Genesis: Abraham's Call

All right, everybody, by your heads, close your eyes. I

want you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say,

Dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my life in

Jesus' name.

Amen.

We are officially back in the Book of Genesis. We

pause Genesis after chapter eleven. Pastor Morgan taught on the

Tower of Babel, and that is actually a great spot

to pause when teaching Genesis, because there's really two halves

of Genesis. There's the first eleven chapters where it talks

about creation, it talks about the beginning of humanity, and

it covers several thousand years. And then the second half

of Genesis begins in chapter twelve, and that's where I

want you to turn this morning. What you're gonna find

interesting is the first eleven chapters covered thousands of years

of history, lots of different people, lots of significant Bible personalities.

But the next fourteen chapters focuses on one man and

his family. His name is Abraham. Now some of you

were thinking, I'm new, I've missed the other messages.

Well, this is a great point to start.

And by the way, every message stands on its own,

So if you missed a previous one, you won't miss

out by being today. There's not things that you've missed.

But that being said, I think all of the Genesis

messages have been incredible, So not just because I preach them,

but I think they were I think you should go

back to the podcast listen to those messages primarily because

you'll grow. You'll not only grow in your Bible knowledge,

but you will grow in your faith. But we pick

up Genesis twelve, the story of Abraham. Now, many times

in the Bible, the Bible helps confuse us by changing

people's names, and that happens with Abraham. Like we're initially

introduced to Abraham and his name is Abraham and his

wife's name is Sarah. But later on he becomes referred

to as Abraham and his wife's name is Sarah. Now

I am going to refer to them as Abraham and

Sarah because that's the way the New Testament refers to them,

and most of the stories that you've heard about Abraham.

Abraham is known that way, So that's how I'm going

to refer to him. But here's what I want you

to know about the person of Abraham, outside of Jesus,

who is the most important person in the entire Bible.

I shared with you at the very beginning of the

Genesis series that if you look closely, you will find

Jesus on every page of the Bible. And as we

studied Genesis, we've seen over and over again all of

these hints to Jesus in the Book of Genesis. But

besides Jesus, who is by far and away the most important,

arguably the second most important person in all of Scripture,

is this guy Abraham. What we know about Abraham is

we know that he was born two hundred and ninety

two years after the flood, So we taught on the flood,

and we know that God basically reset and restarted humanity

with the flood, So Abraham is born almost three hundred

years after the flood. Morgan ended the first eleven chapter

by talking about the Tower of Babel, and the Tower

of Babel is when God divided up the people around

the earth. He divided up and confused their languages, and

Abraham was born one hundred and sixty one years after

the Tower of Babel. Why am I sharing that with

you because I want you to give you an idea historically,

when Abraham came along the scene, so he came after

the flood, years after, came after the Tower of Babel,

years after His father's name was Tara.

Now we're gonna pop up a map. It's coming. What

in the world they changed the map on me?

So every service, you're gonna change the map to throw

me off, all right, So okay, let me read this

map periods. So Abraham started right here. So this is

where Abraham was. Abraham was a pagan idol worshiper. That's

who he was, gentile pagan idol worshiper who lived in

the region of Er.

But God gives.

Him a command, and his command is incredibly clear. He

says to him in Genesis twelve, one go from your country,

your people, your.

Father's household, to the land. I will show you.

What is significant about this moment is it had been

five hundred years since God had last spoke to Noah.

Now five hundred years later, God speaks in such a

profound way to Abraham. It is so shocking that this

pagan idol worshiper becomes the believer in God. So God says,

I want you to leave everything you know, everything you're

familiar with.

I want you to leave your family, and I want

you to go.

I want you to notice what God doesn't do here.

God doesn't tell him why. God doesn't give him a reason.

Did you know? You and I don't roll that way.

If God tells us to do something outrageous.

If God tells us to.

Do something that doesn't make sense and doesn't give us

a reason why, we're out. In fact, not only does

God need to give us a reason, but we have

to agree with the reason to go. But Abraham this

idol worshiping pagan. But God gives a command. When God

gives us a command, does he owe us a reason why?

