Fearghal Kelly - January 11, 2026
Beginning a New Journey
Genesis 11:27-12:9 Abram lived in the city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia where the people worshipped a moon god. Abram’s dad (Terah) took him and his wife (Sarai) to leave Ur to move to Canaan. For some reason they stopped in Haran, 600 miles from home. Suddenly, a random name in a random family tree becomes a central character when God gives him a calling. What God says is key to the whole Bible. So he set out with Sarai, Lot (his nephew), and a group of workers. Abram doesn’t know it’ll lead him to Canaan yet. He’s a wanderer on the earth, but he has God’s attention. God makes promises to Abram that have no conditions at all, but Abram receives them by faith. As he goes, he builds altars, signalling God’s claim over the land that he and his descendants would return repeatedly to meet with God.
From Series: "Genesis - God's people in God's plan"
The Bible has clear instructions in parts, but most of it is story. Stories of people messing up. Stories of people discovering God’s grace. Stories we can learn wisdom from. The middle bit of Genesis tells the story of three generations who discover what it means to be God’s people in God’s plan for his world. And they don’t always get it right. Their stories include: marriage problems, death and grief, parenting struggles, choosing a spouse, sexual immorality, deception, reproductive ethics, unjust employers, relationships that distort God’s design, the strength of friendship, birth, infertility, abuse, betrayal, forgiveness, aging, value of life from womb to tomb, loneliness, racism, politics, war, buying land, wealth management, and learning wisdom from all the ambiguity of ordinary life trying to trust God in a fallen world. We face many issues in life where we have to ask: What does it mean to be God’s people in this? What’s God’s plan for it?
