Abraham, the First Disciple

Genesis 12:1-9

Genesis 12:1-9
1 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.
2 I will make you into a great nation,and I will bless you;I will make your name great,so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless youand curse those who curse you;and all the families of the earthwill be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.
5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and people they had acquired in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the Oak of Moreh at Shechem. And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the LORD, and he called on the name of the LORD.
9 And Abram journeyed on toward the Negev.

  • The Story of Kagemusha, 1980’s film about a criminal who looks like the warlord. Nobles keep the criminal alive because he could be useful.
  • The Warlord dies, the nobles use the criminal to be the Warlord so their enemeis don’t know they’ve lost their leader.
  • The Criminal-now-Warlord starts out as a puppet. But he begins to take on the role of the Warlord we serious responsiblity.
  • At the end he is standing on the battlefield alone defending his banner when he could run away.
  • His call brought out greatness in Him.
  • FCF: We forget the great calling of God, and the state we were before he called us.

His Mark

Maybe you’re here and you don’t really care about Abraham. May you don’t believe in God…? Even if you don’t believe in God, understanding the life of Abraham is important.

Anyone that lives on this planet should have some basic idea of who Abraham was in order to make sense of the world we live in.

Look at the three great monotheistic religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All of them point back to Abraham. Three of the biggest religions name Abraham as their father or patriarch.

If you want to know something about the world we live in, you need to study the life of Abraham.

Our Call

But more importantly, if you are a believer in Christ, the life of Abraham means much to us.

Look at what God says about Abraham through Isaiah the prophet:

Isaiah 51:1-2
1 “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock from which you were cut,
and to the quarry from which you were hewn.
2 Look to Abraham your father,
and to Sarah who gave you birth.
When I called him, he was but one;
then I blessed him and multiplied him.

God tells us those who pursue righteousness should look to Abraham. God, in this passage, asks us to look at Abraham before he was called and after. That’s some of what we will do today.

I want to look at the call of God to Abraham. First, I want to look at the power of God’s call. Next, we will look at the nature of God’s call. Then we’ll look at how we can obtain the call like Abraham did.

The Glory of God’s Call

Let’s look at the glory of God’s call.

The State of the World

I say glory because the world right up until this point seemed pretty bleak.

Genesis 11 begins with the account of the Tower of Babel. The text tells us the people created with tower to “make name for themselves” (v4).

God saw this self-glorification and put a stop to it. He confused the people by giving them different languages.

Other than being a fantastic story, we are left there with the world being in a state of confusing and rebellion against God. It seemed that the God’s creation did not want to do anything with God.

But God called Abraham His own Glory.

hope halted

If you were reading with the eyes of someone who’s reading the bible for the first time, reading Genesis 11 would seem like History has stopped. There’s no more progress to be made.

The State of God’s Family

The second half of Genesis 11 gives us the generations of Seth, which typically seems boring to many people, but there’s meaning behind this genealogy.

Why does it matter that Seth’s family is mentioned?

This was the good family.

The end of Gen 4 tells us Seth called on the name of the Lord, a Hebrew idiom for worshipping God. It was in Seth’s family that the Lord was worshipped.

Terah’s house

The end of Genesis 11 tells us about the House of Terah, let’s read that together Genesis 11.27-32 [PP]

Genesis 11:27-32
27 This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.
28 During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah.
30 But Sarai was barren; she had no children.
31 And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.
32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

So, this passage, along with several names, gives us what it seems to be the end of God’s people.

We are not told here, but Joshua tells the Israelites that Terah’s family served other God. In fact the main god worshipped by the Chaldeans was called Terah, the moon god, which was the name of Abraham’s father. We can’t know for sure but in rabbinical literature, Terah was a priest of the moon god.

The names Sarai, Nahor, Milcah, and Iscah, are all names associated with the moon, in their language.

So here we have Terah’s house, the last line of God’s people, and he’s worshipping idols. Is God going to keep his promise to Adam and Eve?

The State of Abraham’s Life

If that weren’t bad enough, we look to Terah’s descendant. His son Abram, who will be called Abraham, and Nahor are also said to have worshipped idols with Terah.

Now if you’re not familiar with Abram and Abraham, it’s the same person, but God changes his name.

The name Abram means father. The name Abraham means father of many nations/multitudes. Or as one preach put it, Abram means daddy, and Abraham means big daddy.

His name doesn’t change much and I will probably refer to him as Abraham, but we that’s the name we are used to, and that’s also my name.

  • The state of Abram’s family | Sarai was barren (11.30) which meant that no further descendants would come. This was the end of the line for Abraham’s family.

