When God Says Go

There are lots of times when we don't understand, aren't there? Lots of times we do not understand the purpose of his plan. Joe Simonson, I was just talking about that before the service, about some things you just don't understand. Folks go through and all of us go through things that we don't understand and it is in those times that we must learn to bow the knee, in humble submission to a wise and loving father who knows what he is doing even if we do not understand what his plan involves. And you know a lot of times those things that we don't understand involve separation issues. They involve those who are taken from us or they involve times when God makes it clear that we should leave where we are or maybe our children should leave and go somewhere else and God kind of separates our families in a sense. Sometimes those are difficult things to understand. It's difficult to understand why God does that at times. Abraham faced that in Genesis chapter 12 and we're going to look tonight at a time in his life when God said, go. And it was not clear to Abraham or Abraham what God was doing. It was not clear at all what was happening and where he was going to end up and what that was going to mean for his future. It was not clear at all to him. God very clearly had said go and Abraham had to bow the knee and trust God in that time. I think it's more difficult for us to understand what Abraham was going through because we live in a very mobile society. I was counting up the other day. I've lived in 11 different places since I've been born. That's once every five years we've moved which I understand is the national average. I don't even remember the first place we lived when I was a baby. I do remember the second place and I can count the other places through the years. Many of you have lived in more places than that and we move from many different reasons. We move sometimes because of job relocations. We move sometimes because of health reasons. Sometimes to be closer to family. Sometimes we move because we're simply restless. Sometimes we move because we go to a different house for no other reason than that we want a different place to live or God opens up a different place to live. But I want us to look tonight at a move that was ordered by God in Abrams' life, which I believe gives us some principles about times that God may uproot us and move us to different locations. Whether it's job related or whether it has to do with God moving us for ministry purposes. Sometimes God simply says go. Sometimes He says it's time for you to go somewhere else and we certainly need to be willing to do that when God moves us in those ways. Abrams move in Genesis chapter 12 gives us several principles for which I would like to give you this evening and talk a little bit about from Genesis chapter 12, the first nine verses. The first principle that we find in Abrams' move is this. God may call us to change locations. That's a very clear principle and it's given to us in verse 1. The Lord had said to Abrams, leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. That was very clear. God had told him that. God had said to him, leave where you are, leave your family, leave everything you have there, leave your home place and go to a place where I will show you. God had given him that command while he was still living in Err, in the city where he had grown up, in the city where everything that was familiar to him existed. I want us to look at a map of the journey that Abram took. It's quite a journey that God sent him on. If you'll follow along with me here, he begins this journey in a place called Err, which is in what would be present day Iraq close to the border of Kuwait. And followed the Euphrates River up to a place called Haran. We saw that last time that we looked at Abram's life last week, but he will eventually make his way on down, and these were the normal trading routes to the land of Canaan. And we will see some of these places a little bit later on, where Abram travels and pitches his tent and moves around from place to place in Canaan. I want us to try to grasp a little bit of what this meant to Abram to leave Err and to go to Canaan. First of all, he is living in Err. Err is for its day a very cosmopolitan city. In fact, archaeologists have done a lot of work in the city of Err. This is what they have found. They have found that the city of Err was along the Euphrates River, had its own harbor, which made it a very prosperous trading center. It was a place where there were grave yard's royale cemeteries of kings. There was also a fortified city here, the walls 30 feet high. This place here called a Ziggurat, not a Ziggurat, but a Ziggurat. A Ziggurat was a temple. It was a place of worship. And it was like what you may see in programs of ancient times, maybe in Babylon or something like that, where you have kind, or even in the Aztec civilization in Mexico, where you have different levels, each level a little bit smaller than the other. And this one was about six stories high. It was one of the biggest ones in the ancient world. It was a worship center, and on the top of these Ziggrats, they would have a temple. That would be of some occult, or worshiping the stars, or something like that. This was a religious center. This was a commercial center. It was a booming city. It was a city that was sophisticated, well designed. It was a wealthy city with all the creature comforts that Abram could possibly want. And God is calling him to go to a land where he won't find out exactly where he's supposed to stop till he gets there. I mean, God says, go to the land I will show you. He doesn't really even know where he's going yet, but he's going to leave Er. He knows that. Now think about this decision and this move of Abram in light of the fact that he was very prosperous at this time. Verse 5 tells us that he took his wife, Sarah, is nephewed lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, the people they had