The Grace of God's Call

Well, we have Dan Anderson to thank for a nice donation of some new audio equipment.

For the church.

He had texted and said that he got a wireless mic, and for some reason in my mind I was thinking of that hideous ShamWow kind of microphone that wraps around your face, you know, like a phone operator, and I was really happy that it wasn't, there was no headgear, but we'll.

See how this works.

I think there's also a wireless mic for our interaction time. I don't know if we have that set up today. Maybe not, we'll see, but we're taking great strides technologically here at GRBC, so this.

Is good.

The Call of Abram in Genesis 12

Well, we're continuing on this morning in the book of Genesis to the very heart of the.

Book.

As we begin chapter 12, we begin really what is the core emphasis. Chapters 1 through 11, though we had spent, I think, something like seven months in 1 through 11, they really are just the introduction to the patriarchal narrative, which begins in chapter 12, and so we're beginning now this next section in our study in Genesis with the life of Abram, and we're reminded what we considered a few weeks ago about how God moves from the great towering city of Babel, which he confuses and causes to disperse over the face of the earth, and in the shadow of that colossus, he's raising up a man after his own heart.

He's raising up for himself a man in the line of Shem, a man in the line of the promised seed to the woman. God is patiently, faithfully, purposely preserving the line of Shem, and His sovereign grace, as we'll see this morning, is reaching down out of heaven, and it's favoring by sheer.

Love.

It's favoring and unilaterally resting upon a man named Abram, who's living in Ur of the Chaldeans. Genesis 12, 1 through 3, now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

What is Genesis 12, 1 through 3, but the gracious call of God? This is the call of Abram. The history of redemption, as Derek Kidner reminds us, is just like creation itself. Creation begins with God speaking, and so redemption begins with God speaking, more specifically, God calling, and this is the call.

Get out of your country. Get away from your family. Leave your father's house. Come follow me, and I will show you a land. Enter with me and dwell with me in the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you.

I will make your name great, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Notice the repetition of, I will, I will, I will, I will. There's a priority of God's activity in redemption. Redemption does not unfold by God meeting man halfway.

Man does not respond to God and then work some things out and develop this symbiotic relationship. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You meet me halfway, and I'll meet you halfway. Maybe together we can try to work out this promise I made back in Genesis 3.

There's a priority of God, God's activity, God's sovereign grace.

I will do this.

I will do this.

I will do this.

There's no condition. There's no string attached. There's no qualification. This is just promise after promise after promise, and we're supposed to read this and say, why? Why will you do this?

What has he done?

Surely Abram's done something to warrant this kind of favor.

You're going to bless everyone who blesses him? You're going to curse anyone who curses him?

You're going to take him out of this pagan society and make him a father of the faithful? Literally make him a blessing to every human being henceforth? This guy must be amazing. There must be no one like Abram.

This must be one of the most incredible men you could have ever met. This must have just been a one-off. The proverbial needle in the haystack. Well, as we'll see this morning, it's simply the priority of God's grace.

God has chosen Abram. It's as simple as that. God has chosen Abram to be a recipient of sovereign grace, to receive blessing upon blessing upon blessing. And this is really the beginning, not just of God's blessing to Abram, but as we move forward in that bigger picture of the history of God's covenantal dealings with man, of God's bringing forth His gospel, we see that this is really the beginning of Israel's history.

In fact, when Nehemiah gathers the people, we read in Nehemiah 9, when the people are gathered and they're cut to the heart because they realize as a result of the sin that's risen in their midst that they're so strayed from the truth of God.

And yet here God has reconvened them in the land. And so they have this great day of feasting after the feast of booths. And of course, there's these great prayers and the great admonition. The joy of the Lord is your strength, Nehemiah 8.

And in Nehemiah 9, we have the most incredible prayer that recounts the history of God dealing with His people Israel. And this is how it begins. Stand up.

Bless the Lord your God forever and ever.

Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them.

So where are we beginning? Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

This is who you are.

You are the Creator. This is how we identify you, Lord.

You are the Creator.

And yet, how do we specifically, uniquely relate to you as your people Israel? You are the Lord God who chose and you brought Him out of Ur of the Chaldeans.

