THE CALL OF ABRAHAM
Text: Acts 7:1-8
Introduction
1. How many of us remember the old Sunday school song “Father Abraham?” The song goes like this “Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So, let’s just praise the Lord!”
2. Abraham is known as the “Father of Faith,” and the Israelites were proud of being his descendants. Unfortunately, they did not follow in his footsteps.
3. This speech by Stephen before the high council points out that the nation of Israel was nothing like Abraham.
4. Read Acts 7:1-8.
Proposition: We are Abraham’s children only if we obey God in faith like he did.
Transition: The first thing we learn about Abraham is…
I. A Call of Obedience (1-3).
A. Our Ancestor Abraham
1. This chapter is a speech given by Stephen before the high council.
a. It is the first speech by a non-apostle and the longest recorded speech in the Book of Acts.
b. Although it is seen as Stephen’s defense before the council, it is an accusation of Israel’s lack of faith and disobedience toward God.
2. It begins with, “Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these accusations true?”
a. The high priest at this time was Caiaphas, who was also the man who had questioned and condemned Jesus and had also questioned the apostles.
b. Here he gives Stephen an opportunity to answer the accusations that were brought against him.
3. Luke tells us in vv. 2-3, “This was Stephen’s reply: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. 3 God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’”
a. Stephen begins by showing the relationship between Israel and God.
b. Of course, the relationship between God and Israel begins with Abraham.
c. He says, “our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham.”
d. Whenever we see a reference to “our glorious God” it is always an indication that God appeared to someone in all his glory.
e. So, God appeared to Abraham in all his heavenly majesty.
f. Here’s the thing, God didn’t appear to him in the promised land, rather he appeared to him in a Mesopotamia which was a pagan land.
g. The Jews of Jesus, and now Stephen’s day believed that God only speaks to them in the land of Israel.
h. Stephen’s point here is that God is not just the God of the Jews, and God can be worshipped in other places than Jerusalem.
i. Jesus came not just for the Jews but for the entire world.
4. Next, Stephen talks about Abraham’s obedience toward God. God told him to leave his home and his family to go to a land I’ll show you.
a. Now I’d like to think that if God told us to leave and go somewhere else we would do it, but we would want to ask the Lord, “so where am I going?”
b. However, Abraham didn’t do that, he just got up and went.
c. It says in Gen. 12:4, “So Abram departed as the LORD had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.”
d. The idea here is that Abraham didn’t question God, he simply obeyed.
e. Notice something else, he was 75 years old! He was no spring chicken when God asked him to do what he was asking. But Abraham never questions God, he just obeys.
f. The point that Stephen is making is that the Jews were so proud of being descendants of Abraham, but they were nothing like him.
g. He obeyed, even when he didn’t understand, but they were stubborn and hard-hearted.
h. He even sent them the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus, but they rejected and crucified him.
B. Living in Obedience
1. "One word stands out from all others as the key to knowing God, to having His peace and assurance in your life--it is obedience." (Eric Liddell)
a. Elisabeth Elliot tells the story of when she and her brother Tom were small children. Their mother would let Tom play with paper bags that she had saved if he put them away afterwards. One day she walked into the kitchen to find them strewn all over the floor.
b. Tom was in another room at the piano with his father singing hymns. When their mother called him to the kitchen to tidy up, he protested, "But Mum, I want to sing Jesus loves me this I know."
c. His father, seated next to him, backed up the boys' mother by saying: "It's no good singing God's praise if you're disobedient. To obey is better than sacrifice." (From a sermon by Gordon Curley, In his father's footsteps, 11/18/2010)
2. The key to being a disciple of Jesus is obedience.
a. “13 So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. 14 So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” (1 Pet. 1:13-16).
b. “My one aim in life is to secure personal holiness, for without being holy myself I cannot promote real holiness in others.” — John Wesley
c. We cannot say that we are followers of Jesus unless we are living in obedience and holiness.
d. We cannot say that we believe in Jesus and not live like it.
e. We cannot say we believe what the Bible teaches and live in opposition to what it says.
f. To be a true Christian, a follower of Jesus, means living according to his Word.
g. It means that when people look at us they see that we are different in what we do and speak.
h. We cannot say we love Jesus and live like the rest of society.
i. Our goal as Christians is not to be accepted by society, but our goal should be for the world around us to be like Jesus!
