The Call of Abraham
The Call of Abraham (topical) • Sermon • Submitted
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Abram’s story begins with his genealogy, being a son of Terah, who is a descendent of Shem, Noah’s son
Tower of Babel, genealogy, then the call of Abram
so this is the very next story, although there is a time gap of a few generations
25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
next, the genealogy of Terah is discussed
we also see a bit of a preview of what is about to happen in the following verses
31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
This is kind of a preview of “the call of abraham”
if you just read this part, it sort of sounds like it was Terah’s decision to leave ur
but if you read on and get the full context you’lll see that this is clearly talking about God’s call to abraham
Ur of the Chaldees - a major city in mesopotamia which was “advanced” in technology and culture for their day
for instance, they came up with irrigation and is one of the worlds older cities
this is in an area called “the fertile crescent” SHOW WHY and SHOW THE COMMON PATH OF TRAVEL
Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Ur of the Chaldees
The landscape was dominated by the ziggurat, or temple tower, and the life of the city was controlled by a religion with a multiplicity of gods. The chief deity was Nanna(r), or Sin, the moon god, who was also worshiped at Haran. Near his ziggurat was a temple dedicated to his consort, the moon goddess, Ningal.
pictures of ziggaruts...
now that we’ve got some background...
1 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
so God comes to Abram, as we’ll later see, he was 75 years old at the time
we never know when God is going to want to use us
God works in mysterious ways, who are we to question his methods?
it doesn’t matter how old we are
God used old people in the Bible to do things, look at Abraham, Moses, and Zechariah in Luke
it doesn’t matter how young we are
God used young people like Joseph, David, and the Apostle John
it doesn’t matter what kind of shape we’re in
whether we’re currently downtrodden or whether we’re doing well in our life at the moment
it doesn’t matter what kind of personality we have
God can use shy people or outgoing people
it doesn’t matter what skills we have
God can use people with many skills for His work or God can use someone with seemingly no skills
God called on Him, He chose Abram
at this point, he was faced with a decision to make
“will I uproot my entire life, my entire family, and leave everything I know behind? or will I follow God?”
God says in the verse “a land that I will show thee”
when God called Abram at first, Abram didn’t even know where he would be going
he just had to trust that God would show him the way
at some point, we are all faced with a decision, will we follow God when called upon?
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
We see here that now, all men everywhere all called to repent, to follow God, to change
all of us, all humans, are being called by God to change and become conformed to the image of Christ
we’re faced with the same kind of question that Abram was, will we change?
we are faced with whether or not we will believe
it doesn’t just stop there though, we are called to continue on and mature as a Christian
this question calls our priorities into question
what is our top priority? to follow the call of God? or to follow our natural and sinful mind?
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
will we just trust and obey?
let’s see what God says will happen if Abram trusts and obeys...
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
so God has blessed Abram with this great blessing
“great nation” - God certainly came through with this as we see throughout the Bible
“bless thee/name great” - we’re talking about Abraham even today and he has great respect not only among Jews but among Christians as well
“thou shalt be a blessing” - God has kept His promise on this too
because look what happened because of Abram and his willingness to just obey God
God does not just call us to do something hard and then go on to forget about it an not recognize it
God sees all the hardship that they go through
God isn’t just telling Abram to uproot his life and forget about everything he knew and was familiar with at home and not remember or recognize it
Abram put all his faith into the Lord, and left his old life behind
which is what we’re called to do as well
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
God says He will be with Abram, that He will be on His side
and we know that God is on our side as Christians, and if God is for us, who can be against us?
“in thee all families on earth” - the whole world was blessed through Abrahams seed
because Christ was born through his line, and Christ was the ultimate blessing for the earth
Christ’s sacrifice for us and forgiveness of sin is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to humanity
we have no hope without Him
so hope for the entirety of humanity of forgiveness of sin and eternal life came through the seed of Abram - certainly a blessing
4 So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
what do we see? we see that Abram just obeyed
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
we see that the basis of this is his faith, and that is the basis of our obedience
we should ask ourselves, if God asks us to uproot our life and leave our town and everyone and everything we knew, how easy would that be for us?
would we have to question whether or not we’d do it?
we might say that “of course i’d obey!”, but would we really?
it’s something worth thinking about
what if God asked you to do that right now? how easy would that be for you?
we should strive to have simple, child-like faith, simple and non-questioning
we should be able to say “yes!” just instantly
but as fallible humans, we’d probably struggle with it to some extent
we need to do our best to have this simple faith, like Abram had
BACK TO PREVIOUS SLIDE OF GENESIS
we see that Abram was 75 years old, and his immediate family went with him
he was old and it would have been hard, but he did it anyway
God helped Him along though, as we see in the Bible
POINT OUT WHERE HARAN IS
5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
we see that he packed up with with everything he had and everyone he was with
he’d made a commitment, nothing looks like making a commitment more than taking up everything you own and moving to where God told you to go
what is out commitment to God? what does that look like?
now, it’s not just about obeying the initial call of God
what is meant by this is that obeying the initial call of God is great, it’s a fantastic start of a new life
but we must run the race, we must fight the fight
it’s so important that we stick with it, so that we can mature in Christ
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Paul is talking to the Corinthians here, who had a church, but still acted quite carnal and young in Christ
Paul said he wanted to teach them the deeper things of the Bible, but they weren’t ready yet because they didn’t have their own house together
like many things, we need to get the basics down before we can go on the the more advanced things
let’s take running for example, like running the race
you have to be able to run 100 yards before you can run 1000
you have to build yourself up, you have to train yourself and your muscles for the basics first
you can’t expect to mature in Christ if you don’t even have the basics down yet
all of this will come with making a commitment to God, not only for the short term, but for the long term as well
6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
so Abram made the long journey from Haran down to Shechem, and finally he made it to the land that God blessed him with
this was at least a 500-600 mile journey, it had to have been hard
sometimes, God will ask us to do the hard things, but God will be with us
Jesus tells us at the end of Matthew that He will be with us always, even unto the end of the age
often, the hardest things we do in life are the most rewarding
so look at what happened with Abram, he made this journey over hundreds of miles with everything he had and his whole family
but God gave him the land of promise, and a blessing upon his family line
God may ask us to do the hard things sometimes, but we would do good to be like abram, and commit to it, and just trust God in this way like he did
we also see later in the Bible that Abram wouldn’t really get to see the full fruits of God’s promise to him in his lifetime
sometimes we don’t either, sometimes God may have us do something hard in life, but not see the fruits of our labor fully come about
again, God is not forgetting about us, and whether we see those fruits in this life or the next, we will not be forgotten about
Sometimes, just being a Christian is hard, right? we may have people think we’re crazy, think we’re ridiculous, say things to us, etc
but we are called to a higher commitment, a commitment to something beyond this world, to someone much greater
we make commitments to friends, to people we know, to spouses, how much more should we keep ours to God?
let’s see what Solomon has to say about this...
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Ecclesiastes is a book that discusses the big questions of life, why do we live, how we should live and why.
and this is Solomon’s conclusion, using his great wisdom that came from God
READ VERSE AGAIN