You see, you go from Creator to the call of Abram.

That's Nehemiah 9's summary of the history of Israel at the very beginning. The Creator God chose Abram. He chose Abram. He called Abram and led Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans.

These words are lifted up first and foremost to the Lord,.

But they're intended to instruct the people that were listening. Certainly intended to instruct us today. This gives us a summary of God's covenant to Abraham. This operation is God being faithful to a covenant.

The prayer goes on,.

You have performed your words because you are righteous.

And that leads us to ask the question, How could Abram be worthy of this grace? Abram couldn't be worthy of this grace. We'll see it shortly. So then how could God be righteous?

If Abram didn't earn this grace,.

How could Nehemiah 9 say that you performed your words, you fulfilled your promise to Abram because you're righteous. How could God be righteous if He's just showing grace to a sinner? I thought God was just.

I thought He was holy. I thought He couldn't dwell with sin. Why would He favor a sin? Should the judge of all the earth show favor to a criminal.

And count himself righteous?

That would be a corrupt, a wicked judge.

The justice had not been served. So how could Abram be worthy of this grace? Well, let's take a moment to remember as we proceed this morning what God's grace is. When God in His grace draws near to embrace a sinner, a sinner like Abram, it is a grace that always demands a cross.

All grace is bloody grace. All grace is cross-wrought grace.

God cannot justify the guilty. God certainly cannot show favor and blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon the guilty.

And also be righteous.

He can only be righteous if He's satisfied His justice toward them. And so for Abram, like all the sons of Abraham by faith, that took place upon the cross. God is not arbitrary, in other words. I feel like grace to Him, not grace to you.

He's not plucking some heavenly daisy. Grace to this one, not grace to this one. He's not arbitrary. There's a reckoning. It's not some vague motion, some vague gesture, some bottomless attitude of kindness.

It's the work of a holy God that sovereignly transforms everything He touches.

And the grace of this God flows out of this mysterious compassion He has for rebels who resist Him.

And even fight against Him and bring dirt and defilement upon His name.

And make eternal wounds to themselves.

And bring eternal damage to others.

And God in His grace and His eternal determination to save.

Countless sinners and continue with them and bring them into a new heavens and a new earth. All stands upon what took place at Calvary. Grace, if you were to give it a definition.

What is God's grace then? What is God's grace?

At its utmost, grace is the humiliated Son of God.

Stripped bare and crucified on the cross.

Crucified for sinners. Risen for their justification. Ascended to glorify them.

That's the grace of God. Jesus Christ is the grace of God.

Jesus Christ is the yesterday man of God. He takes a pack of dogs who eat their own vomit and He touches them with His grace out of this eternal compassion and He makes them into a glorious bride.

And He delights, He delights.

To behold them in the splendor that He has created. That is the grace of God. So Calvary, in other words, Calvary reaches all the way back to the Ur of the Chaldeans. The grace of God begins at the cross and yet it stretches all the way back in time to meet Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans.

And so from our side, it's a little bit different from God's side.

Our perspective of grace is different from God's perspective. The cross is that placeholder over all of human time in history that gives the basis in the war for God to show grace in any way, in any capacity to anyone.

From our perspective,.

The grace of God begins as a call.

It begins as a call.

Now let's keep in mind the world at this time. The effects of the fall are a little more pronounced. I say that because people are dying a lot earlier than they used to. We don't have any more Methuselahs around.

Breaking the Guinness World Records for oldest age.

Shem died at 600 years of age. When Noah got in the ark, he had only 350 more years to live.

Terah's father only lives 148 years.

Even while Terah is alive,.

Noah's father, Abram's father, his son dies.

So Abram's surrounded by death and if he knows anything of his genealogy, it seems like death is approaching men a lot more quickly. Lifespans are being shortened, so there's this sharp pronouncement of death.

But that's not the only thing in Abram's context. We also read this in Joshua 24. We read about his family life in Ur, what Abram would have grown up under. Joshua is making a covenant at Shechem. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem.

And he called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, for their officers. And they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all of the people, thus says the Lord God,.