Transition: The next thing we see in the life of Abraham is…
II. A Call of Faith (4-8).
A. So, Abraham Left
1. Now, Stephen is going to show the high council that Abraham was not only obedient, but he was also a man of great faith. In vv. 4-5 it says, “So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live. 5 “But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants—even though he had no children yet.”
a. So, Abraham did what God asked him to do. He went to the land where he told him to go. When he got there, God gave him...nothing!
b. Stephen points out that “God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land.” In fact, the only land that Abraham even owned was he and Sarah’s grave.
c. However, God made another promise to Abraham; the land where he was living as a foreigner would be long to his descendants.
d. The problem with this is that Abraham had no descendants; they were childless.
e. Now, I’m no expert, but in order to have decedents you have to start with at least one!
f. In addition, not only were they childless, but they were also old!
g. Most people don’t start a family in their 80’s or 90’s!
h. But Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
2. Stephen then continues his argument in vv. 6-7 saying, “God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. 7 ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me here in this place.’”
a. God even challenged Abraham’s faith by telling him that his descendants would be held captive as slaves in a foreign land for 400 years.
b. So, Abraham would own land, but he didn’t have any, and he would have descendants, but he didn’t have any of them either.
c. Now, God tells his him these descendants of his that he had none of would-be slaves for over 400 years.
d. But then God gave him hope when he tells him he would punish the nation that held them captive, and his descendants would worship God in the place Abraham was staying.
e. The point that Stephen was trying to make was that even though Abraham didn’t have any of the things that God had promised him, Abraham still believed.
f. They on the other hand, had everything God promised them in the Messiah, Jesus, but they didn’t believe. They were nothing like Abraham!
3. Stephen again pointed out the unfaithfulness of Israel by bringing up circumcision. He says in v. 8, “God also gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision at that time. So when Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him on the eighth day. And the practice was continued when Isaac became the father of Jacob, and when Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Israelite nation.”
a. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant that God made with the nation of Israel.
b. Stephen pointed out that God always had kept his side of the promise, but Israel had failed, again and again, to keep its side.
c. Although the Jews in Stephen’s day still circumcised their baby boys, they failed to obey God.
d. The people’s hearts were far from him.
e. Their lack of faith and lack of obedience meant that they had failed to keep their part of the covenant. (Bruce Barton et al., Life Application New Testament Commentary, 496).
B. Faith is an Action
1. ‘You see things as they are, and ask” why?” But I dream things that never were, and ask “why not?” (George Bernard Shaw)
2. Real biblical faith is belief in action.
a. “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” (Heb. 11:1).
b. Abraham was the father of faith because he saw things that did not yet exist because he believed God.
c. He saw land even though he never owned any.
d. He saw descendants even though he didn’t have any because God said he would have them.
e. Abraham moved when God said move even though God didn’t tell him where he was going.
f. Faith means going when God says go even though he doesn’t give us a GPS.
g. Faith means doing what God says when it doesn’t make sense to our finite minds.
h. Faith means believing God will provide when there’s no money.
i. Faith means seeing God’s vision for us even when we cannot see it yet.
j. Faith means telling the mountain to move and being surprised only if it doesn’t!
Conclusion
1. The call of Abraham is…
a. A Call of Obedience
b. A Call of Faith
2. What’s the point preacher? The point is if we are going to call ourselves followers of Jesus it needs to be evident in our lives. We need to obey God when others follow the world. We need to believe God when others are following the whims of society. We need to be followers of Jesus in our actions and not just our words.
