1. The call for Abram to leave Ur wasn't really all that much of an uprooting. His father had already brought them away from their original home in Ur, quite some distance to Haran. With his father and brother dead, moving on wouldn’t seem that odd. So, not to undermine lots of sermon points, but it wasn't like Abe was leaving everything he’d ever known.
2. I think the key to understanding the Abrahamic blessing/covenant is seeing that when God blesses Abram it results in Abram being a blessing. This hasn't changed. When God blesses us, as he surely has all Christians, it is so that we can be a blessing. Abram was blessed so that he could be a blessing by bearing the chosen seed through whom God would bless the earth. That seed became Israel. Israel was blessed so that she could bless the world. When she failed to do so and became an insular, grumbling people God chastised her by allowing her to be overcome by the ungodly who, by the way, he is perfectly capable of using for his purposes. Nevertheless, despite their hardheartedness God did bring the seed through them in the most weak and lowly form imaginable. We should remember this. The church is blessed in order to be a blessing, and when we cease seeking for all the families of the earth to be blessed (including those in foreign nations that our secular government may have issues with), God is perfectly willing and able to disperse our influence and chastise us by means of the ungodly. The Abrahamic covenant has not been nullified but fulfilled. Christ came tearing down barriers and dividing walls in order that the distinction between Jew and Gentile, between God’s particular chosen people (through whom would come the Savior of the world), and all the families of the earth might be obliterated in order that God’s good news that sin has been overcome and that the way to peace between God and man has been opened might be made known. If we forget this, and become insular grumblers we stand in danger of God’s chastisement which may well come at the hands of the wicked.
2. I think the key to understanding the Abrahamic blessing/covenant is seeing that when God blesses Abram it results in Abram being a blessing. This hasn't changed. When God blesses us, as he surely has all Christians, it is so that we can be a blessing. Abram was blessed so that he could be a blessing by bearing the chosen seed through whom God would bless the earth. That seed became Israel. Israel was blessed so that she could bless the world. When she failed to do so and became an insular, grumbling people God chastised her by allowing her to be overcome by the ungodly who, by the way, he is perfectly capable of using for his purposes. Nevertheless, despite their hardheartedness God did bring the seed through them in the most weak and lowly form imaginable. We should remember this. The church is blessed in order to be a blessing, and when we cease seeking for all the families of the earth to be blessed (including those in foreign nations that our secular government may have issues with), God is perfectly willing and able to disperse our influence and chastise us by means of the ungodly. The Abrahamic covenant has not been nullified but fulfilled. Christ came tearing down barriers and dividing walls in order that the distinction between Jew and Gentile, between God’s particular chosen people (through whom would come the Savior of the world), and all the families of the earth might be obliterated in order that God’s good news that sin has been overcome and that the way to peace between God and man has been opened might be made known. If we forget this, and become insular grumblers we stand in danger of God’s chastisement which may well come at the hands of the wicked.
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