Your fathers, including Terah,.

The father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river in old times. The river being the river Euphrates. And they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, and I led him throughout all the land of Canaan and multiplied his descendants.

Do you see what Joshua is recounting? Your fathers, Terah and Abram and Nahor and Haran,.

They were idol worshippers.

On the other side of Euphrates. They were pagans living in Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram was an idol worshipper. There's a famous archaeologist named Sir Leonard Woolley who demonstrated that he had found the ancient city of Ur, at least the lowest layer, which would have been consistent with the time for the ancient city of Ur.

And he tried to describe through various sketches of his excavations the scale of that city and estimate what kind of civilization.

It could have supported. How sophisticated were they?

What was the base population? What could be known about some of the challenges they had to face, whether through warfare or famine, disease, other such things. And he esteemed that Ur possessed these grand markets, massive civic spaces, halls, a library full of clay tablets,.

Many towering buildings.

Maybe not to the scale of Babel, but every city became Babel Junior after that. He estimated perhaps 200, 250, 300 ,000 inhabitants. You have these stepped temples, these ziggurats. The most pronounced one would have been for the chief deity, this god Nanak, who was a Sumerian god, a fertility god, and god of the moon.

So the chief ziggurat, the chief stepped temple, would have had sacrifices throughout the day and night being given to this false god, this idol. And Abram would have learned as a young boy how to get in line,.

How to pay the priests,.

How to marvel at the priestesses as they danced around and sang praises and hymns and pinched incense and killed animals unto this false god. I wonder how many nights he prayed in vain.

To this false god, this fertility god,.

Considering he'd married a barren woman. How together perhaps they brought more and more sacrifice up those jagged steps for the priest to kill. Maybe this will be the month we conceive. He was a pagan.

He was an idol worshiper. This towering city, this idolatry, this debauchery, it would have pervaded Abram's whole life in Ur. And that is the scene where God's grace finds him. That is the scene where God's grace finds him.

There's no Noah.

We don't read of any Noah between Genesis 11 and Genesis 12. It does not even seem like somehow God's testimony has been preserved through the line of Shem. It kind of seems like he had to pluck Abram out of Ur because there was no one else that was even remotely following him, heeding to him.

The world doesn't seem to have had a single believer left,.

If we could put it that way.

At some point, Terah decided to move his family from Ur to the land of Canaan. Most likely Abram had something to do with that move. I'll explain why in a moment. We read back in chapter 11, 31, Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Law, the son of Haran, his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and they went out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan.

But they didn't make it all the way to Canaan. They came to Haran, right? They came to Haran and dwelt there. And that's where Terah dies. And then Abram continues on to Canaan, as we'll see next week.

So Abram had lived all of his 75 years between Ur and Haran, between these two cities, who shared many of the same deities. Haran was very comfortable for Terah, worshipped the same gods, the temples looked very similar.

But something happened to Abram. Something happened to Abram when he was living in Ur,.

In the shadow of the ziggurat,.

Worshipping a false god, praying and praising and sacrificing to a god that was not there.

Something happened.

This is what the great martyr, the first martyr of the Christian church, Stephen, has to say about that in Acts 7.

Brethren, fathers, listen.

The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. It's another way of talking about Ur. Before he dwelt in Haran. And said to him, Get out of your country and from your relatives, come to a land that I will show you.

Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this land in which you now dwell. So what does Stephen say in Acts 7? He says that the God of glory appeared to Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans, before he moved to Haran.

And he only left Haran when his father died. Then he went to Canaan. So you see this picture, don't you? Abram had no contact with the Lord. No contact with the Lord's people. There was no fellowship that he could go to.

Grab a paper plate and slop something out of a crock pot onto it. There was no preacher.

There was no christianbook .com.

There was no prayer meeting. There was no Bible study group he could join. There was no tract that made its way onto his lap. And he said, I'd like to go to this website and find out more information.

There was no mp3 that made its way into his carceria. There was no brother that came alongside him to bear him up and point him to Christ.

There was none of this in Ur.

That God called him.

All we have in Genesis 12, 1 through 3.

