God's Call - Pastor Dan Cravillion

God’s Call

10-11-15

Gen 11:29-12:1

And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

Genesis 12 begins a new division in scripture: It is the center point of promises of covenant of grace & intro of the great/godly Abraham.

·      1/4 of Genesis is devoted to Abraham’s life: it records 10 significant events.

·      Abraham is not the main character or ultimate focus in Gen 12-22.

o   Main story behind every Bible story always story of God & what He is doing, & why He is doing it.  

Abraham is an example of election & how God gives faith that leads to obedience.

·      God’s call to Abram is pure grace. No evidence Abram merited. Josh 24:2, Acts 7:2-4, Gen 15:7

·      On the contrary, his Father, Terah, was a pagan idolater in pagan city of Ur when God sovereignly called Abram to bless him, his descendants & whole world.

Everything in Genesis 1-11 leads to the covenant in 12:1-3 with context in Gen 3:15.

·      Covenant: An unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God & man that stipulates the conditions of the relationship.

o   The promises are made & established by God but there’s always mutual obligation in a covenant relationship. Heb 6:13, 16-20,

Abrahamic Covenant (justified not by works, but by faith on basis of grace) is unconditional in the sense of it ultimately being fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s shed blood (New Covenant) but conditional in its immediate fulfillment. Gen 12:1, Heb 11:8

·      Leave the country, relatives, father’s household (involved giving up economic security & inheritance) without the visible certainty of the future…blind faith.

o   God was making a new nation, not revising existing one.

Same Lord that sovereignly called Abram to trust & follow Him by grace thru faith calls us to respond to Gospel by grace thru faith. Lk 9:23, Gal 3:6-9, Mk 1:15, 1 Pet 1:14-16, Heb 12:1-2

·      Leave behind idols, sinful words, deeds & heart attitudes; forsake anything (even good things) that are stumbling blocks.

o   Pursue holiness…holy” = be separate or set apart.

§  “go”  literally “go by yourself”…parting & seclusion often implied

·      Not a single act of leaving, but a daily denying self, taking up the cross, & following Jesus into the unknown, un-familiar places & situations.

o   Like Abraham, our faith is not in a plan/details but in a person.

§  By faith Abram believed God’s “I will’s”.

·      We need to believe what we already know.

God called Abram to be separate from world in order to be a blessing to world. Jn 17:14, Rom 12:2

·      God calls Christians to be distinct from the world so that He may use us as a channel of His blessing to lost/nations. 

Being in the world but not of the world is a challenge that can be overcome by becoming more Christ-like in all we say, do and even think.