Abraham's Journey Map

7/29/2019 Abraham's Journey Map

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http://www.biblestudy.org/maps/journey-of-abraham-to-promised-land-and-egypt.html


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Abraham's Story Jews, Christians and Muslims all agree that

Abraham is the Patriarch of their religions andfounder of Monotheism.

Judaism and Christianity teach that the story ofAbraham is more than the story of one man.

Abraham becomes the patriarch of the Jewishnation as he passes 10 severe tests of his belief inGod and Gods covenant with him.


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Judaism, Christianity and Islam teach thatAbraham enters into a covenant with God in whichboth sides make commitments.

Abraham is required to leave his homeland, and tofollow the direction into the land that Godpromised Abraham and his descendents.

God promises to bless Abraham and hisdescendents, and to make of them a great nation.


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Asking Abraham to leave his fathers house is thefirst test of the covenant.

The most significant demand God makes onAbraham is that he and his descendants totallycommit to a belief in one and only one God.

This is the foundation of Judaism, Christianityand Islam.


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The Spirit of The Story of Abraham In summary and most importantly, all three

religions teach that Abraham was a model ofhow humans should live their lives displaying

courage, faith, sacrifice, obedience, and trustin one supreme God.

We believe that the spirit of this story is tosee Abraham as a role model and to encourageall of us to live our lives with the same

courage, faith, and determination to be thebest person we can be.http://homepage.mac.com/jerrypeterson/CHUMSsite/pages/Story%20Abraham.html


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The Story of Jacob There is a tension that characterizes most of

Jacob's life.

On the one hand, God made promises to Jacobthat he would provide for every important issue inhis life.

On the other hand, Jacob struggled to attainthose same issues through his own means.

This is the tension in which Jacob lived most of hislife.


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Jacob's Life

God promised even before Jacob was born that hewould inherit the Promise (read 25:23).

Jacob undoubtedly knew about this promise fromhis mother (he was her favorite).

But Jacob relied on his own tricks to "supplant" hisolder brother Esau.


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He took advantage of Esau's hunger to extract hisbirthright for a bowl of soup (25:29-34) and heresorted to gross deception to trick Isaac into

passing the inheritance to him (27:1-40).

RESULT: Jacob got what he wanted, but at what acost! Esau was so enraged that he decided to kill

Jacob, so he had to flee for his life to his uncle

Laban's (read 27:41-45) . . .


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On his way to Laban's, God broke into Jacob's life

through a dream. In that dream, he reiterated thePromise and also promised to Jacob that he would

protect him while he was gone and bring him backsafely (read 28:13-15).

Jacob's response (28:16) showed he was essentiallya secular man--living his life by his own resources,

apart from any real awareness of God'sinvolvement.


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When Jacob got to Laban's land, he ran up againstsomeone who was as good a chiseler as he was!

Jacob fell in love with Laban's daughter Rachel, sohe hung around a month instead of the few dayshe had planned.

Laban noticed this, and took advantage of it toextract seven years of indentured servitude for herhand.


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When the seven years are over, Laban tookadvantage of Jacob's excessive partying at the

wedding feast to smuggle his older daughter Leahinto bed with Jacob.

When Jacob woke up the next morning, "behold, itwas Leah!

Jacob was furious: "What is this you have done tome? . . . Why then have you deceived me?" (Whatirony after his dealings with Esau!)


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Laban insisted on seven more years labor forRachel.

After those seven years, Jacob and Laban thenspent six more years trying to screw each otherover who would get the biggest portion of their

flocks.


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So because of his own scheming, Jacob successfullyturned a few weeks into twenty years.

He wound up fleeing for his life from his father-in-law and God had to intervene to prevent Laban

from killing him.

On his way back home, Jacob realized that he hadto travel through Esau's land.


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God spoke to Jacob again and promised to be withhim (31:3).

He followed this promise up by sending someangels to reassure Jacob of his protection (32:1,2).

But Jacob was still scheming rather than trusting.


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But Jacob was still scheming rather than trusting.

He sent some of his servants to bribe Esau withschmoozing and the hope of gifts (32:3-5).

But they returned with news that sent chills down

Jacob's spine--Esau was coming to see him with400 men!


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For the first recorded time in the text, Jacobprayed to God for protection (32:9-12).

But then he hatched an elaborate and self-protective plan to buy Esau off (32:13-20).

Alone that night before he had to face Esau, Jacob

had an encounter with God that was the definingmoment of his life . . .


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The Wrestling Match (Read 32:24-30.)