Is this call of God. Get out of your country.

Get out of your father's house.

Leave your people. Come to the land I will show you. Stephen says there's a little more to it than that. It wasn't just the voice. He says the God of glory appeared to him.

Appeared?

We don't have the details here in Genesis, but we have it elsewhere than in Acts 7. Something so intensely personal. Very much like Moses' call in the wilderness, isn't it? The God of glory appeared to him.

Follow me.

We're told that God revealed himself to Abram. We don't know the details, but we know the fact of it. We also know that God did not reveal himself to Terah. Did not reveal himself to Nahor. Did not reveal himself to Haran.

He revealed himself to Abram. God chose Abram. His grace found Abram. Out of all of the inhabitants of Ur, out of all of the inhabitants of the earth, the Creator chose this one creature and called him and spoke to him and said, now you will follow me.

Now I will be your God. You will be mine. Abram was not seeking that. Abram was worshipping a false god. He was not seeking Yahweh. He was not seeking the Creator God. He had been worshipping false gods in utter defiance.

He had been living a life in defiance and that is when God's grace found him.

This was a sovereign, gracious act of God that changed the whole life of Abram and therefore the whole course of human history. Abram was not looking for this but God was.

Listen to me, Isaiah 51.

You who follow after righteousness,.

You who seek the Lord,.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father.

And to Sarah who bore you.

For I called him alone.

And blessed him and increased him.

Do you see?

I called him alone.

And God is saying, look to that. Look to my day of power. Look to the kind of grace I show.

Are you looking to me?

Are you feeling discouraged?

Look to Abraham. Look at what my grace does. Look at my compassion that never fails. We find this pattern, don't we, of God sovereignly calling His people.

Throughout the Bible.

We never find someone beating down God's door.

It's always the reverse.

Moses in the backside of the desert tending for sheep that belonged to his father-in-law doing this work for 40 years until one day he turns to the corner and there's this bush that is engulfed in fire and yet not consumed by it.

And there, he bows down. He's now encountered the living God, the consuming fire. And out of that fire, he calls Moses.

He calls him.

He speaks to him and says,.

And you're going to speak for me.

Samuel lying in his bed. Here's the voice of God calling to him. He's just a young boy. Isn't this what we were just praying for? Praying for God to do this kind of work in our children in this church?

Samuel, a boy, hearing the voice of God. Getting up. Eli, Eli. No, I didn't hear anything.

It was the voice of God.

God meeting this young teenager.

She receives this vision, this visitation.

Blessed are you, Mary.

Blessed are you.

He comes to a man named Matthew.

He's there devising how he can.

Perhaps have some deceitful gain from the tax collection. The Lord comes to him. He says, follow me. You see some brothers casting a net. Follow me. I'll make you fishers of men.

Follow me.

Saul on the road to Damascus. The Lord cries out,.

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Do you see?

It's always the priority of God's grace. And God's grace begins with a call. It begins with a call.

And that call is effectual. That call is effectual. We distinguish between the general call and the effectual, the effective,.

The working call of God.

There is a general call.

It's addressed to anyone and everyone.

The word goes forth indiscriminately.

This is the general call of the Gospel. Go out to the hedges and the byways.

Compel them to come in.

This is the general call of God. It goes to millions and billions across the world.

In every age.

It's the call of the Gospel. Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

We see it in Isaiah 45.

Look unto me and be saved,.

All you the ends of the earth. John ends the book of Revelation. The spirit and the bride say, come. Let he who is hungry come.

Let him who thirst come.

You see, this is the general call of God. This is the call that goes out to all. Come.

Why will you perish?

Jesus says, many are called,.

But few are chosen.

Many are called,.

Few are chosen. In his own ministry, he saw the truth of that, didn't he?

He saw the multitudes turn away sorrowful.

He saw the chief theologians.

And the most righteous men of his day reject him. He saw even people that he healed turn away carelessly.

Where were the others that I healed?

Why did you alone return? Many are called, few are chosen. Thomas Watson, the great Puritan says,.

There is an outward call.

Same way we're using the word general.

General call.

Outward call.

Which is nothing else but God's blessed tender of grace in the Gospel.