acquired. People they had acquired in Iran. People are servants. And servants in that day indicated the prosperity of the person who had them. And so here's a man who is already very prosperous and we'll see later that he becomes even more prosperous after he is in Canaan, but he is a prosperous man. It's not that he has to leave. He's got everything he needs to be comfortable in Er. Not only is he prosperous, he is settled in Er. This is where his family is. This is where everything that is familiar to him is. He is settled here with all of his inheritance. Everything centered around this city of Er. He is settled, he is prosperous and he is middle-aged. Verse 4 tells us, Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Iran. He had stayed in Iran a little while. We don't know how long, but he was about that same age when he left Er. He said, well, 75, that's not exactly middle-aged, is it? Well, when you consider that Abram lived to the age of 175, then in current terms, if we kind of prorate that to lifestyles and lifespans today, he would be somewhere between 35 and 40 years old in our current lifespans. That's about the time when you expect that someone is getting settled. They found their niche in life. They're getting settled into what their life's work is going to be if they haven't already. They're really settling into life at that age. That's the beginnings of the middle years. Abram has every reason to stay in Er. He's prosperous, he's settled there, he's in midlife, and yet God says, get up and go. Take off. Leave everything. Leave all of that. Your settledness, the fact that you're really at this phase of life ready to really dig in and stay there and make your life there, the fact that you're prosperous. I mean, this was no easier for him than it is for us today to pull up stakes and lead at those particular stages of life. In fact, it probably was much harder for Abram than it would have been for us. He did not live in a mobile society. He did not live in a society where people moved every five years. He lived in a society where people grew up and stayed right there and lived there from cradle to the grave. That was typical of that time and of that day, but God is telling him to move. And where is he to go? Where is he going? If he's going to leave everything that is settled and prosperous and really right for him as far as his family, where is he going to go? I can just imagine all of his family and all of his neighbors asking. Now where is this place, Abram that you're leaving for? Well, it's a place called Canaan. Where is it? I'm not sure. Well, how do you know when you get, well, God has told me, He'll tell me, when I get there, I'm sure that people shook their heads and walked away and thought the man is absolutely crazy. But God had told him, the command to Abram was to go. Was to leave his country as people, his father's household and go to a land that God would show him. Now that command to Abram raises some questions that I think we all need to face. Three questions that all of us need to face in our lives about this whole issue of God uprooting us and telling us it's time to go. The first question is, how do we know? How do we know when God is moving us? Well, obviously, God spoke directly to Abram, the Bible indicates, and that was common for biblical times for God to verbally speak to someone and a voice they could hear. I don't think we can necessarily expect that to happen today. I'm not saying that God can't do that. Certainly God can do whatever He wants to do. We can't limit Him. But the Bible does seem to indicate that since God's revelation to us is completed in His Word, certainly the normal course that God chooses to work in our lives is not through verbal communication, that we can hear. It's not that He can't do that. It's not that it seems that now His Word has finished. God does not communicate with us in those kind of miraculous, direct ways. So how can we know when God is telling us, when God is calling us to change locations? Well, I think that first of all, we need to be sensitive to God's Word and God building up a burden and an interest and a desire in our hearts as we are in tune with His Word. There's several things that I have found through the years. I think are pretty common, pretty ordinary. I don't think they're unique to any one person. But I think sometimes God simply makes us uneasy where we are. It's kind of hard to explain, but kind of uneasy with your current situation. There's an interknowing that something is out there that God has for you, something else that God has for you. That begins to know where it you and to grow. I think that's one indication that God may be relocating you, may be moving you. Sometimes I've found this to come in a sense of a strong desire for a new challenge. Now be careful with that. I'm not talking about, I'm just getting tired of doing the same old thing or living in the same place. And so I just want to try something new. That can be very fleshly. But sometimes God does give us a desire for a new challenge, just kind of a compulsion to venture out and to go somewhere that he may have something else for us. Sometimes God gives us a strong desire for a new challenge and he may decrease at the same time our attachment to where we are. And you find that He's giving you a release or a freedom to leave people or things that may have before kind of bound you to where you are. I think that's the way God sometimes moves us and tells us to go. Sometimes it comes simply because, or this may at least be a factor because you cannot get out of your mind that new location or that new challenge. Now again be careful with that. A lot of people think all the time about Hawaii. That doesn't mean God's calling you to Hawaii. But sometimes God may just put something in your mind that you know this is what He wants and that compulsion, that desire, that burden grows. If you sense some of those kinds of things happening in your life that I've just been talking