God Takes Unqualified People

The Power of God’s Call

  1. When we think of Abram’s current place, it’s hard for us to imagine a worse person to pick to carry on the promises of God, but God did it anyway. God called Abraham
    1. Despite the fact that his family worshipped idols
    2. Despite the fact that he had no children and his wife was barren
  2. God’s call to this one man, Abraham changed the history of the world.
  3. The Call of God can change a person’s life.
    1. This is what God calls attention to in Isaiah—the call of God can change a life.
    2. It has the power to change the course person’s life like Abraham
  4. God is calling you.
    1. Those of us who are Christians are messengers for God, we walk the highways to find those who are willing to come to Jesus.
    2. It’s not a matter you accepting Jesus into your heart, it’s a matter of accepting his call. “Take up your cross and follow me.”
    3. The Word of God is the Will of God.
      1. When the word is preached, God calls the sinner to come.
      2. Today the word is preached, through song, lessons, and even prayers
      3. God’s calling you.
  5. You have two options
    1. You can be like Abraham, when he heard the call he went.
    2. Or you can not be like Abraham, don’t obey the call of God—the choice is yours.

God’s Takes The Unqualified and Qualifies Them

The Nature of the God’s Call

So let’s look at the nature of the call of God. What exactly did he call Abraham do to? How much does God tell Abraham what he wants him to do?

These are questions that help us get to the radical nature of the call of God.

Let’s look at what God calls Abraham to do.

  1. He says in v1, get out! [PP]
    1. ESV Go from your country your kindred and your father’s house
    2. KJV Get thee out of thy country
    3. NASB Go forth from your country
    4. This is emphatic!
  2. Get from what? Your country + your kindred (family) + your father’s house
    1. God wanted Abraham to personally get out.
    2. It wasn’t enough for Abraham to be with his father, and ride on the achievements and life of his father, God wanted him to get out!
    3. Gen 11.31 tells us Terah originally planned to go to Canaan, but settled in Haran.
      1. It’s hard to know if why Terah wanted to go to Canaan.
      2. Some say God called Abraham to Canaan, but Terah stopped him in Haran to stay there, I’m not sure.
    4. God’s call is personal.
      1. We cannot ride on the righteousness or the faith of our family or our friends.
        1. It’s easy to be a disciple when the whole family does it. You need to get out
        2. It’s easy to be a disciple when your friends do it. You need to get out.

Have you gotten you out? Have you obeyed the call yourself?

  1. So get out and go, but where?
    1. God says in 12:1 “go the land where I will show you”
    2. Go, but I’ll tell you when. Like a parent telling child to come, the child asks “What do you want.” The parent says, “When I call you, you come, don’t ask why.”
    3. God is calling Abraham to give up his will, his volition.
      1. In other words, God is asking Abraham to trust him. “I’m not going to give you the details, Abraham. You’re going to have to trust me on this one.” Trust and obey.
      2. This is Abraham’s life—Trusting, but without the details.
        1. God tells Abraham—Go and he goes.
        2. God tells Abraham he’ll have a son—He waits several decades for God
        3. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son—He take his son and puts him on an altar.
    4. How can some people approach Christianity? They need the details.
      1. They look at every little detail in their life and interpret it as if God’s sending them little messages throughout the day.
      2. Or, some will ask if Christianity will fit their current life. If I become a Christian… will I have to give up?
      3. Christianity doesn’t fit into your life, it changes it.
      4. Luke 17.33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
      5. If you’re not will to say to God, whatever you’d have me to do, I’ll do it, or whatever I discern your will to be I’ll do it, you haven’t answered the call of God.
    5. Christianity changes you. Literary critic comparing LOTR to Hobbit | Quest vs. Adventure.
      1. An adventure is something you come back from and you pick up where you left off there and back again.
      2. A quest changes you, you don’t come back from a quest.

Have you give your whole life to Christ?

  1. V2 God tells Abraham that Abraham will be a blessing.
    1. Why tell Abraham this? So he will live his life in response to this.
    2. Abraham’s life will be a mission to serve others.
    3. This call to be a blessing means that we don’t operate life on the value of our comfort.
      1. Our decisions we make in life will not operate on comfort
      2. Our decisions will be based on our potential to bless others.
    4. Many time when we are uncomfortable we are blessing others.
    5. ILL volunteering at camp. It’s hot, it’s tiring—but we’re blessing these children.

RECAP

The nature of the call of God is.

  • Personal
  • Total
  • Other-centered

abraham, the exemplar christian

  1. Why look at Abraham’s life? Because he was the example of the early church for a true disciple of God
    1. Romans + Galatians + James all use Abraham as their example of a believer in God.
    2. His life was based around his faith in God.

obtaning the call

So what do we do to obtain this call? Or a better question, what kept Abraham going? Faith. But faith specifically in what?

  1. The whole time Abraham had to have faith God would provide him a son.
    1. The Son accomplished the promises of God
      1. The son would lead to the nation—no child, no nation
      2. The son would lead to the land—no descendants, no land
      3. The son would lead to the families of the earth being blessed
    2. Abraham was old, Sarah was barren, how could this happen?
      1. Abraham had faith in his Son his whole life
      2. He lived as if God’s promises we already fulfilled
  2. We must have faith in the Son
    1. The Son that fulfilled the promises of God
    2. Read Gen 12.1-3 and substitute Jesus for Abram.
      1. Jesus left his father’s house (ultimate security)
      2. Jesus went out, not know where he went
      3. Jesus blessed the whole earth
    3. He gave it all up for us.
  3. Trust in the Son, he paid the price for you.

PRAY