From the Very Start
A Look at the Ancient Text of Genesis that speaks with Amazing Present-day Relevance
Courage for the Call
Genesis 12: 1-9
12 Then the LORD told Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.
2 I will cause you to become the father of a great nation.
I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others.
3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.
All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram departed as the LORD had instructed 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, and all his wealth—his livestock and all the people who had joined his household at Haran—and finally arrived in Canaan. 6 Traveling through Canaan, they came to a place near Shechem and set up camp beside the oak at Moreh. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites.
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I am going to give this land to your offspring.” And Abram built an altar there to commemorate the LORD’s visit.
8 After that, Abram traveled southward and set up camp in the hill country between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar and worshiped the LORD. 9 Then Abram traveled south by stages toward the Negev.
This is a call to Travel with God.
God invites on a journey. One that will be long and difficult. This will be an uncomfortable journey. One that require everything Abram can must over the remainder of his life. But I’d like you to notice a few things:
- Abram doesn’t speak in the story
o No questions , No excuses, No tests, No complaints
I was involved in a verbal tussle with my wife one morning; “I really don’t want to go.” “You have to get up and go, dear.” “I really don’t like being there you know…” She tried to console me, “Yes you do…” “But nobody there likes me, hon,” I complained. “Sure they do,” she assured me. “I really just don’t want to go,” I insisted. She insisted right back, “You have to go to church this morning, you’re preaching.”
- Abram doesn’t see the whole story
o This will be a difficult, uncomfortable journey. He doesn’t know that. If he did, he might not go.
o He has glimpse of what is coming. “I will make you a Father of many nations…”
- Abram doesn’t search for the hidden story
o If Abram is doing soul searching, “Why would God want me to do this? What greater purpose does he have…” we’re never told.
o God certainly does have a huge, amazing plan for Abram. But Abram doesn’t make it his problem to decipher and decode God’s agenda. He just jumps on the path and travels with God.
- God speaks and with ears of faith Abram listens.
- Abram figures out that his job is to join God on the journey. He’s got his wife and his nephew with him, But he will quickly and frequently discover God is his traveling companion.
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- And for Abram the journey has just started.
o He’s 75 years old
o He’s gone his entire life without children. 75 years, probably 55 of them married to Sarai, all those years of hoping God would bless them, all those years wondering why things were working out the way he had hoped. 75 years of feeling helpless, struggling with doubts and despair about his future.
o At age 75 – God speaks and gives Abram a call.
§ Sure there are the Jeremiahs out there who hear God’s call early in life. But there are also people like Abram, who don’t hear the call until much later in life. “Middlers” they’re called. People who live one life doing one thing, and a second life answering God’s call to travel with him.
- So what does this mean to me? It reminds me that God invites each of us on a journey with him – we too are called to travel with God. But sometimes, we’re a little too busy to hear it, aren’t we. Sometimes we’re a little too preoccupied to hear the invitation, a little too proud to consider the request, too busy doing too many things, or even just talking too much.
- In our prayer lives we spend all kinds of time talking. Telling God what we want…
- For a week, do the opposite:
o Instead of making lists, make yourself listen to God. See if you hear his invitation to travel with him on a journey.
This is a call to Trust in God
- Notice how much of God’s promise is still undone at the end of the story!
o Land is occupied by a hostile culture and people
o Abram, Sarai and Lot are now homeless
o And Abram and Sarai have no child.
- This must blow Abram’s mind. How is all this going to happen? He can’t make this happen; not taking the land, not finding a new home, not having a child. He’s been doing that for 75 years and God told him to leave it all beind.
- What’s the point? This is the beginning of a call for Abram to trust in God; not himself, not his talents, not his ideas, not his work, not his friends – Trust in God.
- Our problem is we tend to trust more in ourselves than we do in God to fulfill his promises:
o We trust our skills and talents
o We trust our hard work and long hours
o We trust our wisdom and intelligence
o We trust in our technology and medicine
o We trust our religion, and our practices
o We trust our feelings and instincts
- Abram immediately discovers that if he is going to answer God’s call, he will have to find some courage to believe in someone greater than himself. The same is true for you and me. We have to trust in God’s power, not our own.
- Instead of believing in yourself, start putting your trust in God.
This is a call to be Transformed by God.
- Abram’s journey may look right now like it’s a ‘taking hold’ of kind of quest. But very quickly he and we will discover quite the opposite to be true. This won’t be a call to take hold of anything other than God. Instead of taking hold, Abram will spend the rest of his life learning to let go; let go of his doubts and fears, let go of all kinds of passions, to let go of his way of doing things
- God’s goal is to bring Abram to a point where the only thing Abram has left – is God himself.
- God is going to transform Abram in a magnificent way.
- Abram won’t get there by just being a better person; by making a few minor changes in his diet and in his health; he won’t become the person God has in mind by reading a few good books. Abram can’t answer this call with a luke-warm commitment and effort – This is going to require tremendous courage if he is going to follow where God is leading.
- And the same is true for us. Our thought usually is, if God needs something from me, I need to try harder. I’ll try to read a few more books, read my bible more, say more prayers, pray stronger, pray louder…
- But the question isn’t about trying harder… Trying harder doesn’t deliver what it promises to deliver…
o Remember the story of the little blue engine that thought he could.
The little blue engine looked up the hill
His light was weak, his whistle shrill.
