2026 03 01 - 75 and Just Getting Started - Popp

Grace, peace and mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I'm excited about today's lesson only because I have grown to love the book of Genesis, the family heritage, the idea of how the Lord brought us all the way through today is one of those great lessons.

I was at a basketball party yesterday and one of our little kindergarteners, Lucy, I said, tomorrow we're talking about Abraham in church. She goes, oh, you know, his name used to be Abram. And then she started in on Sarah. And I'm like, boy, I tell you, our early childhood's doing a good job here. But looking at again all these wonderful stories of all of these forefathers in our Bible, in our stories, we start to miss some of the minute points of just how awesome our Lord is and what happened.

So we're going to jump right in. So we continue through lent between day 10 and 11. Yesterday was 10, tomorrow's 11. Remember Lenton County. We continue this week further head into Genesis by looking at the calling of Abram.

We grew up singing Father Abraham had many sons and yet soon learned that he didn't have a son until he doubted God. He tried to marry another. He did. Finally, at the age of a hundred, he had Isaac with Sarah. Yet through Noah and Shem to the tzvaloter and through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, we get the 12 tribes of Israel and the foundation of a great nation.

It's a wonderful story. Today we're going to look at again Abram's part and how the Lord used him right. God chose Abram, soon to be Abraham. And again, we always are curious why God chooses certain people. None of them were the obvious choice.

And certainly for Abram, he had some flaws. First off, he was already 75 years old. Now when I titled this 75 and just getting started again, I had to double check our timeline. How big a deal was 75? I did a little research and his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa Noah lived to be 950.

Noah didn't even start having kids till after he was 500 years old. I mean his 11 greats, Noah's grandpa was Methuselah, who lived to be 969. So there's a lot of age. But as the years go down before Abram, his his father lived 205, grandfather 148, great grandfather 230, great great and the great, great great were 239. So the years have certainly shrunk since Noah and Methuselah.

But still his father his grandfather had children earlier in 75. Here he is, him and Sarah without children. And God comes to him. And we heard that in that great reading head elder Mr. Beckwith, read for us. God has plans for him.

He calls him out. He lied about his wife being a sister twice. This is the man God calls it, Hey, I got plans for. Here's what you're going to do. And out of fear, out of fear for his life, he lies about his wife.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you husbands out there. If I was worried about Guy looking lustfully at my wife, the last thing I want to do is pretend to play wingman, right? I can pretend to be the brother that's my wife, but not Abram.

He was impatient marrying another for an air. And I shouldn't say he was impatient. He and his wife were impatient. It. It makes for a great soap opera when Sarah's getting impatient and she says, here, marry my servant.

You know, according to the timeline I looked at, he married her. And I don't think they had. She became pregnant with Ishmael until. For about 10 years. But.

But that's when Sarah got jealous when she was pregnant and kicked her out and she ran away. And that was one of our angels coming and saying, no, no, no, go back. It's like, wow, dysfunction, right? Surrogate mothers before we knew it was ugly. Why Abram?

But just as he had his flaws, we should look at his strengths. He had the right genetics. It says in Genesis 22, right?

It will be a blessing and multiply, and I'll multiply your seed and the stars and heavens. I mean, it says it in today's gospel too. It says it throughout. And really, his timeline is incredible. I don't know how well you can read that.

That's from Noah down where we start to see where this genealogy comes from. I mean, Abraham himself is the third son. We shouldn't be surprised by that, since we know the story of Jacob and Esau and how our line runs through Jacob the second born. And really it's from Abraham down when we start reading these 12 tribes of Israel, that to me is still one of the craziest stories ever. Where, you know, Jacob goes off and wants to marry the Rebecca.

No, he works seven years, has to get Leah first, works seven more years, finally gets Rebecca, starts having all kinds of children with Leah, but can't have a child with Rebecca, so they get their maid servants involved. That's the chaos that forms the twelve tribes of Israel. So when we look at this Line in which again. And we had a sermon about dysfunctional families in Advent. But it's that reminder of what is happening here.

He had the genetics to go through. He was faithful and went where God told him. He did pack up and go. And it wasn't just him. He did have animals and servants and family.

Certainly his nephew went with him. We know his brother had no problems having children.

But he and his house, behold, followed God. Genesis 18:19. I have chosen, for I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. He's promised to make him a great nation. Right?

So we know it's Abram. Let's talk about this covenant. The covenant is certainly one of many. If you've ever been in any of Mike Kovac's classes or and even in his new books he just published about the different covenants. We know that covenants certainly a very special bond with God here.

Right? God's covenant plan for redemption even early on. And really it's coming through more chapters for Abram, the actual covenant with God doesn't cover a couple chapters, but we see something here. What are those three things? Right.

God promises them land, blessings and offspring.

We see it really through a couple different chapters. Certainly here in 12, 15 and 17, he is promising him what is to come.

Let's take a second and look at what about our covenant? What are we promised? Have you ever thought about what it is that relationship with God brings you? What our family is, you know, God promises us forgiveness of sins, eternal life and salvation, along with his grace and unconditional love. What he has given us in that unconditional love, which is so important that we sometimes struggle.

I just met with a young man this week who said, I struggle in church because I don't feel I can be forgiven. Just crushes my heart.

I said, let me tell you about David in Wednesday's sermon. Right?

