Genesis- People Relating To God- Part 4- Answering God's Call Series

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Genesis – people relating to God – part 4

Answering God’s call

Genesis 12:1-4

For a short time in my life, I felt the need to try and make my living as a day working cowboy.

This was a short period in my life because I quickly realized that my wife and kids expected to eat everyday and not being good with money, we needed the security of a regular paycheck.

I enjoyed the work

Hiring out to help pen or work a bunch of cows

Hiring out to catch a cow or bull

Hiring out to help plant winter pasture

Hiring out to do whatever a ranch might need

It was a good life- someplace different all the time

Meeting new people

Seeing new places

Almost every single day of work that I got came from a phone call

Now young people in the room

That was long before cell phones

We actually had phone in our houses that connected to the wall with a cord

And you had to hang around the house ,near the phone if you wanted to get a call

So

Every morning – unless I had made a deal already to work again

I waited for a phone call

Waiting for a call

A very important trait for a day worker to have was to answer when someone called

You could be a top hand

Gifted with a horse

A cow whisperer

Build a fence that was so tight a straight that you could play a tune on it

But

If your perspective employer

Could not get a hold of you

And

Often times they would only try once

So

If you did not answer their call

They would find someone else

And you would miss the work for that day

And as a result you might miss many days of work in the future

Today as we continue our series in Genesis

We are going to look at a man who answered Gods call

Just a quick reminder

This study is called people relating to God

We are going very quickly through the book of Genesis

But we are specifically looking at the key people in this great book

And

How they related to God

We began with Adam and Eve

We looked at their choices and the consequences of the choices

The next week we looked at Their Sons

Cain and Able – then Seth

The decisions that Cain made and the separation from God that resulted from his disobedience

Next we looked at the one righteous man left on earth after many years of corruption by evil

Noah

And we learned about his desire to please God and also took a hard look at the lives of the others

The ones that did not get on the boat

The ones with mud in their ears

Today we jump ahead the end of Genesis Chapter 11

The world has once again started down the slippery slope of disobedience

God hit reset with Noah

But we know

Because we are as they are were knot heads

That evil has corrupted the world once again

So today we meet a man named Abram

We will soon come to know him as Abraham

Most Christians

Actually most people recognize him as the father of our faith

He was a righteous man

Considered by most to be a great man

But

He was a human like each of us as well

Not perfect as we will see

By any means

But he answered when God called

Let’s read about his first call in Genesis 12:1

“The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.”

Abram was living in Haran with his family

They had a ranch there

They were successful

His family was there

We can assume he was happy

Content

But we also know by what we see later that he knew something was missing in his life

So

When God called

Abram answered

God made him some great promises in the next few verses and we will study about them in a bit

But for now it is important to look at how Abram responded to the call

How he related to God

Verse 4

4 So Abram departed as the LORD had instructed”

Abram was content

He was happy

He was successful

He was surrounded by his family

He knew what he would do tomorrow

If he was like most us--- he had made some long term plans

Maybe he planned to fence the lower pasture

Build a new barn