You see, we aren't saved when we make promises to God.

You and I are saved by trusting God's promises to us.

Oftentimes God will ask us to do something and it

doesn't make sense, and oftentimes we won't understand why the

thing that happens in this story. Can you turn this off?

Just turn it off. Oftentimes we'll read something in scripture

and we will hear about something crazy that God asks

someone to do, not ourself in their context.

You see, we have.

The benefit of the Bible, we have the benefit of history.

We know the end result of what happened with Abraham.

God tells him to leave everything that he's familiar with

to go.

He goes, and we know the end result.

We know that because of Abraham's obedience, God gave humanity

a new beginning. We know because of Abraham's obedience that

there's a Jewish nation that we now have a Bible.

We know that because of Abraham's obedience, you and I

have a savior. Abraham was just told to pack his bags,

leave everything everyone he knows and loves, and to go,

and he wasn't even told where to go. I want

you to read the test the moony about Abraham in

the New Testament. Hebrews chapter eleven is a passage of

scripture that is known as the Hall of Fame of Faith.

And here's what Hebrew's eleven says about Abraham. It says

by faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place

he would later receive as his inheritance, he obeyed and

he went even though he didn't know where he was going.

Did you know that that's oftentimes the way that God

will operate in your life. God will just say you're

not supposed to be where you are go and you're like,

where do I go? Just head that direction. Well, where

does it end up. I'm not gonna tell you yet.

Just go, just be faithful, be obedient, and our job

is to take a step and trust. That's what Abraham did.

And it says by faith he made his home in

the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country.

Think about that. He is sent to a.

Land that is the Promised Land, and the entire time

he resided there, he was like a stranger in a

foreign country. And then it says he lived intense as

did Isaac and Jacob, who were airs with him of

the same promise. Oftentimes God wants us to just proceed

on faith.

He tells us to go to just trust him, to

obey him.

The cool thing for Abraham is God gave him a command,

but with it he attached a promise.

Did you know that?

That's oftentimes the way that God will work with you

and I. God will ask us to do something.

Outrage us, outrageous, but.

He gives us the hope of something that he will

do as a result. So God says, Abraham, go and

if you go, here's what I will do. This is

verse two. These are famous. They're the famous I wills

in scripture, God says, if you go, Abraham, I will make.

You a great nation.

I will bless you, I will make your name great. Well,

we just read the New Testament in Hebrews.

We saw how that went. That's exactly what happened.

Abraham left everything that he didn't understand to something he

didn't understand, holding on to this promise of God, and

God was faithful to his promise. That is nothing of

what I want to talk about today. I want to

help you understand how you can relate to Abraham, because

Abraham is way more like you and I than you

would imagine. God will tell us to do stuff all

the time. I just spoke at our Ya retreat this weekend.

It's about one hundred young adults at this retreat. I'm

super proud of Pastor Claire and her team. They did

an amazing job. At the end of the service, I

gave an altar call and the whole group responded, like

all one hundred of them came forward, and I started

praying for each one and I would say, what are

you wrestling with? And honestly, the first ten people in

a row they said the same thing, and it was

something like this. I know what God has called me

to do, but I haven't done it. I'm doing the opposite.

And they were consumed with shame, consume with guilt. And

I kept coming back to that over and over again,

and I thought, that is so much like Abraham. We

only talk about how amazing Abraham is.

Do you actually know that?

In Genesis twelve, when we're introduced to Abraham, we see

four times that Abraham failed, four times that Abraham screwed up.

Why can you and I relate to Abraham because we're

screwed up? Two That's what I love about the Old Testament.

The Old Testament doesn't just tell us the great things

that people accomplished. It also tells us how messed up

they were, which is what we relate to. So you're

going to find out really quickly that we give Abraham

credit for his obedience, but his obedience is.

Much more similar to ours. It is partial.

Like when you think God called Abraham to go from

point A to point B, the problem is that's not

what Abraham did. Abraham went to point Z, he then

went to point F, he went back and forth, but

he eventually is commended because he got there.