about, it could be that God is preparing you for something new in your life. Maybe it involves a new location. It may be involved something entirely new, a new job, new location, new venture in your life. It could be that God is doing that. If that's the case then that is time to really get into His Word and start praying and begin asking God, Lord if this is of you, then you're going to have to open the doors. If it's not close the doors, if this is just my restlessness, if it's just fleshly on my part because I'm tired of stuff, then close the door. Make it clear to me that this is not your plan, this is not you moving. And God will do that. If you're really seeking His purpose and His will to be done in your life, God will make clear to you whether or not that's of Him or whether or not that's just something in your mind and heart that you want. So we need to ask ourselves that question, how do we know God is moving us? Those are some of the ways I believe we can tell. One question I think we need to ask ourselves is, are we willing to go? Or are our tent pegs too deep? Are we willing to go? You see the Bible teaches we are pilgrims in this world. We really don't have a home in this world. Do you get that? We really do not have a home in this world. There is no location in this world, including the place where we were born that really is a permanent location. I mean, one day we're all going to be uprooted. We're all going to be taken to heaven and that is our home. That is our permanent home. That's where we'll be for eternity. There is no place on this earth that is permanent for us. Doesn't matter if you live from cradle to grave in Princeton, West Virginia. Still, that's not your home. So we all have to ask the question, do I put tent pegs down too deeply in a certain geographical location that would cause me to be deaf to the voice of God saying, you need to move. You need to go somewhere else. I have something for you in another place. Are we willing to go? Now again, God doesn't call everybody to move. God doesn't call everybody to go to the mission field or to even move somewhere else in the same town. God doesn't work the same way with everybody. But we must all ask ourselves the question, are we willing? If God is speaking, are we willing? And then a third question I think we need to ask ourselves is this, are we willing to let others go? Are we willing to let others go? If God should see fit to move someone else. Have you ever thought about Sarah's response when Abram first began talking about, you know, God seems to be giving me a kind of a restless spirit about, I need to go somewhere and has that became clear in his mind and he began to discuss it with Sarah. Have you ever wondered what her response was? It's interesting, there's no indication at all that she tried to stop him. Everything that was valuable to him and her was also valuable to her. But there's no indication in the scriptures at least that she ever tried to discourage him or to stop him. Are you holding someone else back from doing what God wants them to do? Your husband, your wife, your children, a friend, are you in a position where you can discourage someone from doing what God may be clearly putting in their hearts to do somewhere he may want them to go? We all need to ask ourselves the question, are we willing to let others go? As I've thought about these principles this week, I've been thinking about just reflecting back on our journey and our lives and how God has sometimes used these very principles in our own lives. I never forget when I was a senior in high school and I began talking about going to the Piedmont Bible College and talking about it with friends there at high school at Princeton high school and a lot of them didn't understand. You remember Piedmont Airlines? Remember when there was a Piedmont Airlines? That was pretty big in this area and I told someone I was going to Piedmont and they immediately said, are you going to be a pilot? I said no, no, I'm not going to be a pilot. You're going to train to be a pilot? No, I'm going to train for ministry and a lot of those friends kind of looked at me like I was strange. I remember one friend of mine who was who graduated top of our class. She was number one in our class, got a full ride to an Ivy League school and when I was telling her what I was going to do, she said, John, what are you going to waste your life that way for? Why don't you join a Peace Corps for a couple of years, get it out of your system and then do something profitable with your life? I'll never forget her telling me that because it kind of took me back. There were friends who really did seek to discourage me but I was so thankful for my family and for this church that always encouraged me and I'm looking into the faces of some folks right here tonight that encouraged me to be faithful to follow God's plan, whatever it was and wherever it meant to go. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for my mother and father who encouraged me to leave home and go and no matter what it meant, where I would end up, who knew I would come back here. I never forget the first time I ever was faced with the fact that I may come back to Princeton. It was in 1979 and I was holding a revival meeting at Swan Creek Baptist Church in Jonesville, North Carolina. Sammy Schoep was the pastor there. Sammy and I were going to a pastor's fellowship one day and he looked at me. This is 1979. He said someday you'll be at Johnson Chapel and I laughed out loud that never crossed my mind that I would ever come back here. I believed I would be in other places somewhere else. Who knew? I certainly didn't at that time but I'm thankful that I had a family who said it doesn't matter where it takes you, where you go, go if God says go. I'm thankful for that. Be willing to let others go if they're your own children, they're your friends, your own family members. Be willing to let them go. We all have to ask ourselves those questions. So