When God Calls Your Name… Twice: Abraham
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 7/17/2016
How many of you are familiar with the gameshow The Price is Right? I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I grew up watching The Price is Right back when Bob Barker still hosted the show. Even as a kid I got pretty good at guessing the retail price of a can of Campbell’s Soup or a side by side refrigerator and freezer. The most exciting part of that show, however, was when they would call out the name of someone in the audience and say “Come on down, you’re the next contestant on The Price is Right.” I’ve never seen people respond so enthusiastically to hearing their name called. Those contestants would jump up and down, scream, and flail their arms. Some of the women would grab Bob Barker and give him a kiss on the cheek. Some of men may have too!
Hearing your name called can be a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, there is the rush of exhilaration you feel when you’re sitting on the bench with your fingers crossed hoping that the coach calls your name. On the other hand, there is the feeling of dread that washes over you, when you’re sitting in the back of the classroom, trying to avoid eye contact, hoping that the teacher doesn’t call your name.
My question for you this morning is—how would you respond if God called your name not once, but twice? In the Bible, God calls plenty of people often by name, but I’ve only found seven times where God calls out someone’s name twice in a row—Martha, Martha! Saul, Saul! Moses, Moses!
In each instance, God wants—even demands—the attention of the person He’s calling. What follows is almost always a life-changing encounter with the God of creation. For the next several weeks, I want to invite you to join as we explore some of these stories and see what happens when God calls your name twice.
The first person God calls is Abraham.
Chosen by God to become the spiritual and physical father of a new nation, Abraham’s holds a completely unique and unapproachable place in the annals of history. His name means “father of many,” and that’s just what he has become—regarded as the patriarch, or father, not just of Christianity, but Judaism and even Islam as well.
Abraham never spoke a prophetic word. He didn’t write any of the books of the Bible. He never recorded a psalm, nor gave any laws. He wasn’t a priest, a prophet or a prince—yet Abraham was called a “friend of God,” and he alone holds that honor in all of Scripture.
The events leading up to God calling Abraham’s name are probably familiar to most of you. And it all starts off with a couple of crazy things. The first one is when God says to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you” (Genesis 22:2 NLT).
Anybody reading this for the first time would have to shocked. I mean what kind of God would demand a human sacrifice!? This is barbaric, crazy stuff, isn’t it!? But the really crazy thing is that Abraham went along with it! In the next verse, we read: “The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about” (Genesis 22:3 NLT).
Now you and I have the benefit of knowing how this story ends. In fact, we know that God never intended for Abraham to sacrifice his son because God hates human sacrifice. For example, Moses warned the Israelites, “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering…Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). The Old Testament is riddled with similar commands against child sacrifice.
However, Abraham didn’t know that. Abraham’s story takes place before any that stuff was written down. He came from a corrupt pagan culture where human sacrifice was fairly common. So there weren’t any warning bells going off in Abraham’s head telling him this was crazy.
Even so, knowing Abraham’s background and the fact that God literally spoke out of heaven commanding him to do this—can you imagine what Abraham must have been going through? This is the most gut-wrenching request God could have made. Abraham has given up everything to follow God. He already left his home in the land of Ur. He packed up his family and everything he owned because this God, whom he never knew before, spoke to him and told him to move to the land of Canaan. God promised to bless Abraham and assured him that he and Sarai would have a son and eventually Abraham would have more descendants than there are stars in the sky or sand on the seashore.
Abraham trusted God. And God always proved faithful. Over the years, Abraham formed a friendship with God. They talked together, listened to one another, even argued at times. Through it all, Abraham learned to trust God. But now that trust was being put to the test. In fact, that’s just what this whole ordeal was—a test. The chapter begins with these words: “Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith” (Genesis 22:1 NLT).
As I’m sure you all know, Abraham passed the test. Despite his heartache and confusion, Abraham trusted and obeyed. He lead Isaac up the mountain, Abraham tied up his son, placed him on the altar and raised the knife. That’s when God calls out to him: “Abraham! Abraham! Don’t kill your son or hurt him in any way. Now I can see that you trust God and that you have not kept your son, your only son, from me” (Genesis 22:11-12 NCV).
Remember, when God calls your name twice, what he says next will be of profound significance. That was certainly true for Abraham. In fact, God’s words here give meaning to this whole experience. God was testing Abraham’s trust. In essence, God asked Abraham, “Are you willing to let go of the one thing you love more than anything in order to follow me?”
Remember, when God first called Abraham, God promised to give him a son and to make him into a great nation. Abraham’s relationship with God essentially revolved around that promise until the birth of Isaac, and then Abraham’s joy, happiness and contentment in life came primarily from his son and the knowledge that Isaac would inherit all of God’s promises. I guess you could say that Abraham had focused on the gifts of God rather than the Giver.
I am totally convinced that at some time in our lives God will test our faith in Him by asking us to give up the very thing we love and think we cannot live without. Why? God wants our affections and he does not want to be an addendum to our plans. He deserves to hold first place in our hearts and lives.
One of my personal heroes is Phil Visher, the creator of Veggie Tales™. In his book, Me, Myself and Bob, he tells the story of the rise and fall of Big Idea, Inc. From a young age, Phil loved God very much and had a lot of silly ideas in his head for how to share God with other people. His dream was to create a way to share God and Christian values with children in a way that would be fun and entertaining. His dream came to life through Veggie Tales. The first episode was produced by a handful of people working around the clock and was sold through the mail on low-budget VHS tapes, yet it was an instant success. Over the next few years, Big Idea’s staff grew to more than three hundred as they popped out one hit episode after another. Then, suddenly, everything started to unravel. Multiple factors contributed to the company’s downfall, but the end result was bankruptcy and the auctioning off of a dream. Phil faced a crisis of faith. God had given him this wonderful thing and then he took it away. He struggled with that for a long time. How could God do this to me? Why would God do this to me? After wrestling with questions like those for some time, he stumbled upon a quote from C. S. Lewis that put everything in perspective: In his book, The Weight of Glory, Lewis writes, “He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.”