So today I want to look at the four.

Failures of Abraham that I think you'll relate to.

The first one we actually discover in Acts seven. Pop

it up. This is Stephen talking.

Stephen was about to be martyred, and in his defense

he preaches a sermon and he tells them about what

has a good jew he had learned about Abraham.

Here it is see if you.

Can catch the mistake to this, Stephen replied, Brothers and sister,

brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of Glory

appeared to our father Abraham while he.

Was still in Mesopotamia. This is Er. This is where

he grew up.

This is where his family was, his friends, everything before.

He lived in Huran.

Okay, next, leave your country and your people.

God said, and.

Go to the land I will show you. I want

you to to leave Er, and I want you to

go to Canaan. So he left the land of the

Chaldeans Er and he settled in Haran. Wait a second,

I thought he was supposed to go to Canaan.

Why is he in Haran? And then it.

Says, after the death of his father, God sent him

to this land where you are now living. Mistake number one.

God appeared to Abraham and said, I want you to

leave Er, and I want you to go to Canaan.

But instead he takes the detour with his father and

he goes and stays in Haran. If you look closely

at Genesis chapter twelve, verse one, there's a word you missed,

a tense of a word.

It says the law lord had said, so.

God had told him a long time before, go to Canaan.

But instead Er is here, Canaan is here. What does

God tell Abraham to do. I want you to leave

everything that is familiar, everything you know, and I want

you to leave your family behind, and I want you

to go to Canaan. Instead, he takes his family and

he goes up there to Haran.

Number one, he took a v tour. He went to Haran.

He didn't go to Canaan and tell his father died.

Now historians believe that could have been a year. It

could have been up to five years later. But he

only partially obeys. He leaves, but he goes with his

father to Haran before he heads to Canaan. That is

mistake number one. Let's look at failure number two. Go

to Genesis twelve.

Verse four. You still with me okay.

So Abraham went as the Lord had told him, and

Lot went with him. Abraham was seventy five years old

when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarah,

his nephew Lot. Are you getting a hint to the

second mistake? He made all the possessions they had accumulated

and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they

set out from the land of Canaan, and they finally

arrived there. God told Abraham, leave everything that is familiar,

leave your family, and go to the Lamb that I I've promised.

But we read here that he brought his nephew Lot

with him. You're gonna find out really quickly that that

became very problematic. Next week, Pastor Christian's going to talk

about how problematic bringing.

Lot with him was.

Second failure of Abraham. He brought Lot.

Are you relating to this?

Because this is the way that you and I operate to.

God tells us to do something, it's fairly clear, but

we want to accommodate our life with it. We're willing

to partially obey. Well, God, I'm willing to do this

as long as this comes with it. I'm willing to

do this, but this might be a better idea. God

gives him a command, go. He gives them a promise,

I'll make you a great nation. I'll bless you, I'll

make your name brick great. Abraham didn't go immediately, but

eventually went. And by the way, that's all that matters,

is it eventually obeyed.

So as I'm looking at these young.

Adults that are struggling because God gave him a command

and they haven't obeyed it yet, and they're feeling like

failures because they haven't gone, I'm like, just go now,

just do now. Like we all relate to delaying obeying God,

because if it was easy to obey God, everybody would

do it. It's a challenge, it's a struggle. It takes faith,

it takes trust, It takes words that we don't like,

like obedience, but eventually goes holding on to the promises

of God that didn't make sense, you know how badly

this didn't make sense. What I haven't told you yet

is that God promised him I'm gonna make you a

great nation. The problem for Abraham is he and his

wife Sarah were barren.

They couldn't have children.

You want to talk about God telling you to do

something that doesn't make sense.

How are you going to become.

A great nation when you can't have children. God calls

him to an act of faith that seems impossible. But

once he goes, God gives him another command. And the

second command comes with another promise. He says this in

Genesis twelve. The end of verse two, he says, and

you will be a blessing. So this is another command

that comes with another promise. He says, Abraham, you are

to be a blessing everywhere you to go. You are

to bless people. You are to be a blessing everywhere.