principle number one, God may call us to change locations. Second principle is this, God takes care of those He sends out. Very, very well. He takes care of those He sends out. Verse two, notice the promises to Abram. There's seven of them. I will make you into a great nation. First promise. That's going to take care of Him. He's going to make Him into a great nation. Second promise. And I will bless you. That must have been comforting to Abram's heart to know that God would bless him, to know that the hand of God's blessing would go with Him. Next promise. I will make your name great. I'm sure that Abram probably did not understand what all that meant at that time but in some way God would make His name great. You know, probably Abram was thinking as most of us would, my name is pretty well established here in Ur. And I'm going to a place nobody knows who I am. God says, I'll make your name great. And notice the next promise. And you will be a blessing. That must have been a comfort to Him as well. You will be a blessing to other people. And then there are three promises in verse three. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. A double promise there. People who bless Abram. God's hand of blessing will be on. People who curse Him, God will curse them. And I believe that promise extends down to Abram's seed. And the nation that came from him, people of Israel. Those who bless Israel, the people that come from Abram, God blesses those who curse Israel, God curses. And notice the last promise and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. All peoples on earth will be blessed through Abram. You know, I'm sure as Abram left, he wondered, is God going with me? Will he take care of me? I don't know what lies out there in the future. I don't even really know where I'm going or what it's going to be like when I get there. But God will take care of you. That's what He's promising here. And every people on earth will be blessed. And obviously we know that's true through Abram's ultimate seed, Christ. The New Testament tells us this promise is ultimately fulfilled in Christ. All the nations of the earth are blessed because of Jesus Christ. So God makes some promises to Abram. To basically tell Him, I can take care of you. And you know God does the same thing for us. God can take care of us. He really can. Sometimes the fear of God moving us is the fear of the unknown. It's the fear of leaving security. It's the fear of leaving what we know well. We know our friends. We know our family. We know our territory at home, our neighbors, our associations that we have, stores that we go to, schools that we've been in. All of that's familiar stuff to us. To be uprooted and go to some place that's absolutely new is frightening at times. All of the adjustments that you know you'll need to face. But God has marvelous ways of taking care of us. When God says go, He takes care of those that He sends. The first 17 years of our ministry was away from this area. And we were at the closest point for five hours away from my folks always in our first three ministries at least, at least 12 hours away from Genie's parents. And so you know we were a long way away from grandparents. We didn't have much opportunity for our kids in their early years to spend time with their grandparents. And so they could not be as close to their grandparents as we would have liked. But you know one thing we found through the years in North Carolina, in Florida, and in Indiana was that God gave other people who acted as grandparents to our children. Nobody can take grandma's place. Nobody can take grandpa's place. Granddaddy's place. Nobody can take their places for sure. God sent along other people who came alongside us, who loved our children, and helped us with them. God provided in so many ways, there are so many stories I'm sure that you could tell about how when God has led you out on them, if you will, on a new venture, He has said go in whatever way to something new, He has always taken care of you. He's always provided for whatever needs you might have. God can take care of us. One last word lesson that we learn from Abram's experience of leaving what was familiar to him is that faith means obedience even when the future is unclear. That really is at the very core of what faith means. Faith means that we obey God even when we're not sure about everything about the future. Look at verses four and five. So Abram left as the Lord had told him and lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife, Sarah, his nephew, Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran and they set out for the land of Canaan and they arrived there. Now think about Abram's faith in doing this. The Bible just says that Abraham obeyed. He left as the Lord had told him that's obedience and he obeyed what God had told him to do even though the future was not entirely clear, even where he was going was not entirely clear for him. Look at this verse in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8. God's commentary on this experience in Abraham's life. God says this by faith Abraham, when called to go to a place He would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going. Now Genesis 12 says that he left for Canaan and arrived there. Hebrews 11 says he went out not really knowing where he was going. How do you put those two together? Well evidently the way to kind of harmonize those two passages is that he left for Canaan knowing the name of the location and maybe even the general area where it was but he did not know, he'd never been there before, he did not know what it was like and he did not know where he was to settle once he got to that general area. So what's he to do? He is to take the first step and follow the Lord as God allowed him to go and then when God wanted to stop him, God would stop him. When he got to the land of Canaan God would tell him that's where it is. Look down at verse 7. The Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land. Now