Does that make sense? Do you believe that? Many of us, I think, have this unwritten mental agreement with God—I’ll follow you and you don’t let anything bad happen to me!
I will never forget the day my daughter almost died. At least that’s what I thought. She was about a year old, sitting in her highchair gnawing on a pizza crust. I glanced over at her and noticed that her eye were glazed over, her little fists pumped rhythmically, and her face was starting to turn blue. We later figured out that she was having a very mysterious seizure, but at the time we assume she was chocking. I snatched her out of her seat and swabbed her mouth with my finger, but could find an obstruction. So I flipped her over on my lap and patted her back—the baby version of the Heimlich Maneuver. A few seconds later, she went completely limp in my arms and my heart sank. But I flipped her over and gently blew into her mouth, filling her lungs with air. Her eyes immediately popped open and the color returned to her face. We took her to the hospital and later found out that she had quit breathing during the seizure and it wasn’t until she passed out that her brain, rebooted and told her body to start breathing again. On the way to the hospital, I made a point of thanking God and expressing how wonderful God was for saving her. Then, almost as if God was audibly speaking, questions started flooding my mind: Would you still think I’m wonderful if she had died? Would you still praise me if I hadn’t saved her? Is God still a good God when he takes away that which we love most? If we have nothing but God, is that enough?
Abraham’s faith would not be complete until he could answer those questions. And no amount of hypothetical discussion would suffice. These are the kind of questions that can only be answered through action, through experience.
And here’s the scary question that you have to ask yourself: What’s your Isaac? Is there something in your life that has taken God’s place? Is there something or someone that’s more important to you than God?
It might be a boyfriend or girlfriend. It could be child as it was in Abraham’s case. Or maybe a company or career like it was for Phil Visher. It might be a house or a hobby or habit. It could be an addiction or that secret sin that you turn to whenever you’re angry or alone. Whatever it is—prepared for God to test you.
Listen, when God tests you, it’s not like taking the ACTs or the SATs. It’s not like God wants to see how you’re going to score. It’s not that kind of a test. The term translated “testing” is an interesting word. It was commonly used by silversmiths in ancient times when testing precious metals, like silver. The silversmith would put all the silver in a big pot and heat it up with fire. Once the silver got hot enough, all of the impurities (dross) would rise to the surface and the silversmith could just scoop that top layer off. And then he would do it again until the silver was “tested” or pure. And the way he knew the silver was actually tested or pure, was by looking down and seeing his own reflection in the silver.
That’s what God did with Abraham. God tested Abraham, by turning up the heat, challenging his faith, and in so doing removing the scum formed on the surface. James puts it this way, in the New Testament: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2-3 NLT).
God tested Abraham’s faith in order to perfect him and make him complete. And he wants to do the same in your life and mine. Just as the silversmith looked down on the pot of silver in hopes of seeing his reflection, God tests our faith and allows us to go through trials and troubles in hopes of one day looking down on us and seeing his reflection. And the truth is—as God looked down on Abraham preparing to sacrifice his beloved son, he never looked more like God than he did in that moment.
Everything God put Abraham through was a reflection of what God would later do himself. For instance, both Isaac and Jesus were children of promise. Both Isaac and Jesus are described as the “only begotten son” of their respective fathers. Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice as he and Abraham walked the lonely path up the mountain side. Jesus, likewise, carried his own cross as he walked the via dolorosa. Some historians even believe that the hill upon which Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac is, in fact, the very same hill upon which Jesus was crucified. And just as Jesus was raised from the dead three days later, Abraham received his son back from certain death after a three day journey. Abraham didn’t even realize it at the time, but he passed the test because God saw his reflection in Abraham’s actions.
I love the way this story ends, by the way. After God stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, the Bible says, “Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided” (Genesis 22:13-14 NLT).
Abraham put God first. He didn’t hold back. He gave everything. And so God not only gave Abraham his beloved son back, but also provided a substitute sacrifice—forever cementing in Abraham’s heart the maxim, “The Lord will provide.”
Jesus assures us of that very same truth. He said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33 NIV). In other words, whatever it is you’re holding back from God, whatever it is you’re clinging to so tightly, if you’d just let go and put God first—seek him first—then the Lord will provide everything else.
Let me just point out that God has provided for you as well. If you have ears to hear this sermon, a car or feet that brought you to church today, and the stamina to sit through one of my sermons, then you already have grace upon grace. And God rarely stops there. He wants to lavish his love on us—he really does! God will always provide for the ones he loves and who love him. But he never wants us to lose sight of the real treasure, the real reward—God himself!
Conclusion
Some pretty dramatic stuff happens when God calls your name twice, wouldn’t you say? I think Abraham’s experience teaches us that our faith will never be perfect or complete until God alone enough, until God holds first place in our hearts, until he sees his reflection in our face.
Next week, we’ll explore another story when God called someone’s name twice.
Invitation
In the meantime, maybe there’s something or someone in your life that’s taken God’s place. If you’re ready to lay your Isaac down, I’d like to help. Maybe that means giving your life to Christ for the first time, or rededicating yourself to the Lord. Maybe it means letting go of anger or jealousy or bitterness. Maybe it means putting your career or character on the altar. Whatever it means for you, I want you to know that you can trust God with your Isaac. He may give it back or he may have something even better planned for you. Either way, he will always provide for those who seek Him first.
If you’re ready to come to the altar as Abraham did, then come forward while we stand and sing. Let’s sing together.