And by the way, if you are a blessing everywhere

you go, I will bless those who bless you. I

will curse those who curse you, Abraham. Because of you,

all nations will be blessed. Abraham, everywhere you go. I

am calling you to be a blessing. Abraham is obliged

to bless other people. Abraham is obliged to do good

everywhere he goes.

Look at me, did you know God has called you

to the same thing.

Did you know that you and I are supposed to

be blessings everywhere we go to did you know that

we are supposed to do good everywhere we go to

that We've tried to tell you for the last two

years that you don't represent you, you represent Jesus. That

you and I this to make Jesus look good, to

make his name great, to make him famous. And the

number one way we do that is by doing good

wherever we're at. We are to be a blessing wherever

we're at.

Paul said this in Romans.

He said, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome

evil with good. Isn't that like totally contrary to society.

Society says you treat people the way they treat you.

If somebody cuts you off, you speed ahead of them

and cut them off.

Like me. But Paul says this for Thessalonians.

He says, make sure that nobody pays back wrong with wrong,

but always strive to do what is good for each

other and everyone else. Here's how Jesus put it. He

like always makes it harder. He says this in Matthew

chapter five, verse thirty nine. He says, I tell you

don't resist an evil person. If anyone slapped you in

the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek. Also

isn't that really contrary to everything we know.

I've always quoted this proverb.

It says this Proverbs twenty five twenty one. If your

enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. Wait a second,

if my enemy is hungry, I'm supposed to be happy

about it, like they're getting the just reward for all

of their evil. But God tells us, if your enemy

is hungry, give him something to eat. If your enemy

is thirsty, give him water to drink. I like the

next part. It says, in doing this, you heat burning

coals on their head, and the lore will reward you.

So he tells Abraham, Abraham, you're to do good everywhere

you go. You're to be a blessing. And he said,

if you do that, Abraham, everyone who blesses you will

bless And he says, if you do that, Abraham, everyone

who curses you, I got your back.

I'll curse them.

But everywhere you go, Abraham, you are to be a blessing,

and as a result, all nations will be blessed because

of you. Let's go back to Genesis twelve. All right,

let's look at the next few mistakes that Abraham makes.

Here verse six, Abram traveled through the land as far

as the site of the Great Tree of Mora at Shechem.

At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. We're

gonna refer to that in the weeks to come. The

Lord appeared to Abram, and he said, to your offspring,

I will give you this land. So Abraham built an

altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

I want you to notice, over the next several weeks,

as we journey through these fourteen chapters, how often Abraham

builds an altar.

Why does he do that?

He builds an altar in a place where one wasn't

already there. He does that as a reminder that God

did something significant in his life at that moment, that

God spoke to him. I talk to you all the

time that as a person of faith, we have these

moments in our life, these encounters with Jesus, these spiritual

mile markers that you and I need to remember because

they are those moments when we're being faithful and everything

seems to be going wrong or it's difficult, but all

of a sudden, God provides. God comes through Died talked

about one of those for this person. He does what

I challenged everyone to do, and he makes the list

and his dream number was a number that for him

seemed outrageous, it seemed impossible.

Then who pays for that pledge?

For him? The government? I mean, in that moment when

a guy sent me that message, I said, you need

to remember this moment forever. Market build an altar. I

shared with you last week that that's what my tattoos mean.

My tattoos tell my spiritual journey. Every time I have

a moment with Jesus that is so significant, I want

to never forget it. So I have another tattoo. By

the way, I'm not advising you to get them, as

I said last week, but what they are is a

reminder that God's promises are true. What they are is

a reminder that if God did it before, he can

do it again. From there, Abraham went on toward the

hills east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent where

Bethel was on the west and Ai on the east.

He built an altar to the Lord, and he called

on the name of the Lord. Then Abram set out

and continued toward the Nagif failure number three, I shared

with the young adults that God will give us a command.

With it, he'll attach a promise. But guess what always happens.

