Calling and Going
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Good morning, welcome, please open your Bibles to Genesis 12.
Closing Genesis
Advent series- Why do we celebrate Advent? Prepare our hearts to rightly celebrate Christmas.
Genesis- a book of beginnings.
Read Genesis 12:1-9- Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
Pray.
Look through the text.
Command.
Leave country, kindred and household to go to a land I’ll show to you.
Decreasing in scope- world, relationships, family.
Conversation in Peoria- decreasing scope.
Not just the people being left behind, but the way of life. Leaving behind his worldview, his philosophy, his religion.
What do we know of Ur?
Kent Hughes- “These treasures of Ur tell us that Abraham’s social and religious context was as sophisticated and pagan and claustrophobic as that of any Babylonian or Egyptian dynasty. Ur was desolate and barren of knowledge of the true God. Ur’s intrusive, lunar religion dominated life from birth to the grave.”
No mention of where he was to go, simply the instruction to follow.
Obedience.
So Abram went. There is an abruptness here, like when Noah died.
As the Lord told him.
Why would he go? For someone to leave behind everything they knew and journey into the complete unknown?
Unless he trusted God completely. He knew enough about God to know that God would be with him.
Perhaps even trusted God as the Creator of everywhere he would be going.
Going through the Mark Twain caves as a child. Enjoyment in going with a guide.
Abram went as God told him to, listening to God. Remember, God would show him the land.
Promise.
Sevenfold promise given to Abram
Make of you a great nation- not just a big family.
Bless you.
Give you peace, happiness, fulfillment, goodness, meaning.
Make your name great.
Still talking of Abram today. Genealogy and Kentucky trip- St. Claire Emmons- Born in 1794. Great x 5 Grandfather.
You will be a blessing.
You will make a massive difference in this world.
Ever get the feeling that you’re not leaving a mark anywhere?
Bless those who bless.
Curse those who dishonor.
Bless all the families of the earth through you.
Messianic promise ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.
Worship.
Finally arriving in Canaan and journeying from north to south throughout the land that has been promised.
Along the way, Abram sets up altars.
Calls on the name of the LORD.
God promises to make Abram’s name great, Abram responds by proclaiming the name of God.
Parallels between the calling and going of Abram and the calling and going of any man or woman of faith.
Hopefully you see yourself in the text this morning.
1. Faith requires abandonment.
1. Faith requires abandonment.
God didn’t begin with Abram by changing him where he was.
He drew Abram out of the pagan culture from where Abram had grown up.
John Calvin paraphrases the narrative with God saying- “I command thee to go forth with closed eyes, and forbid thee to inquire whither I am about to lead thee, until, having renounced the country, thou shalt have given thyself wholly to me.”
Abram had to walk away from everything that was dear to him. There is a sense in which we can see the harshness in what God commands of us. But with the law is partnered grace. Promises accompany the call for obedience.
Obedience leads to something better.
Joseph Parker- “God never calls men for the purpose of making them less than they are, except when they have been dishonoring themselves by sin. God’s calls are upward; they are calls towards fuller life, purer light, and sweeter joy. Men do not know their full capacity, except in the service of God: his presence in the soul is a life-expanding and life-glorifying presence…it exalts the human nature, it enriches the soul, it increases the substance and worth of manhood.”
Jesus meets us where we are.
But he doesn’t leave us there. This is the temptation, to believe that God will just dwell in the depths with us until we die.
Kids getting stuck. They get stuck a lot.
God meets us in the home we have always known, but brings us out to a foreign land that is far better.
2. God’s promises are impossibilities.
2. God’s promises are impossibilities.
Abram’s journey reflects our own.
Hebrews 13:14- For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
1 Corinthians 4:11-13- To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
Difficulty of the journey. People in the way of the promise.
Idolatry in the land.
Doesn’t this reflect well our journey of faith? Doubt in God’s promises and difficulty along the journey.
Requires complete trust in God.
The land was already filled.
The womb was empty.
No wonder Abraham in the shining example of faith throughout the NT.
The very nature of faith requires something outside of self. We must be powerless to deliver.
Dunking the bball at Grandpas.
The fulfilment of the promises of God require God.
Luke 18- Who can be saved? What is impossible with man is possible with God.
3. God’s promises elicit worship.
3. God’s promises elicit worship.
Why would Abram leave?
Consider the excitement of winning something that is costly.
I’d never be chosen for a major reward that was televised.
The promises given to Abram are meant to impact him in an emotional way, to draw out his affection toward his God.
Abram worships. Permeates our text. Setting up altars, calling on the name of the LORD.
Kent Hughes- “How beautiful- the only architecture that remained from Abram’s life were altars.”
We’ve received similar promises.
A great name, a land in which to dwell with God in perfect communion, the fullness of God’s love.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18- So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Tying in to Thanksgiving.