Genesis 12 - God Reveals the Chosen People

Long notes used in 6-12 grade Sunday School Class on “The Jesus of Genesis”

Notes on Abraham:

Abraham was chosen.

Abraham was called.

Abraham followed.

Abraham was a sinner too.

This is the promise God made to Abram:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3

So they get there - to the promised land and there is famine so they have to go to Egypt until it is over.

This is the point that we are reminded that Abraham is human.. He does what we all do and in times of crisis -we remember the promise. But forget the power of the one who made the promise. Somehow we believe the promise will come at no cost or without difficulty. So we try to make it happen in our time (we will see and example of that later in the story or Abraham and Sarah) or we become fearful that if we don’t help God out, that the promise can't happen.

Here are two New Testament retelling of the this story:

The Acts chapter has a basic outline of Jesus lineage:

Acts 7:1-53 (read through verse 8)

The Hebrews verses talk of Abrahams faith:

Hebrews 11:8-12

Pick a few of the following questions and answer them in your journal with words or pictures or both. Two pages please:

Abraham had been an idolater - Joshua 24:2

How did he come to have such faith in a God he didn’t even follow at the time?

He told his wife to lie and causes the pharaoh to sin. Why did he do that? Do you think he doubted God?

Do you think that there was some pride involved? Or maybe the fact that he was told that the whole world would be blessed through him made him have an overwhelming sense of responsibility?

What did he forget about in all this?

Think about your life - have you ever forgotten the promise that God gave to you the day he revealed himself to you and gave you the faith to trust your heart to one who created it?

Can you remember one time taking matters into your own hand and causing a mess?

Or a time that you doubted God's promise to you?

What is the following promise that God made to mankind?

Romans 4:13-25

Romans 10:9

1 Peter 1:21

Our memory verse is Romans 10:9

The Pre-Launch of Inkyblue.net Blog– Nothing but what lies beneath the waves…

Coloring pages, poetry, artwork

New coloring pages:

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The Law - What Was The Point?

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Romans 5:12-14

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:18-21

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:20 (ESV)

This led me on a big fat rabbit trail...ending with being chosen???

The main reason I think is because there were many references to the fact that Christ died for all sin - everyone's sin. And there were a lot of verses that stated that.

But then the word election appeared in one of my wanderings and created another list that indicated that everyone is called but few are chosen.

Matthew 22:14
John 13:18
John 15:19
Acts 13:17
Romans 9:9-23
Romans 11:28
Romans 16:13
1 Corinthians 1:26
Ephesians 1:4
2 Thessalonians 2:13
James 2:5
1 Peter 2:9
1 Peter 2:10
Revelation 17:14

Never-the-less, I think that we can see from Romans 5:12-21  & Romans 3:20 that the law was created to show that, what man was already doing and would continue to do, was sin. And that not one person was free from it. It showed us how we could never clean ourselves up enough to be in the presence of a Righteous - Clean God.

It reminds me that the prize is God and not the freedom from sin or going to heaven instead of hell.

We are saved and clean when we put on Christ's Cleanliness and only then can we stand in the presence of God who is the “what we are saved for.”

A Couple of new t-shirt ideas

 

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Reconciling Law and Gospel

Monday, January 27, 2014 6:5

Reconciling Law and Gospel

9 AM

Some Law and Gospel Research -

The Gospel As Distinguished From The Law:

The purpose and effect of the law was to kill. So far as the work of salvation is concerned, this is true of the law in all its forms, whether the moral law as revealed in the Scriptures, or as written in the heart, or as the Mosaic law. In all these forms it was designed to bring people to the knowledge of sin and helplessness; to produce a sense of guilt and misery, and a longing for redemption, and thus lead us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). This was something necessary, and therefore glorious. But how can it compare with the Gospel? How can that which only makes us know that we are sinful and condemned be compared with what delivers us from sin and condemnation? This is the idea which the apostle expands, and, as it were with exultation, turns over as though he could not let it go, in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11.

An Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians ~Charles Hodge.

From the fact that Christ came in bodily form and possessed all that God is, we have received grace. 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”)  For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. John 1:14-18

This contrasts law and grace.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 1:17 (ESV) c.f. Romans 5:21

Some Contrasts Between The Two:

which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth…John 1:14-18

…yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 2:16

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 2:20-21

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (ESV)

Start again next time with Romans 5:12

Rabbit In Gouache

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