Some people interpret this event as one more caseof Jacob finding a way to get his own way--thistime even from God through "prevailing prayer."

This is defective because it rips this event out of itscontext, and because it portrays God as tight-

fisted and ultimately coercible by us.

No, God initiated this wrestling match to portrayJacob's life up to now, and to teach him a cruciallesson.


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God initiated the wrestling match, and Jacob

responded by fighting back all night long (32:24).

This was a picture of Jacob's relationship withGod all this time. It wasn't primarily Esau or Laban that Jacob was

resisting and trying to get around--it was Godhimself.

God had a will for Jacob's life and made promisesto him pertaining to that will, but Jacob had beenstubbornly resisting God's leadership at everystep.


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After wrestling all night, God dislocated Jacob'sthigh with a touch (32:25).

This showed Jacob who he was fighting with(someone with immense power who could easilybeat him), and that this was a picture.

God had been taking progressively more drasticsteps (Esau; Laban; Esau) to teach Jacob toabandon his self-sufficiency and trust him.


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Now crippled, Jacob can only hang on to God--apicture of his proper relationship with God.

Now that Jacob's tenacity is expressed in a

dependent posture, God blesses him (probablyreiterates the Promise) and renames him tocleanse him from his old ways ("supplanter;""deceiver") and give him a new identity to live upto ("one who strives effectively with God"). God

has always been willing to bless Jacob. He has only been waiting for Jacob to ask with a

trusting, dependent heart.


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Jacob learned the lesson.

The next morning, he dropped his

elaborate and self-protective plan withEsau and instead passed ahead of everyoneto meet him directly (33:3), trusting God'spromise to protect him.

He discovered that Esau had forgiven him,and he went on to supply godly leadershipfor his family.


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Spiritual Lessons

Jacob is not a special case--he is a picture

of all of us. All of us struggle with God.

We are deeply committed to making ourlives work apart from personal dependence

on God's direction and power. The Bible says this is the heart of human

depravity.


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It's not just that we are ignorant about God, havemisconceptions about him through poor authority

figures, defective churches, etc.

We also have a deeply ingrained suspicion thatGod is neither wise nor good--that he can't betrusted.

In fact, we tend to project on to God what we are

really like (selfish, controlling, etc.).


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It's not so much that we doubt that a personal Godexists or that he has a will for our lives.

Deep down, we know both of these things.

That's what we're afraid of, because we don't want

to surrender the control of our lives to anyone,including (most of all) God.


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Some of us express this pretty overtly--we say we

want nothing to do with God, scream at him, etc. The rest of us are more subtle and passive, but the

suspicion and struggle are still there.

The latter are often in greater danger than the

former because they deceive themselves intothinking they don't struggle with God.


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God works through suffering and adversity toteach us our need to depend on him.

Because the problem isn't merely misinformationabout God, the solution requires more than simplylearning that God loves you and has a wonderful

plan for your life.

Since the problem is deeply-rooted self-sufficiency,God works to "break" this through adversity.


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Often (like Jacob), he just lets us reap theconsequences of our poor choices (ALIENATION WITH ESAU >> BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS

DUE TO YOUR SIN; LOST JOBS DUE TO YOURIRRESPONSIBILITY).

Sometimes, he intervenes with specific discipline (LABAN; WRESTLING >> PEOPLE IN THE WAY OF YOUR

AGENDA; SICKNESS?, RELATIONAL & CAREER

DISAPPOINTMENTS; CONFRONTATION & DISCIPLINEBY OTHERS).

He loves you enough to "take you to the mat."


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Even then, you have a choice.

God won't make you submit to him, but he willpolarize you.

Either you harden in your commitment to control

your own life, and deepen your suspicion aboutGod's goodness--or you admit your inadequacyand submit yourself to God, and experience his

goodness and wisdom.


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The Story of Joseph

This is the story about a young man namedJoseph.

His father's name is Jacob, and they lived inCanaan from where his grandfather was from.

Joseph was seventeen (old enough to drive a carthese days), and he had eleven brothers; and onlyhad one brother younger than him.


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Can you imagine having eleven brothers to play with, orfight with?

Because Joseph was one of the youngest sons, his fatherspent more time with him, and he became very special tohim.

So Jacob had a special robe made for Joseph. (They didn'thave jackets back then, so this was a very special jacket).

It was very beautiful and had every color you could imaginein it.


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All of Joseph's older brothers saw this and they gotvery jealous.

The word jealous means that Joseph's brothersdisliked him because they thought his father likedhim more, and because he got the special coat.

They got so jealous they couldn't even say a kindword to him.


