Theme: The Call to a Life of Faith
Text: Gen.11:27-12:3
B. This morning we are going to begin a new sermon series, and it’s from the book of Genesis. We will study the life of Abraham and his journey of faith. He is called the Father of Faith, and the Patriarch of Faith of both Jews and the Christians. I believe his life will teach us many things about walking or living with God by faith. He is also called the “Friend of God,” a title that implies intimate relationship. It is my prayer that as we study his life we too would come to live a life of faith and have a closer walk with God.
Please open your Bible to Genesis 11: 27-12: 3. In this passage we will find the call of God to Abraham to a Life of Faith. But actually this is the goal of God for all His children. He is calling everyone of us, as He called Abram, to live a life of faith in Him. This has three major divisions of Abram’s life as he received the call of God to live in faith.
I. THE WRETCHED YEARS (11: 27-30).
1. Abram’s past was one of obscurity and misery. Before God put His spotlight on Abram, he was a mere nobody. He was just another nameless face in the crowd of humanity.
2. He came from Ur of the Chaldees, the very center for sun and moon worship of his time. While the place may have been prosperous, it was known of its perversion. The people there were involved in some of the most miserable forms of idolatry known to mankind. This is the spiritual condition of the place where Abram lived. And most likely, this man was one of these idolaters. Therefore, there was a time that Abraham’s life was one of spiritual misery –a time of darkness, death, and despair.
3. But out of this condition that God came and called Abram to live his life in faith. God came to bring him out of his spiritual wretchedness.
4. We are no different with Abraham. We were once in the darkness of sin. But God came to bring us out from sin. Now our heart rejoices to know that God can reach into the blackest heart and turn on the light of His glory and presence. Our lives are living examples of the power of His grace. He took our life that was so insignificant, so barren and hopeless and turned it into one of the greatest examples of the power of faith and grace!
5. The whole point here is: No one is beyond the touch of God! Even Abraham who was once a pagan. Regardless where we came from, or of what burdens we’re carrying now, God is able to come where we are and change us for His glory! He can make us into something that manifests His glory and power.
II. THE WASTED YEARS (11: 31-12: 1).
1. Now the next thing that we can see in the story is when the whole family of Abram went out from Ur and set out for Canaan. This action was Abram’s response to the call of God to depart everything that shaped his paganistic life –his country, his religion, and his relatives.
Though we are not told here how the call of God came to him, but we are told that God spoke to him out of his darkness and brought him into the light to follow a new path of life.
The call of Abraham would raise some questions, which even the Bible is silent why. One example is: Why did God pick this one man, out of all the men of the earth? We can’t answer that. Why does God call me and not my brothers? Why did He call you and not your neighbor? With wonder we sing the song, “Why have you chosen me out of millions your child could be?” We don’t really know the answer. The answer to this question lies within the cloud of God’s sovereignty. But all we can do having been called by God is to rejoice in the fact that we are saved and secure in the blood of the Lamb of God. I praise God for the day He turned the light for my life. I praise God for the day He called me to salvation and liberty.
2. But the nature of Abram’s call was for him to leave, to depart. Yet when he left Ur, he brought with him his father and some relatives. It seems that he compromised by not separating from his family as he has been ordered. He failed to fully submit to the call of God.
Not that he would sever his ties with his relatives, but the purpose of God was that Abraham would be free from any paganistic influence. There is no indication that his relatives put their trust in the Lord as Abraham did. God wanted Abraham to put away anything that would block him from doing the will of God.
Is there anything that blocks you from doing the will of God in your life? Terah, the name of Abram’s father, means “a station or delay.” It has the idea of a stopping place, a rest area, or a roadblock. For quite sometime, Terah was a roadblock between Abram and his doing the will of God. For several years, Abram stayed in Haran, a place still miles away from Canaan the destination where God called him to be, because of Terah. So when Terah was removed from the scene, then was Abraham ready to move on in the things of God.
What is your Terah today? Anything that hinders your growth and progress in the things of God is your “Terah.” Paul advised us that these things of the flesh should be “reckoned dead.” Look where you are now? Are you in place where God wants you to be? If not, and if something’s hindering you, the call is “depart.”
3. The years that Abram stayed in Haran were wasted years. Those years were spent watching his father wasted away physically. Those years were spent being grieved by the sins of a family still in the grip of idolatry. But those years could have been spent enjoying the best God had to offer to him.
Friends, the work of God is too precious and our time is too short to serve him. Everyday brings us closer to the grave and to His glory, let us determine in our heart that we will make every moment count for the glory of God.
III. WONDER YEARS (12: 1-3).
1. At last, at the age of 75, Abram finally made his break with the old life. He leaves out from Haran on the great adventure of faith. It was then that he started experiencing wonderful years in his life as he followed the call of God.
Well, there is never an age which is too late to serve God. And there is no age limit as to experiencing precious opportunities in serving the Lord. People say, “No one is too old to serve God.” That’s true. But we should not wait to reach 75 years old to fully submit ourselves to the will of God. When we surrender our lives totally to God, we shall
2. In verses 2 and 3 of chapter 12, we have the promises of God to Abraham. Meaning, after all the wretched years in defilement and the wasted years in delay, God reserved some wonderful years of delight for His old servant. Abraham would still have the privilege to experience wonderful opportunities as He walks in faith with God. Notice the qualities of these wonder years based on what God has said in these verses.
First, there is an opportunity to walk in God’s presence. Abram was called to go out from his country to the land where God wants him to be. That is, he’d been called out from the gross darkness of sin to walk in God’s presence. It implies that God Himself would lead him the way; God Himself would direct his path.
There is nothing in this world more precious than that –to walk with God by faith. Through faith God would bring us to the place where we can totally depend upon Him and believe that He won’t let us down.
Second, there is the privilege to watch God’s providence. Abraham received grand promises from God. He does not know how God will work it out, he just believe God will do it.
The same is true with us. When we respond to the call of God to the life of faith, we too have His grand promises in His word. We can read them and keep them in our heart. We don’t know how God will fulfill it, but we know and believe that He will do it. So we have both the privilege of experiencing God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promises and the joy of having expectant anticipation for the fulfillment of all the promises of God.
Third, there is an opportunity to know the purposes of God and to see how God amazingly fulfills them. Abraham would have a question in his mind how God could make him, once an idolater, to become a blessing to all the families of the world. But he left Haran with all his hopes hidden in his heart. He held all the unseen things of the future into the hands of faith. He trusted God to take care of it and the Lord fulfilled every promise, just as He had said that He would. Wow, as Abram started his steps of faith, he began to see God do things that amazed him until the day he died.
Like our father Abraham, we need to live our life by faith, and we will SURELY get to see God do the impossible over and over again.
C. CONCLUSION:
Have you already made the step of faith to total surrender? Why not do it now?