He always puts it to the test. If it was

just easy to serve Jesus, everyone would do it. Have

you ever noticed that you'll be at an altar time,

or you'll be in a worship service, and you are convinced.

That God wants you to do something.

And you're convinced if I do this something, God will

do this. And then you step out and do it,

and it seems like all of hell is fighting against you.

It seems like one difficulty comes after another. There's always

a test that follows obedience. If you can't handle tests,

you're gonna struggle in this life.

I teach college classes.

Every student in all my classes hates midterm exams. They

hate final exams. They get test anxiety from having to

take those tests. But I always tell students this, the

best part about taking a test is if you pass it,

you don't have.

To take it again. The problem with the test is if.

You fail it, you get it take it again. So

pass it the first time. So here's Abraham's third failure.

A drought, a famine hits Canaan. Remember Abraham was holding

on to this promise that God is going to bless him,

that God is going to make him a great nation,

that God is going to bless.

All nations because of him.

But then difficulty comes and a challenge comes.

We read about it in verse ten.

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram

went down to Egypt to live there for a while.

Because the famine was severe, Abraham goes to Egypt mistake

number three. Did you know that he did exactly what

you and I would have done. As soon as it

got hard, he went to what his human mind said

was the solution. You don't stay where you are where

there's a drought. You go to where you know there's food.

So he knew that Egypt had the Nile River. He

knew that the Egyptians had lots of food. The problem

was God told him to go to Canaan, but instead

he goes to Egypt. Crazy thing in the Bible. In

the Old Testament, going down to Egypt is referred over

and over again, like metaphorically, as doing the wrong thing.

Isaiah says this about it.

He says, woe to those who go down to Egypt,

Like going to Egypt is an example of everything you

aren't supposed to do.

I like to say it's the equivalent of saying I'm

going down to.

The University of Oregon. It's like everything that is wrong.

In the world that was free.

But he he wasn't supposed to go to Egypt. He

went to Egypt for the same reason that you and

I would have gone to Egypt.

He was suffering where he was.

There was a drought, and rather than trust God for provision,

he took matters into his own hands, and he went

down to Egypt. When he went down to Egypt, it

gets worse. Failure number four. Are you finding that you

get to relate to Abraham pretty well, the second most

important person in all of Scripture. In the first chapter,

we're told how much of a screw up he is.

You might not even be this. Bat says this.

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to

his wife, Sarah, I know what a beautiful woman you are.

When the Egyptians see.

You, they'll say this is his wife and they'll kill me.

But let you live.

So Sarah, my wife, say you're my sister, so that

I will be treated well for your sake, and my

life will be spared because of you.

Fourth failure of Abraham. He lies.

He basically asks his wife to lie, say you're my sister,

because if they find out you're my wife, you're hot,

they're gonna see my hot wife and they're gonna kill

me to take you away from me. So lie and

say you're my sister, and maybe they'll show me favor.

So here's what happens.

Uh.

When Abraham came to Egypt, Egyptians saw that Sarah was hot,

and when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh,

and she was taken into his palace. And here it

Abraham well for her sake, and Abraham acquired sheep and cattle,

male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. Remember,

Abraham was told by God his second command, you are

to be a blessing. When you are a blessing, Abraham,

all nations.

Will be blessed because of you.

But instead of being obedient, Abraham struggled with doubt, He

struggled with fear by the way, all the same things

you and I struggle with.

So he makes up this lie.

Remember God said you're to be a blessing to all nations,

and if you're a blessing, I'll bless all nations because

of you. But instead, because of this lie, it says,

the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh in his household

because of Abraham's wife, Sarah. Pharaoh calls him in and says,

why did you lie to me? Why did you say

that she's your sister when she's your wife? Take her,

your whole family and everything you have and leave. God

wanted Abraham to trust his promises to him, even though

there was a drought.

God would fulfill his promises.

That's when it gets real in our faith, guys, like

when we step out in obedience.

And then the tests come.