that evidently is after he arrived at a certain location, the Bible tells us it was Shekham, after he arrived in Canaan at that location, he's still traveling. He doesn't know where he's supposed to stop and all of a sudden God says this is the land that I'm going to give to your family. So this is it Abram, this is the place you are to stop. He's interesting that God didn't tell him until he got to the land that this is it. He evidently knew a general location, he heads toward the land called Canaan but when he gets there God says, okay, this is it. God was showing him that faith is obeying God one step at a time, one step at a time. Because when God asks us to do something, when God asks us to step out by faith, we don't have the whole way mapped out yet. We don't know everything that's going to happen. We don't know how that decision is going to affect our future in all the details. That's kind of scary. But faith means we will take the step that we know to take that God has told us to take and we're obedient to that and then the next step at some point God will make clear. We take it a step at a time. I don't know about you, that's really scary for me. I like to plan stuff. That's just my personality, just the way I am, especially when it comes to travel. I just, it just scares me to death to think of starting out on a trip and not even having given any thought to the path, the way to go, the route, what's going to happen. I just love to plan stuff. Whenever we go on vacation, I do these meticulous plans of what we're going to do and how it's all going to work out. Our family has come to affectionately refer to those as the plan. The plan doesn't always work out, but I wouldn't dare think of leaving without the plan. And knowing what's going to happen at least, as I've got it figured out on day one or day two or day three, how far we're going to go and what we're going to do and where we're going to stop and what else is going to happen. Now sometimes the plan gets changed a little bit and that's a real stressor for me because I just like to have the plan. So when I think of what Abram did, that's faith. Stepping out what you know God has told you to do, one step, not knowing where that's going to lead and not knowing really where you're going to end up and what it's going to be like when you get there, that's faith. Faith is obedience even when the future is unclear. You know what? That's what trusting God is all about, isn't it? Really is. That's what trusting God is all about. Just do what we know we're supposed to do now. Don't try to figure out everything, you know, a month down the road or six months down the road or five years down the road. Now certainly the Bible commands wise planning and storing up for the future and thinking of the future and all that. The Bible commands that. But there are times when we don't know. In fact, we never know really what's going to happen in the future. Even with the best of our plans, we take a step at a time trusting God and we have to trust Him for the future. We don't have the details about what's going to happen in the future. And there's something about that in our spiritual lives not knowing how everything's going to work out that scares us when we don't understand it, when we can't plan it out. And yet, you know, we do that with every other area of our life or a lot of other areas of our lives. Some of you will go home this evening and you will turn on a television set. And you may see someone live in another part of the world reporting on weather or news or something like that. Do you understand how you can see someone in your living room on a box and their 10,000 miles away? I don't understand. Now some of you do understand all that. God bless you. Glad your mind works that way. I don't understand how all that works. I don't understand how I can see someone who's 10,000 miles away at the time they're there and I can see them in my living room. That doesn't keep me from turning on the television watching the news. There are a lot of things that I just accept that I don't understand. Now most of you, probably all of you, will leave this room this evening and you'll get in your car. And I would dare say that 90% of us, if not more, will turn the key in the ignition without any clue as to what's happening. I know what you're thinking. Yeah, with my car, I never know what's going to happen. But no, that's not what I'm saying. Most of us in this room have no clue as to how things work under that hood. We may have some general idea, but not a lot of detail. Is that keep you from turning the key in the ignition? If you don't know everything that's going on, of course not. There's a certain amount of faith. You know the one step you're supposed to take, that's to turn the key and then you trust that the thing's going to work right and everything else is going to happen. How can we do that with a television set and with a car and not do it with the sovereign Lord of the universe? Keep the next step and trust that God's going to show us. The next one, when it's right, when it's time and He'll work out every detail about the future. Sometimes when it comes to the Lord, we want to know everything ahead of time, exactly how it's all going to work and how it's going to turn out. And if it looks okay, then we'll take that next step. We need to learn to trust Him. Being obedient even when the future is unclear. God says, take one step at a time, trust me for the future. As I reflected back on this principle this week and just thinking about how He had done that in our lives, I still remember back in 1973, I had started in the ministry. The first ministry I had, I was a youth pastor at a church in North Carolina. And I was so excited about that. We'd just been married a year and I was so excited about that new ministry. And six months after we began that ministry, the pastor of that church left to take a church in Richmond, Virginia. And the deacons in that church came