Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Genesis 12:1-8

Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  March 5, 2023

“Have you heard the Call of the LORD? Have you figured out what God wants you to do with your life? Have you discovered that one perfect purpose he has for you?” If you’re anything like me, you are tempted to roll your eyes when people talk about hearing the Call of the LORD. Now, I’m not talking about the very specific thing we deem a “call” in our synod where a group of Christians calls for a pastor or a teacher. And no, I’m not talking about Christians who prayerfully come to a decision about their life in light of God Word. I’m talking about the idea that there is a special Call of the LORD for you—that there is one right thing that you should be doing with your life and if you don’t see it, you miss out, you waste your life. That idea is unbiblical in a couple of ways. First of all, it’s usually tied to a career choice and it often inadvertently devalues many faithful Christians who serve God doing more menial, humble types of labor. Notice, no one ever says they feel called by the LORD to be, say a cashier, or a janitor. But you can serve God and live out your life as a Christian just as effectively in a drive through as a pulpit. Secondly, the idea that you need to “find the LORD’s call for your life” also clashes with the fact that in the Bible God often gives people a specific call when they will have to suffer or to bear persecution for his sake. Again, that’s hardly ever the reason I hear people feeling “called” these days. Third, there’s a lot of damage done by the concept of “a calling” in Christian circles because instead of understanding what God says in his Word, some people spend their years discontent, searching for a life that God never told them to go looking for. And finally, most practically, everyone already has a Call from the LORD. You’ve already been called by the gospel. In baptism, through water and the Word, the Spirit called you by name to be a redeemed child of God. And the LORD calls you everyday through that same Word to live as his child.

So today as we look at the call of Abraham, I want to free you from the burden of searching for a call and teach you about the call of the LORD you already have. As we read this very specific calling of Abraham, I want to bring out four general lessons about the Call of the LORD that each and every one of us here has today.

The first of those lessons is that The Call of the LORD is GRACE. We read, “Now the LORD said to Abram…”  (Abram means “exalted father” while “Abraham” means “father of many nations”.) That might not seem all that incredible, but let me rewind a bit. You see, at the end of Genesis 11, we hear about the line of Shem, Abraham’s ancestor. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are really quite sad in this respect. Because it’s a story of how God’s people kept turning away from him, coming to a head at both the Flood and the Tower of Babel. And in chapter 11, we finally catch up with the line Shem, the faithful son of Noah whose family and their ancestors alone were the only ones who still “called on the name of the LORD” (A hebrewism for worship). But here at the end of chapter 11, we hear that Shem’s line lives in the idolatrous city of Ur, known for its lunar deities and idolatry. The excavation of ancient Ur in the 1920s was a huge discovery, especially the remains of the Ziggurat dedicated to Nanna the moon God and the royal cemetery of Ur with its evidence of human sacrifice. There they found the so-called “Great Death Pit” where seventy-three bodies of servants were arranged in sacrifice around an ancient queen’s decorated corpse. This is where Abraham grew up! He grew up as an unbeliever in the shadow of the Ziggurat with the death pits down below! In Joshua we read: “Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.” In fact, the name of Abraham’s father, “Terah” is associated with the Lunar deities and so is “Sarai”, the name of his wife. And in verse 30, it says that Sarai was barren, really the death knell of Shem’s line and the promise of a Savior. So in essence, the end of chapter 11 looks like a complete dead end for humanity and any promise of salvation…but then the LORD speaks. Chapter 12:1 “Now the LORD said to Abram…”

In pure grace the LORD calls Abram out Ur and Haran to follow him! He calls Abraham away from multiple false Gods to follow the One True God. He didn’t choose Abram because of his faith or his faithfulness. He simply chose him out of love, because God is faithful to his promises. And the same is true for you and me today, whether you were baptized as an infant or became a Christian as an adult, we were dead in transgressions and sins—in a dead end position spiritually—until the LORD spoke. “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” The Call of the LORD is a word of pure grace for Abraham and for us. Don’t ever think that someone is too far from God to be called by the LORD. Don’t exempt some of your friends because of how they live. Don’t assume that because a person looks a certain way that they couldn’t be reached by the grace of God! And remember, even at your worst, the LORD comes and speaks in grace to you. The Call of the LORD is pure grace!

Second, we learn that The Call of the LORD means SEPARATION.  “Now the LORD said to Abram, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you.” This is first a strong call for physical and social separation. God says, “Get yourself out of there!” Get out of your country, away from relatives, and even from your father’s house. Notice the increasing nature of the separation, it progressively severs more intimate bonds. (In fact, this call seems a lot like the LORD’s later call for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in chapter 22, where he asks for “your son, your only son, whom you love”. Both times, Abraham is called to separate from those he loves with increasingly intimate terms.) I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Abraham to leave his family, his friends, and his land. In fact, this call is a call not only for radical separation physically and socially, but also volitionally. I say volitionally, because it was a call to self-denial, the denial of Abraham’s will to move away from his family and land and go to an unknown place! Did you notice that? The LORD says, “Go to the land I will show you!” He commands Abram to get going without knowing! I can’t help but wonder how the conversation went with his wife! Or with his parents and close friends… This call to forsake all is very much like the call of the Christ. Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37a), and “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35). The LORD’s call is pure grace, but it also is a call of separation.