The tests don't make sense when you're in the midst

of them. Sometimes you think, has God abandoned me? Has

God forgotten me? Why is God punishing me? Why is

this happening? But that is your moment where you get

approve it doesn't make any sense, But I still trust

him and take another step. Even though it's a drought

a famine. God promised that he would meet all my

needs and provide. And then he goes back and he

looks at all of his tattoos and he remembers, Oh,

that is that moment where I was struggling in a famine,

in a drought before and God provided. If God did it,

then he'll do it now.

That's what God wanted.

I think you and I learn more from Abraham's failures

than we do a victories like we relate to his failures.

And Abraham's ultimate failure is summed up in one.

Word, doubt. He just struggled with doubt. How many of

you struggle with doubt?

It is the number one thing that people meet with

me about, is they said, Pastor Brandon, Man, I'm struggling

with doubt. And they feel like admitting they're struggling with

doubt is admitting some great sin that is almost unforgivable.

But here's what Abraham shows us about doubt. Doubt does

not make us a non believer. We're simply believers with doubts.

Doubt shows your humanity. Admitting doubt shows your humility. God

asked Abraham to do something outrageous.

Leave everything and everyone you know, and I will make

through you and your baron.

Wife, you a great nation. He doesn't tell him why,

He just tells him to be obedient.

At the.

Why a retreat the very last person I prayed for.

I immediately thought he was cool because he was decked out

in husky gear. But I asked him, I go, what

are you struggling with? And he just burst into tears

and he said, PB, you talked about tests, and he goes,

I have failed every test that God has ever given me,

and through tears, I mean, he rattled off a long

list of tests he'd failed and he goes, I just

feel like a failure, like God can't forgive me. And

I looked at him and I said, I know you're

not going to be here Sunday morning, but listen to

my sermon that I'm going to preach on Sunday, because

you're gonna find out you're not alone in being a failure.

The question isn't if you and I are going to

be failures.

We are.

We are screw ups by our nature. The question is

what are you gonna do with those failures? Are you

going to let the devil lie to you and tell

you that you are a failure, that you can't be forgiven,

or are you gonna pick yourself up hold on to

promises of God's word that if you repent, he'll restore you,

that you may serve him and then keep moving forward.

God asked him to do something outrageous. I have challenged

you to consider doing something outrageous. Last week we introduced

that we are going to take a miracle offering. Literally

seems impossible. We need to expand this building. We need

more kids space, we need more office space. We need

to raise a million and a half dollars. Rather than

do a three year capital campaign, let's just try to

raise it in an offering. Let's just get it over

with and do it. And so we're doing something outrageous.

And I said, I want you to consider what is

your plan? What is in your hand that you know

you could do? But then get a vision. What would

you love to do if things fell into place? And

then what is your dream? And your dream is Lord,

I know it's in your hand, but if you will

take it from your hands and place it in mind,

I'll be obedient and give it. And I challenged every

one of you to consider what those three numbers were.

And then Christian encouraged you with this smaller card. This

is the promise, this is what I'm believing for.

So Die and I we have.

Put numbers on this card that will make the gift

that we give in December the largest single gift that

we have ever given ever in our lives. God gave

a command, but he also gave a promise, and we

wrote down our promise on this card. I'm not going

to show you what it is. I have taken a

picture of it, though, when it comes to path in

a year two years, I will show you this picture

and show you that God is faithful to his promise.

But I am willing to release these resources and give

this gift for the future of this church in the

hope of this promise.

And that's what I'm challenging you to do too. When

everybody buy your heads, close your.

Eyes, Lord Jesus, I pray that you would speak to

every single person in our church.

God.

There are things that you have challenged them with personally.

They're things that you've asked them to do that they've

struggled with, and because they've struggled with it, they've beaten

themselves up over their mistakes, their failures, their partial obedience. Well, Lord,

I pray they will be reminded of this sermon that

they're just like Abraham, the second greatest person in the Bible,

that we relate to that person. But Lord, I want

to pray that even though they made mistakes, they failed,

they would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and move forward.

In your name, I pray, Amen,