to me and said, would you be willing to be considered as a candidate? And I didn't hesitate at all. I said no. I didn't think about it. I didn't even pray about it. I just said no. You know why? Because I had stuff planned out. I felt I was too young. I was only 21 years old. I didn't have any experience except six months as a youth pastor. And so I just thought, that's not the way I had a plan. I got a year and a half of Bible college left. I can't pastor a church. And the idea of doing three messages a week just scared me like crazy. Because I hadn't even had all my preaching classes yet. I didn't know how to do that. And so I was scared to death. I just never considered it. Said no. And so they asked me would you be willing to preach until we find someone. I said okay, I'll do that. I thought if that'll get me off the hook. Yeah, I'll be willing to do that. And you know, for about two months I did that and God was beginning to work in my heart. And we faced some difficult things. Two weeks after I started preaching there, we had a young two-year-old die of a sudden infant death syndrome. They didn't call it that then. But it was kind of a mystery. And I never forget getting that phone call and just feeling like I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. And I went to one of my professors at Pete Monson. What do you do in a situation like this? He said you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know everything to do. Just go be there. Just be with them. And that was advice I've never forgotten. But it was a rough beginning. But two months later they came back to me and they said would you be willing to be considered again as a candidate. But that time God was beginning to work in my heart. And I said yes. And they were crazy enough to call me. And I was crazy enough to take it. And that was 34 years ago. But all I knew to do was to take it a step at a time. And I haven't always done that since then. There have been times when I have not had faith. But I still remember waking up on Sunday mornings in the old Scott House. We would drive down from Winston Salem and stay at an old barn type house and all house nobody lived in. And every Sunday morning I would get up with a knot in my stomach. I've got to preach this morning. And I was scared to death. This was a church of about 200 people and I'm 21 years old. What do I know? And I was scared to death. You know what? I still wake up on Sunday mornings with that knot in my stomach. Never gotten over that. I woke up this morning with a knot in my stomach just the awesomeness. And then I was in the shower thing. You dummy. You don't even preach this morning. What are you all upset about anyway? You know, so I got over it real quick this morning. But you know sometimes you just have to take it a step at a time and trust God. I'm thankful that in those moments and it hasn't always been this way with me. But in that time back in 1973 and 1974 I was able to say, okay Lord, I'm willing to take the next step. Although I can't see where this is going to lead. I don't think I can do this. But God took it the rest of the way. Sometimes faith simply means obedience when the future is unclear. Verse, Principle number four. Verses six through nine. Obedience deepens our relationship with God. Obedience deepens our relationship with God. There are two results of obedience in Abram's life. The first one in verses six and seven. Abram traveled through the land as far as the sight of the great tree of Morey at Shechem. That time the Canaanites were in the land. I noticed that's kind of an ominous note. You know, He travels to the land and at that time the Canaanites were there. There fearsome warlike people. But notice the next verse, verse seven, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land. That's comfort, that's encouragement, that's promise, that's hope. When you get to a land and you realize there are strong warlike tribes of people that live there and God reassures you to your descendants, your offspring, I will give this land. And notice what Abram does. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. The first result of obedience in deepening our relationship with God is that we find strength to meet the challenges of life. We find the strength to meet the challenges of life. When we obey God and He stretches us with the challenge, Abram finds out when He gets there, He's in the middle of a bunch of people who are not going to like the fact that He's there. But God reassures Him, gives Him the strength to meet that challenge, promises Him, gives Him the faith to believe that that will be the land He will give to His offspring. So when we're obedient to God, we will find the strength to meet the challenges of life. Whatever those challenges are, when God moves you out into a new phase of your life, a new experience in your life, a new journey for you. When He says go, when you're obedient to Him, you will find the strength you need to meet the challenges of that next step. But the second way our relationship deepens with God is priorities become focused. When we really step out in obedience and on faith, our priorities have a way of really getting sharply focused. Verse 8, from there He went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched His tent with Bethel on the west and I on the east, there He built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Then Abraham set out and continued toward the Negev. And we're not going to take the time to look at all those places they were on that first map we saw. They were all kind of there together in Canaan, Negev, the very southern part of the land. So it indicates that He was traveling through the land, but this was the land that God was promising Him. Different locations in it, He stopped at. But the thing that interests me is this. That's what it says in verse 8. He pitched His tent. That's a temporary structure. It can be put down pretty easily. It can be taken up pretty easily. That's