and go somewhere else. (Split)
Then things started to go downhill after that. After arriving in Egypt, he concealed the fact that Sarah was his wife. His choice put his wife in danger and almost cost him his life. In the Book Patriarchs and Prophets, it says:
“During his stay in Egypt, Abraham gave evidence that he was not free from human weakness and imperfection. In concealing the fact that Sarah was his wife, he betrayed a distrust of the divine care, a lack of that lofty faith and courage so often and nobly exemplified in his life. . . . Through Abraham’s lack of faith, Sarah was placed in great peril. The king of Egypt, being informed of her beauty, caused her to be taken to his palace, intending to make her his wife. But the Lord, in His great mercy, protected Sarah by sending judgments upon the royal household.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 130.
God never promised that when we choose to follow His lead things were always going to be easy. By lying, by being deceitful, Abraham only made matters that were already bad, even worse.
But God! God is loving, patient, kind, and forgiving. He didn’t give up on Abram, he did not cast him aside because of his mistake.
The truth be told, this would not be his only mistake. Abram made many other mistakes along the way.
Abram’s story is encouraging. It gives us hope. We may make mistakes along the way. But despite our errors, God does not cast us aside.
His mission is to bring us back into a relationship with Him. Therefore, we can hold on to the Lord in faith. We can keep trusting in Him to forgive our sins and shortcomings.
The Lord also will continue to use us to do His work. Moreover, if we cling to the Lord in faith and submission, as did Abraham, not only can our errors, sins, and faults be forgiven, but the Lord can still use us to fulfill his purpose.
In fulfilling His purpose, like Abraham, God calls us out of our comfort zone. This is even more evident in the New Testament with the formation of the early church under the leadership of Jesus’ disciples.
What happened when Jesus’ followers (his early church) were taken out of their comfort zone? Read Acts 8:1-4 and watch my next video: Part 5, The Early Church and Comfort Zones.
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