He was tired and small, an the hill was tall,
And his face blushed red as he softly said,
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
So he started up with a chug and a strain,
And he puffed and pulled with might and main.
And slowly he climbed, a foot at a time,
And his engine coughed as he whispered soft,
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
With a squeak and a creak and a toot and a sigh,
With an extra hope and an extra try,
He would not stop, now he neared the top
And strong and proud he cried out loud,
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!
He was almost there when CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and mashed into engine hash
On the rocks below . . . which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough,
THINKING you can just ain’t enough!
§ Author and speaker John Ortburg chimes in his thoughts regarding our nature to try hard and trust in our own efforts to accomplish spiritual maturity, although with Shel’s sense of poetics:
§ “Trying hard can accomplish only so much. If you are serious about seizing this chance of a lifetime, you will have to enter a life of training. You must arrange your life around certain practices that will enable you to do what you cannot do by willpower alone.”
- All of Abram’s best efforts won’t be enough. Trying hard won’t get it done. The same is true of us. Mark my words, if you are going to answer God’s call in your life, it will be through a life transformed from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Yes, you do everything you can to give yourself over the Holy Spirit. You read, you study, you pray, you worship, you confess, you serve, you give… But none of that makes you holy. None of it gives you courage. None of it proves you to be God’s. Only God himself can make you worthy, make you capable, bring you to transformation.
- This isn’t about how good you are..
o “You use these kinds of people?”
§ Abram, Jacob, Moses, David, Soloman, Samson, Peter, Paul…
o What do they have in common? In an uncommon way, they gave everything in their lives over to God – their needs, their passions, their agendas, their plans, their pride, their fears, their hearts, their minds their souls.
o Don’t try to do more and do it better; spend more time letting go and giving God more of your heart, more of your time, more of your heart, more of your dreams…
- Instead of trying to prove yourself, put yourself into God’s hands.
Let me boil this down to three observations this morning.
First, notice the text immediately preceding this story. Genesis 11: 27-32 tell us about Abram’s father, Terah. Listen to verse 31: “Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and left Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But they stopped instead at the village of Haran and settled there.”
Abram’s journey will pickup where his father’s ended. He’s following in his father’s footsteps, finishing what his father began. This is a new thing God is doing – but its is also something God is already doing. Abram’s call connects with something that God had already started through someone else.
There’s a great axiom I heard once, “Find out where God is already working and join him there.” Answering a call is not always about launching some new ministry no one’s ever done and becoming some kind of a super-hero of the faith. The greatest and highest call any of us can ever receive is to join God – to partner with God where he’s already working.
Here’s what you need to do: Recognize where God is already working in your life. Where is God already doing something? What is he already saying? What theme is he constantly returning your mind towards? Where is God already working? Recognize that, identify that.
Second, notice look again at the text. In verse 1, “The Lord told Abram…” Hold it. Now look at the end of this brief story, verse 7: “Then the Lord appeared to Abram…”
- In the beginning God spoke. After Abram launches out, God appears.
- What does Abram do when God appears? What he will do frequently when God appears to him in the Abrahamic narrative: He marks the moment. He builds an altar.
- Listen to the words of the Psalmist: “Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he does for his people!” Psalm 66:5
Remember your encounters with God. Maybe you even need to record them, to keep track of them, to mark them physically. I do. I keep mementos of God’s presences; of occasions when God has working mightily in my life.
Third observation. God is not acting for Abram’s benefit. Oh, Abram will benefit. But this isn’t for Abram. What God is going to do, God is doing for His benefit. For His people, for the future of humanity. This is about God’s passions, God’s vision, God’s plans, God’s future.
“We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:9
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” Jeremiah 29:11
Relinquish your future to God’s plans. Let God direct what your future will hold. I know you’re saving for retirement; I know you have an action plan for your career; I know you have in mind the perfect life for your children. But the truth is you have about as much control over your future as you over the direction the wind is going to blow.
Relinquish the path your feet are going to take to the future God has in mind.
- Bumper Sticker – If God is your co-pilot, change seats.
Recognize where God is already working and join him there.
Remember your encounters and experiences with God.
Relinquish your future to God’s plans.
Terribly difficult to do… It will require a tremendous courage.
- One dark night outside a small town, a fire started inside the local chemical plant. Before long it exploded into flames and an alarm went out to fire departments from miles around. After fighting the fire for over an hour, the chemical company president approached the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved! I will give $50,000 to the engine company that brings them out safely!" As soon as the chief heard this, he ordered the firemen to strengthen their attack on the blaze. After two more hours of attacking the fire, the president of the company offered $100,000 to the engine company that could bring out the company’s secret files. From the distance, a long siren was heard and another fire truck came into sight. It was a local volunteer fire company composed entirely of men over 65. To everyone’s amazement, the little fire engine raced through the chemical plant gates and drove straight into the middle of the inferno. In the distance the other firemen watched as the old timers hopped off of their rig and began to fight the fire with an effort that they had never seen before. After an hour of intense fighting, the volunteer company had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas. Joyous, the chemical company president announced that he would double the reward to $200,000 and walked over to personally thank each of the volunteers. After thanking each of the old men individually, the president asked the group what they intended to do with the reward money. The fire truck driver looked him right in the eye and said, "The first thing we’re going to do is fix the brakes on that truck!"
- No such thing in real life of accidentally answering God’s call. It requires a very real, a very intentional, a constant courage
o To recognize
o To remember
o To relinquish