He's engaging with sinners.

When he invites them to come.

Accept mercy.

This is when the Savior speaks,.

Many are called, but few are chosen. This external call, this outward general call, it's not sufficient to save. But it is sufficient to leave men without excuse. Now, Romans 1 very clearly says that all men are left without excuse just by the majesty of God's creative power.

How much more so.

When we, his people, are declaring his word.

All mouths are silenced. This is the word of the Lord.

But then there's also this.

Effectual call.

What we could say is an inward call. If there's an outward call, there's an inward call. If there's a general call, there's an effectual call.

And Watson says, this inward call, when God wonderfully.

He overpowers the heart.

You see, it's not that there's complete discontinuity, that we have metaphors of salvation which imply that. Death to life, darkness to light, right? But I think this is very thoughtfully and carefully put.

He overpowers the heart. You are you.

There is some level of continuity. He has not made you into a cyborg or a robot or an automaton. His spirit has moved in such a way.

How does Wesley put it?

You know, I was fast bound in nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, my dungeon flamed with light.

My chains fell off. My heart was free.

I rose, went forth and followed.

That's what we're talking about. It was still Wesley.

But there's some level of continuity here.

He overpowers the heart.

I love how that's put. He drives the world to embrace Christ. This is as Augustine speaks. This is just straight out of Augustine. Augustine who's showing the truth of God's grace against the heresy that's encroaching upon it in his day.

This is as Augustine calls it,.

The effectual call.

God, by that outward call, blows a trumpet in the ear. By the inward call, He opens the heart. You see, these things work in tandem. God ordains the ends. He also ordains the means. The word blows like a mighty trumpet in the language of holy war.

These mighty battering rams at ear gate.

But God's effectual call, it's in the secret place.

It's overpowering, moving the heart, moving the center, alluring them to Christ. This outward call may bring men to a profession of Christ.

Profession.

Oh, I'm a believer.

Oh, I signed the card.

Oh, I gave my life to Him a few weeks ago. The outward call can do that. The outward call can make men profess Christ. Watson says the inward call makes men possess Christ. He becomes their possession.

And they are truly mine, says the Lord. The outward call curbs a sinner. It restrains a sinner.

The inward call changes them. You see, these are the differences.

The calling of those who are chosen is the effectual call. Many are called, few are chosen.

Those chosen who are called, that's the effectual call. It's the call of irresistible grace.

It's the call of the Spirit of God drawing one out of darkness into light. And so, the Westminster, larger catechism. I mean, what a compendium of good doctrinal definitions.

With Scripture to boot.

And this is what the larger... You might be most familiar with the shorter catechism. Let me challenge you. Give due diligence to the larger catechism. They took the time to write it.

You should take the time to read it.

Westminster, larger catechism 67.

What is effectual calling?

What is it?

Answer. Effectual calling is the work of God's almighty power and grace. Whereby, out of His free and special love to His elect,.

And from nothing in them moving Him to them,.

He does in His own time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ. You see this language of invitation and drawing?

The effectual call is this sovereign invitation and drawing.

By His Word and Spirit,.

Savingly, enlightening their minds,.

Renewing, powerfully determining their wills.

You see, He works in the mind, in the heart, in the will. Although they are themselves dead in sin,.

They are here made willing and able, freely to answer His call and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it. That's effectual calling.

The call goes out.

You have that Word. Whatever is the outward call,.

The Lord moves it inward.

And He removes that flesh. And that heart of stone is cast out.

It becomes a heart of flesh.

And what was dark now is illumined. What was flesh becomes spirit. Eyes are opened. Ears are unstopped. The mind is now not darkened, but rather illuminated. And so the heart is warmed.

And as the affections grow,.

The will begins to melt and move. And all of that is the Spirit of God.

Drawing a sinner unto Himself. This is the effectual call of God. This is the mighty link in the chain of redemption in Romans 8. You know that all things work together.

For the good of those who love God,.

Those who are called according to His purpose,.

For whom He foreknew.

That's His decree of election. His decree of election.

Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined.

To be conformed to the image of the Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He predestined,.