Naturally, we prefer that which is familiar over something uncertain. Even if it’s not working, even if it’s unhealthy, we usually stick with the people and places we know. But the LORD’s call asks each one of us to separate from those unhealthy people and practices in our life, those things which hold us back from growing in faith. Sometimes people ask me if they can still do something if they are a Christian. And I used to give them what I thought was the most biblical answer. But really that mindset—how much can I stay the same and be a Christian—is not following the Call of God. When the LORD calls through his Word, we must get ourselves out of Ur and Haran, and go where he directs us! If you insist on him meeting your requirements, you will never follow Jesus. He calls you to get out and step forward on the support of his word alone. Oftentimes our reservations are simply signs that we still want to be in the driver’s seat of life. Who and what do you need to get out of in order to follow the LORD’s call in your life?

Number 3: We learn that The Call of the LORD promises BLESSING. The LORD promised Abraham some amazing blessings: 2 I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.” God’s promise that Abram would become a great nation assaulted reality, because Abram was childless and Sarai was barren. Remember Abram’s name meant exalted father and he had no children. Such an unfortunate shame for him to bear. But God promises Abram that he would not merely have a son, but become “a great nation”! What a blessing! Next the LORD promises to make Abram’s name great. Ironically, this is what the builders of the tower of Babel sought—“let us make a name for ourselves” (11:4). But here, by faith Abram was going to get what never comes by self-serving effort: his name would be made great by the LORD. And think about how this blessing has been fulfilled. If you drive around Madison you can find a handful of mosques, synagogues, and many churches. And all of them are filled with people who consider themselves children of Abraham. Three major world religions, making up a majority of the world’s population, call Abraham their father in faith. There may not be any historical figure besides Jesus himself, whose name receives as much respect!

Abraham’s call culminates with the soaring promise that “all the families of the earth” will be blessed through him. And this is the promise that would ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus. Abraham’s family ultimately didn’t look blessed when the Israelites were taken into exile, and they certainly didn’t seem poised to bless the world when the small remnant returned. But just when things looked hopeless, God saw that the time was right to send his very Son into the world through the line of Abraham. Jesus Christ is the blessing which comes to all nations through Abraham! His life, death, and resurrection were God’s gift for the world. You may not think that God has blessed you to be a blessing. But the truth is that you have a gift for the whole world, because you have faith in Jesus Christ. You know the peace and certainty of sins forgiven. You have eternal purpose in every action of faith. You have an invitation in your pocket to heaven in Jesus’ name that you can hand out to anyone. God has not blessed us to sit on our hands. Just like Abraham, God has called us and blessed us to be a blessing! Never underestimate what God can do through your witness for Christ.

Which leads me to the final lesson: We learn that The Call of the LORD compels WORSHIP. Look at how Abraham responds to the call of the LORD. 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him….Abram passed through the land until he came to the Oak of Moreh at the place called Shechem. The Canaanites were in the land at that time…Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent there, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and proclaimed the name of the Lord. Though the text does not give the details, this was about an 800-mile trek in total. As Abram traveled the promised land from end to end, he symbolically took possession of it for his descendants, lingering at holy places and building altars. His first stop was Shechem, in the geographical center of the promised land. The presence of the Canaanites reminds us that Abram’s new life would not be without temptation and challenges. A Christian will always have to endure a certain amount of temptation and even persecution. The mention of “the Oak of Moreh” strikes an ominous note here too. Moreh means “teacher, oracle giver.” The great tree of Moreh was the place where the Canaanites assembled to hear the oracles that soothsayers would receive from the rustling of the leaves. So there, in the very heart of the land, in the face of idol worship, Abram builds an altar to the true God. Abram would also build altars in Bethel, Hebron, and on Mount Moriah (cf. 12:8; 13:18; 22:9). How beautiful—the only architecture that remained from Abram’s pilgrim life are altars. All of his life became worship and the artifacts of his worship remained in the land. What sort of altars will you build throughout your life? How will people trace the route of your life of worship? How will you mark the path of faith for your children, and for the generations of those who come after them? May our lives also be a pilgrimage of worship, compelled by the love of Christ.

Let’s take these lessons to heart from the call of Abram. The Call of the LORD is pure grace. The Call of the LORD means separation. The Call of the LORD promises blessing. And the Call of the LORD compels worship. You don’t need to go searching, you already have a worthy call from the LORD. May he give us the strength to walk in it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.