The Call of Abram - The Life of Abraham

Main idea:
What we want to see today is that God has not abandoned his world. He is working to restore the world, and our lives. And he is doing it through the process of speaking to us, calling us to follow him in trust and obedience.

Outline:
1. The backstory
2. God call's Abram
- "Go from..." - Leave everything that you trust
- "I will bless you..." - A very special promise
3. Abram's response
- Obedience rooted in trust
- Worship amidst uncertainty

Application Questions:
1. Where does your faith lie today? What are the crossroads of faith you face this week? What promises in the city of man are calling for your trust today? 2. Do you seek to hear God's Word and God's promises?
3. Do you see the world as crowded with God's story of redemption?
4. Do you expect the journey of faith to be full of tension?
5. Do you worship God in the midst of uncertainty?
6. Do you see your life and faith as an essential source of blessing to others? 7. Do you see the faith of others as an essential source of blessing to you?

Scripture References:
- Genesis 12:1-9
- Hebrews 11:8-10
- Habakkuk 3:17-19

Key Concepts:
- Faith
- Trust
- Blessing
- Redemption
- Worship

One of the most interesting things I have ever read was by N. D. Wilson where he talks about how we need to learn to see the whole world as a world full of many many stories.

We tend to just think of our lives and our struggles as being at the center of everything.

But take a step outside on your front porch and look around. A car drives by carrying people, eternal souls - individuals with problems and challenges just like yours. Their story goes back and back and back, can be traced to the beginning. Through their past years, their childhood, their families, their grandparents...

Their story can be traced forward to eternity. They are facing challenges you don't know about.

How many cars drive past you in a few minutes?

Not only that. N. D. Wilson says, look down into the grass. There is a war happening between the ants and the termites. An army of ants just died protecting their colony from the invaders but they are successful. Follow the path of the bumble bee that flies by you...

The world is story in all directions. The question is WHAT is the story? Where is it headed?

Our ability to live our lives correctly depends on finding and knowing our place in the grand story. How do we do that?

By learning to read the grand story as it is laid out in Scripture.

Reading the bible correctly is about reading the unity of the story and seeing it stretch off the pages into our very own life.

One of the biggest problems christians have with the Bible is they don't read it as one unified story and therefore they struggle to find meaning and relevance in it.

And this is why the book of Genesis is such an important part of the Bible. The book of Genesis lays the foundation and sets the whole trajectory for the story that the bible is telling.

When we start the story of Abraham (ch. 12), we realize we are just dropping into the middle of a story. Just like a movie that opens to a scene of a battle raging and bullets flying everywhere.

It is a story connected to the previous chapters in very important ways. And it lays the foundation for the whole story of God's plan to save sinners and restore the broken world.

The story of Abraham is the seed from which springs the entire story of redemption in our story of faith today. And if we read it correctly and pay attention we will see that his struggles the very challenges that he faces and the very plot tensions that his story is filled with is the exact same struggles intentions that we face today.

Abraham is our father. This is why the story of Abraham is our story as well.

1. The Backstory
• God created the world perfect, to live in covenant with humanity, and through that covenant relationship that humans have with God, they are to rule over the world.
• There is beauty, there is blessing, there is power and there is purpose
• Sin
• Curses - death has entered the world through sin
◦ on nature and our relationship to it
◦ on humanity - relationship and childbirth
◦ on the serpent - a promise for his head to be crushed through the seed of the woman
• Noah - God reaffirms his commitment to the world. But sin and death continues to spread.
• Ch 11 - things are not looking good, but there is a small line of people who keep waiting and keep hoping for the promise of restoration
• Abram is part of a family that waited for the promise, but Abram himself is not a believer. Later Scripture tells us that Abram worshipped idols before God called him.

2. The Call of Abram

"The Lord said to Abram:
Go from your land,
your relatives,
and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.
2 I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

• "Go from..." - Leave everything that you trust

In the ancient near eastern world, family and tribe was everything. It was your social status. It was your security. It was your power. It was your influence. It was your future.

Here, God is calling him to leave the safety and security of his life and venture into danger - to put his life, his family and his well being at risk.

And to what?

"to the land that I will show you...."

He doesn't get a clear 5 step blueprint. God does not provide that.

The action of obedience will not rest on knowing the exact plan. It will rest in knowing the ONE who calls.

This whole plan rides on trusting the Word of the God who is calling Abram.

Notice that the great story of Abraham starts with a very ordinary situation. A guy is living his life, he's doing pretty good. He's not a spiritual hero by any shot. He's not even a believer. And he comes to face with the Word of God. A call. A promise. And there is a choice - to trust his current situation or to trust God's Word.

Thats life everyday for all of us. We are always at the crossroads of faith. We are always putting our faith in our situations or we are putting our faith in the Word of God. Your actions always flow out of a certain faith in something. Your actions are always reactions.

• "I will bless you..." - A very special promise
What is the promise?

Notice there are two general aspects to the promise:
• What God will do TO Abram
• What God will do THROUGH Abram
God calls him with a promise to bless him, to make his name great, to make him into a great nation - and then through him to bless all the world, to bless those who bless him and to curse those who curse him.

It's important for us to see what is happening here in the story.

Bless and curse are key words in the story of Genesis so far.
God blessed Adam and Eve at the start of creation - he gave them greatness and power over the world. God blessed Noah after Noah came out of the ark. God gave Noah and his family power and dominion over the world.