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One day Joseph had a dream, and he went to gotell his brothers.

He said, "Guess what? Last night I had a strangedream. We were tying up bunches of grain out inthe field when suddenly my bunch stood up, whileall of yours gathered around and bowed to me."

The brothers looked at each other in disgust, butJoseph continued.


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"Then I had another dream that the sun, moon,and eleven stars bowed down to me.

"Who do you think you are?" The brothers said."Do you think that you are better than all of us?Do you think that we would ever bow down to

you?"

This made the brothers dislike Joseph even more.


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When he told his father about his dreams he said,"Those are strange dreams."

But he thought carefully about what Joseph hadtold him.

A few days later Joseph's father asked him to checkon his brothers.

They were in the fields quite a distance away. SoJoseph went to find them.


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When the brothers saw Joseph in the distance,they made a plan to kill him.

But when Reuben, Joseph's oldest brother heardthis he said, "Let's not kill him, just throw him in a

well out here in the field."

He said this because he was secretly planning tocome back and rescue Joseph when the otherbrothers had left.


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So when Joseph came to them, they took off hisbeautiful robe and they threw him in an empty

well.

A little while later a group of people came by thatwere wanting to sell some things in Egypt.

One of the brothers spoke up, "Why don't we sellhim to these people, this way we never have to seehim again, and we don't have to kill him."


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The other brothers liked this idea, so they sold himto the people who were going to Egypt.

Unfortunately Reuben had been working andhadn't seen what happened.

When he returned to the well he noticed thatJoseph was gone.

He had been sold to an important man namedPotiphar, an assistant to the Pharaoh of Egypt.


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The rest of the brothers took Joseph's beautifulrobe and dipped it in animal blood and took itback to their father.

When the father saw this he cried, "Some animalhas killed my son."

And he cried for many days, so much that nobodycould comfort him.


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Now Joseph had started out as a slave, but theLord was with Joseph and He helped him doeverything right.

So Potiphar made him his helper, and put him incharge of everything that he owned.

The problem came when Potiphar's wife lied aboutJoseph to her husband, so Potiphar had Joseph put

into jail.


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One night each of them had a dream.

They told their dreams to Joseph and he told the

cupbearer that he would soon be let out of jail.

"Please tell Pharaoh about me, and ask him to getme out of here." Joseph said.


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When the cupbearer was freed he forgotabout what Joseph did.

So Joseph stayed in jail for two more years.

Until one day the Pharaoh had a dream,and nobody could explain it to him.

The cupbearer then remembered whatJoseph had done for him, and Joseph wasbrought to Pharaoh.


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"Can you understand dreams?" Pharaoh asked.

"I can't, but God helps me." Joseph replied.

After Pharaoh had told him his dream Joseph

explained, "God is warning you. There will be seven years when

nothing will grow and there won't be any food foranyone."


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"What can I do?" Pharaoh asked.

"God has shown you what to do. There will beseven years before the bad years that will be very

good. So good that there will be extra food foreveryone.

So you should save a little bit of each yearsharvest, that way you will have enough to get you

through the bad years." Joseph said.


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Pharaoh believed all that Joseph told him, and puthim in charge of all the land of Egypt.

People came from all countries to buy grain from

Joseph, because the whole world was in need offood.

Some of those people were Joseph's brothers.

When his brothers came, Joseph recognized them,

but they did not know who he was. (It had beenover 10 years since they had seen him).


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The brothers all bowed to him because he was animportant person.

Just as he dreamed they would at the beginning.

After a few meetings with his brothers he couldnot keep it in any longer and Joseph said to hisbrothers,

"I am Joseph! Is my father alive?"


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But his brothers couldn't answer him because theywere afraid.

Then Joseph said,

"Come here. I am your brother, the one yousold! Do not worry, and do not be angry at

yourselves for selling me, because God has putme here to save people from starving."

So his father, his brothers, and their families cameto live in Egypt with Joseph, and they had all the

food they needed.


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Lessons Learnt from Life of Joseph

Gods plans and purpose are greater andbetter than ours!

Gods providence and favor to therighteous

Suffering to Gods people is not alwaysbad!

Self control in youth


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Patience and perseverance in the time oftroubles

Honesty, strong work ethics Fear of God and Faithfulness to God


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Key-verse for Life of Joseph

The Lord was with Joseph. (Gen 39:2,39:21)

You intended to harm me, but Godintended it for good to accomplish whatis now being done, the saving of manylives. (Gen 50:20)

http://bibleseo.com/old-testament/joseph-bible-character-study/

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Abraham's Journey Map