God forgive David.

We're sealed in our baptism under God's covenant. Just last Sunday at late those who came to early, Mrs. Percy was brought to the waters of baptism. She was such a cutie. It is always a blessing. We take that water and word.

Infant baptism reminds us that it starts with God. A lot of people that question, how can you baptize a child? They don't know anything. Nope, it's not about them. It's that great reminder.

Even the epistle today that Dan read in Romans 4 right. Is that reminder. It's what God does. It depends on faith, the problems that rest on what Jesus has done, not what we do. We're renewed under God's order through Jesus.

It's that great reminder. And really it's this way, in this way that Lent is less about not feeling bad and more about returning to the finished work of Christ. Right. We're journeying to the empty tomb. Why?

And what he did for us. That's our reminder. Even today during Lent, we celebrate by partaking in his body and blood, in with and out of the bread and wine. You know, we talk about holding back the alleluias and saving for the celebration on Easter. And yet what is it we get when we come to the Lord's table and partake, touching and tasting his body and blood?

It is that celebration of what he has done. Kind of glad they don't tell us to wait for that. Right? We have to go without that. All of Lent, Palm Sunday, we're gonna have a whole nother group of seventh graders taking it for the first time.

And I always feel real bad now every time they come up because they've been instructed. But we're like, wait, there's a special day. You gotta wait till this day. I feel bad, but it's going to be that great first time. So looking at what our covenant, what he has given us, let's get back real quick to Abraham, the land promised to Abraham that would never be fulfilled.

This is one of the things I thought about. Certainly we could say this about all three of those promises he got in that covenant that Abraham never truly would get to see fulfilled. He did get to obviously see the birth of Isaac and was even questioned. We can get to when he was asked to sacrifice Isaac and what that means. But he never saw the lineage and what his many nations became.

He certainly didn't know his name was going to be great. And that land that was promised that promise, it's going to be almost 700 years, right? For Joshua, Joshua and his people walk around the wall. I often think about that, this idea of.

What's to come that we never see even today in today's Gospel. I Love When John 3:16 is read that 3:17 is with, you know, for God did not send his son to the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. It's just that great reminder. So many people, when they're first learning about Jesus, when we bring them a love of Jesus, what do they hear? First Law and condemnation we love that gospel in a nutshell, as it's called in John 3:16.

But 3:17 is that great reminder he came to love and to save and to make them a part of the family. Yeah, we're going to be convicted. Ever since it's about the love of Jesus. So what has God called us to do that we may or will never see fulfilled?

Obviously, I think a lot about that family. Maybe it's because I just went to Grandma's hundredth or I talk a lot about it. I love my family and talk a lot about them, certainly. And. And I see your families, this family of grace, which is so wonderful, the blessing of being here so long is to wash away that God has brought people in and out and used them and they've gone on to do other things.

But what are those things God's called us to do? Well, to care for family and legacy. Right. It's that reminder of what we are doing and why we are doing it. Every parent wants the best for their children.

We want them to do better. We want to help them. We don't always agree on how or what's best, but we all want so much. We want to see them continue to dwell and carry on and walk with the Lord and as I thought, to care for family. I do think a lot about our church family.

Maybe it's the year and a half now I've been with Dave Timmerman one where it's all about, does that fit in our goals? Does that fit in our mission? What are we doing? Why are we doing that? Why are we doing that?

What helps us do the Lord's work? How do we help each other and care for each other and to support and further God's ministry in ways that we might not understand, ways that he will bring to us and the Holy Spirit will put upon us. I again am in the fortunate position. I see everybody's special gifts all the time. I come in on Sundays and I see that banner and I just thank Joyce Orem every time I do it.

And yet Joyce is done. I said to her last week, I said, so if I get a couple ladies that want to learn how to do, will you teach them? She goes, yeah. The blessings, how we continue to follow what the Lord has called us to do. The question is, does not getting to see that come to fruition in the future hold us back from doing it?

What hit me in the face with that was actually last fall when Pastor Rick was telling me about how they were going above and beyond their tithe to Try to pay down the. The interest. You know, we just redid that loan and we knew this first year, if we can make an extra. I forget what it was. 3,600amonth.

We can get this whole place paid off in 20, not 30 years. We're not leaving a balloon payment for somebody in 20 years. That's when it dawned on me. Pastor Inc. Will be a hundred. I mean, let's face it, he'll probably be here anyway.

But my point was sacrificially looking to give for the future for something we may not even get to be a part of.

Abram who became Abraham, who went through that, it was not about him. But we on this side get to see what came from it. All of us could look in our own families and see the way they sacrifice. A great, great, great grandma brought the kids over on the boat, keep them safe and get them out of there, right?

What does that look like for us? How are we furthering and fulfilling God's call and filling his family through what he has called us to do?

Abram and Abraham is a great example of that. But that really comes down for us to look at as we continue this Lenten journey. God called Abram. Nope, I forgot the third one does. Never seen the change desire?

Well, no. That's what I was talking about. You just didn't see it on your thing. Hopefully it doesn't. God called Abram and He calls you and me.

He blessed Abram and his family and he blesses us too. May we continue with all of God's family to show our love to God by loving others. And we pray that the Holy Spirit will use that love to grow our family. To God be the glory. Amen.