a temporary structure. But look at verse the end of verse 8. There He built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. That's a permanent structure. He didn't pitch an altar. He built an altar, probably made out of stones. Now how fixed put together, what was temporary was of less importance to Abram than what was permanent. And what was permanent, the altar that He built to God. Now I think what that's telling us is it's clear what it would become more important to Abram at this point in His life because He had stepped out by faith and trusted God. And God said, this is the land. You've been faithful. And I'm going to give you what had become more important to Him than where He lived. His home was the fact that He was right with God. Our home, no matter if we live 70, 80, 90, 100 years in the same location, our home is only temporary. Our relationship with God is permanent. That's eternal stuff. Where we live is temporary stuff. Our relationship with God is permanent stuff. And that's what Abram was learning. Our priorities get straightened out when we begin to see, by faith we can trust God to take us each step of this journey through life. And when we get to the next step, He'll make clear the next step and the next step. And sometimes we step out by faith. We're not sure where our foot's going to land, but God takes care of us. God provides, and when we're obedient, it gives us a sense of what's really important. It deepens our relationship with God. Let me tell you one more story in closing. And this one is not about us, although I've enjoyed reflecting about the journey God has led us on through the years as I've thought about this message this week. We're going to tell you about a man named Cameron Townsend. Cameron Townsend found himself in 1917 unable to continue college because he'd run out of money. And so he signed up to sell Bibles. They sent him to Central America to sell Bibles for one year. One missionary said, you won't last in that part of the world for a month. Cameron Townsend was an adventurous kind of guy. He got down to Guatemala and he began to tramp through the jungles of Guatemala, literally on the back of a mule, or sometimes on foot. At times when he was in deeper parts of the jungle, he would take his hat and put it on a long stick and bob it out in front of him in case there were wild animals. And he began to sell Bibles. But you know what he found? He found that many of the people he was coming across in these little villages could not understand the Spanish Bibles that he was selling because they spoke tribal languages. And it burdened him. In fact, he got enough after he was there for a while to understand some of them were asking him why doesn't God speak my language. And he began to have a real burden for people who could not understand the very book that he was selling the Bible, the Word of God. That burden began to grow. So he decided to stay, forget about college, stay. And he did. He married a missionary, single lady missionary in Guatemala. And he decided we're going to build a house right here among these folks in the jungles. He built a house out of logs and corn stalks. And he stayed for 12 years. In that 12 years he began to reduce the language of the people that he was living with, reduced it to writing. And then he translated the entire New Testament into their language by the end of those 12 years. You know who Cameron Townsend was? The founder of Wickliffe Bible Translators. He did the first translation. He came home years later, started Wickliffe Bible Translators named after the man who first translated the Bible into English in 1382. Today, almost 6,000 missionaries translate the Word of God in over 50 countries of the world. Because there was one man who was willing to say, when God said, go, how go? If it's a jungling Guatemala, I'll go. If it means not knowing what the next step or next day is going to bring, I'll go. The impact of one man's obedience has changed the work of the gospel throughout the world in ways that he could never have foreseen. But he was obedient with that first step. And God took it the rest of the way. God can do things like that with us. But I want to ask you as we close tonight, are you comfortable in earth? Are you comfortable where you are? And I'm not just talking about geographical location. Are you comfortable where you are in your spiritual life? Are you comfortable with thinking, you know, I've kind of got things settled, a pattern set for the way I want to live the rest of my life? Are you comfortable with that? Or are you willing to step out in faith? When God puts that gnawing discontent in your life and your heart begins to give you a burden of desire for branching out in some new ways to live for him. And to serve him, are you willing to step out and take that first step of faith and be obedient to him? If so, God will take care of you. And God may show you some great things that otherwise you would have missed. You wouldn't have stepped out in faith. You're willing to leave earth? Go to a land? You're not sure where it is. You're not sure what it's going to be. You're not sure what it's going to mean. Are you willing to do that? When God says go, we have to be willing. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for a man who was willing to go when you said go. Even though he couldn't see the way completely, he couldn't understand where it would take him. Father, I pray that you'd help us wherever you say go to be willing to go. Whatever that means. To start doing more for you here. To branch out into areas of ministry that maybe have threatened us in the past. Lord, to go across the street to a neighbor. Or if it does mean pulling up our tent pegs and changing geographical locations, help us Lord to be willing to go when you say go. Help us to learn from Abram the lessons that you will take care of us, that you will provide, that we can obey you and trust you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.