Moses presents Abram as a new Adamic figure.

God cursed the serpent in Genesis 3. God cursed the world and the ground.

When we see this language of blessing to the whole world - we should not just be like - "wow Abram you won the lottery, good for you."

We should be like, "Wow, God is taking back the world. He is coming into the world with a plan to push back and undo the curses. And he is doing it through this guy Abram!"
Sarai is barren, unable to have kids. The curse on child birth. God is going to overturn that.

A great nation, blessing all nations - this is opposite from the conflict and hatred that fills the world. A land that God gives and blesses. This is opposite from the land being cursed.

"I will curse those who curse you..." - God is not just playing favorites. He is picking up on the theme of a war between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And he is saying here Abram, follow me, trust in me, and through you I WILL defeat the evil of those who stand against you and against me.

God is not just isolating one favorite guy. God is calling one guy to begin a work to redeem and restore the whole world. From the start of the story God's heart is to bless all the nations and renew the whole world.

Notice here how God works.

God has a grand plan of redemption and restoration for the world that he loves.

God can accomplish it all with the snap of a finger.

But how does God do it?
He does it by coming to one guy who is no better than anyone else.

Also this ordinary guy seems very unlikely to be the one who produces a great nation of blessing. He is old. And he is childless. Lots of reason to doubt. Lots of reason to think God's plan picked the WRONG GUY.

But this is the guy God picks. And he works on his HEART.

He speaks his Word to him. He calls him to trust and follow him. He invites Abram's heart to turn away from sin and death and to go in a completely different direction - the direction of following the Lord.

And in that path of following the Lord, Abram experiences blessing and life. His own life is transformed.

And then, God's blessing to the rest of the world flows THROUGH Abram's faith and blessing.
God blesses the world through the ordinary life and faith of ordinary people. This is how the story of redemption God started. and this is how it continues today.

The blessing of Abram spreads to the nations today through the ordinary faith and obedience of people who hear the Word of God and find it more trustworthy than what the world has to promise.

Have you ever thought about the reason why God blesses you?

God blesses you to be a blessing. His blessing flows to the world through those who receive that blessing.

3. Abram's Response

"4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 5 He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. He built an altar to the Lord there, and he called on the name of the Lord. "

What is real faith? What does it feel like?

Abram is confronted by God's Word within his pagan life.

His faith is expressed in two things:

• Obedience rooted in trust

We all respond to God's word. We either obey or we disobey. Thats it.

Abram's move was a leap into the unknown. He had no proof. He had security. Why did he do it?

The point is not that there is a transaction - Abram you earn enough points with God and you will get the goodies.

The obedience of faith is rooted in trust in God and his word.

What is more worthy of my trust, is it God? Or is it my own plans and circumstances?

The call of Abram, before anything else - is a call to walk with God. God will show him the land. It means God will go with him. Its an invitation into a relationship. To forsake the pleasures of the world and to see God's call as infinitely more valuable.

Hebrews 11:8-10
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Why do we obey or disobey God? Its not about forcing ourselves to obey like taking a medicine that is gross but we know its good for us.

Obedience flows out of faith like a river flows down hill. We ALWAYS walk in obedience to the things we have set our faith in - we can't help it.

Where have you set your faith in? We are surrounded by many promises in this world, all of them tug out our hearts to give our faith to them.
• If you get this...then you will have this
• If you accomplish this...then you will be happen/successful....
Augustine put it this way - your heart is restless, looking for its supreme love.
There are two cities competing for your love. The city of man is everything that sin and the enemies of God want to promise you - believe in yourself, believe in money, believe in the world around you.

The city of God is the eternal work of God's love, restoring the world to himself by calling people to follow him, to know his love, to receive forgiveness, to do his work in the world.
"For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God."

Obedience always flows from faith in God. If you have no obedience, your heart is not trusting in the King, your heart is captivated by the city of man, by false promises.

Is God worthy of my trust?

Look to the cross. This is the most powerful display of his heart. This is the place you get to know him. This is the place you meet his call. This is the place where you decide if he is worthy of your trust.

How do we grow in our faith?

Abram came to the land where God led him as a homeless wanderer. There were canaanites in the land. They weren't planning to leave. What does he do?

"So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. He built an altar to the Lord there, and he called on the name of the Lord."
• Worship amidst uncertainty
worship is what Abram does in the midst of uncertainty. In the midst of promises that seem too good to be true.

Worship is war against the darkness. It is war against unbelief. Worship is what we do not because we feel such an emotional high but because we feel surrounded on every side.

Habakkuk 3:17-19
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there is no fruit on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though the flocks disappear from the pen
and there are no herds in the stalls,
18 yet I will celebrate in the Lord;
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!
19 The Lord my Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like those of a deer
and enables me to walk on mountain heights!

This is just the beginning of Abram's story. His faith and his obedience and his worship is by no means perfect.

We will see that very clearly next week.

But we see here the beginning, the seed of his very real faith. A faith that God used to bring us to where we are today.

Application Questions:
• Where does your faith lie today? What are the crossroads of faith you face this week? What promises in the city of man are calling for your trust today? Do you seek to hear God's Word and God's promises?
• Do you see the world as crowded with God's story of redemption?
• Do you expect the journey of faith to be full of tension?
• Do you worship God in the midst of uncertainty?
• Do you see your life and faith as an essential source of blessing to others? Do you see the faith of others as an essential source of blessing to you?