God Called Abram

IIT UBF - University Bible Fellowship at IIT

God Called Abram

Date: Dec. 4, 2019

Passage

Genesis 12:1-9 (ESV)

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. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

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Daily Bread

Key Verse: 12:1

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.

1. God called 75 years old Abram (1-3).

When the world after the Babel Tower incident was dark and chaotic, God began a new history of redemption by calling one old man, Abram. It required for Abram a painful separation from his people who were idol worshiping and from his father's household, his comfort zone. It required going to an unknown land trusting in God's guidance alone. If he obeys, God promised him abundant blessings: to make childless Abram into a great nation, a nameless into a great man, a hopeless person into a source of the blessing of all nations through the Messiah, Jesus, his descendant. God is God of hope. He called 75 years old Abram to be the source of blessing for all generations of the entire world. God is mighty who can change a dead person into a blessing. He calls each of us from sin and death with the promise of salvation and blessing too.

2. Abram obeyed God's word (10-20).

How did Abram respond? Abram left, as the Lord had told him. His faith was based on the word of God and not on his calculation. God also promised to give him the land, Canaan where Canaanites were already living in. Yet Abram thanked God, building an altar wherever he went and called God's name many times. He took his fatherless cousin, Lot with him too.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for calling such a worthless and useless sinner like me for your redemptive history. Let me follow your word giving thanks in all my pilgrimage.

One Word: I will make you into a great nation.

God Restores Eden

Revelation 22:1-9

Key Verse: 22:3

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

Today's Question

What is effective calling?

See answer and references