The Gracious Call of God

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So we're in Genesis chapter 12. We looked at, of course, last week, Genesis chapters 1 through 11. And now as we get into this next section, we really pick up in a whole new part of the book. And as we do, I want to lean on something, reflect on something from a different part of the scriptures, from maybe a different time and place.

And that comes from the life and the writings of Martin Luther. Perhaps one of Martin Luther's most notable, most celebrated commentaries in the Bible is his commentary on the book of Galatians. And if you're acquainted at all with Luther, you know why that is.

That Martin Luther, one of his favorite books, probably it'd be fair to say his favorite book in all of scripture was the book of Galatians. And as he spoke about the book of Galatians, we actually see the affection that he had for this book.

In one of his writings, he said this at one time, he said, the epistle to Galatians is my epistle. He says, I have betrothed myself to it. It is my Katerina von Bora. Now, if you know Martin Luther, you know anything about his wife, you will know that he never had any intentions to get married, but he was on a covert mission at one time to rescue a group of nuns from a convent, a Roman Catholic convent and hiding them in barrels.

He removed them from the convent and upon getting them on the outside, he set his eyes upon Katerina von Bora, his dear wife, or this dear woman, I should say. And he fell madly in love with her and made her his wife.

And so it speaks highly, I think, of the book of Galatians that he would refer to the book itself as his Katerina, but it speaks even higher of Katerina that she would be his Galatians. And as we begin our time together, we're not in Galatians.

I had us turn to Genesis. We're in Genesis chapter 12, but I want to lean on this little quote in Luther's commentary and bring up or lean on this commentary a little bit, a little quote from it and look at one of his quotes from a commentary or in Galatians chapter one and verses 11 and 12.

And there he says this, speaking of these verses, he says, to know Christ is to believe in him, sorry, to know Christ and to believe in him is no achievement of man, but the gift of God. Now, I'll slow it down because I want you to hear it carefully.

To know Christ and to believe in him, to know and to believe both of them is no achievement of man, but it is the gift of God. One of the things that made Galatians so precious for Martin Luther was that it revealed that man is not the author of his own salvation, but that God alone is the author of salvation.

And this Luther knew, and we should know that it's not limited only to the death of Christ on the cross 2000 years ago, but that it is a gift of God that comes to us in the application of that redemption in the repentance and faith of the believer today.

The Gracious Call of God for Salvation

And this afternoon, what I want to do as we look at Genesis chapter 12 is to speak on the theme of the gracious God or the gracious call of God for salvation. Now, no doubt this is a controversial theme.

Debates have been waged for centuries about this very question, how it is that God calls people effectually to himself. It's been debated, but if I can speak very candidly, there is or there ought to be absolutely no controversy at all.

And this is because the sovereign and effectual call of God, it's not just found in the writings of men, it's found all throughout our Bibles. And what I want to show us today is that in Genesis chapter 12, excuse me, what we find is a crystal clear picture of God's sovereign and effectual calling of sinners to himself, that this is a doctrine that doesn't live merely in the life and the writing of men like Calvin or Augustine, but in Paul and in Peter, all throughout the New Testament into the Old Testament, even to the first patriarch of the Bible, the father of all who have faith, even our father Abraham.

I want to show you today that this doctrine of effectual calling, that the doctrines of grace that we celebrate so often, that we have come to understand and to embrace, it's not a new doctrine. It's not a novel idea.

It's something that goes back right to the very beginning, right to the beginning when God began to make or to enforce covenantal relationships with his own people. And so as I expound this text, I want to put before you God's gracious call.

And I'll do it under three headings. We're going to look at in verses one through three at the unmerited call, that this call comes not at all conditioned by us or anything that we bring to the occasion, but that it is all of grace.

We're going to look at verses four through nine at the effective response, that when God issues the call, he empowers the response, that the call and the response are inevitably linked together, that one is issued and the other necessarily follows.

And then we'll look at the perfect redemption that comes as a result of that call. So as we look at Genesis chapter 12, what we come to is a fault line between chapters one through 11, and then the beginning of chapter 12.

Up until this point, we have looked at what we might call the prime evil history of Genesis. That is the origin story of the entire world. And now that we come into Genesis chapter 12, where I remember one time flying into Los Angeles and looking and seeing part of San Andreas fault, we're flying here now over San Andreas fault.

And as we come over the fault line, we enter into a whole new part of the book. And that's no longer primeval history, but patriarchal history. And here in patriarchal history, we get a marvelous picture.

This is the place in the grand story of God's redemption, where we begin to see God establishing not just covenantal relationships. We've seen that from the beginning, but a covenantal people for himself in fulfillment of Genesis chapter three and verse 15.

You'll remember last time I spoke about Genesis 3 .15, we called it what? The Proto-Ewangelion. Excellent. You've remembered that the first gospel. And so we have this first gospel promise, and now we're beginning to see the accomplishment of that first gospel promise.

We're beginning to see the rubber hit the road as it were. And as we get to verse one, we are introduced to, we saw it last week, the exalted father of this covenantal nation that is going to be formed, the man Abraham.

The Unmerited Call of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3)

And in verses one through three, we're going to look at the first aspects of Abraham's call by God. And I've termed it this, you could call it any number of things, but we're going to call it today, the unmerited call.

The unmerited call. And we'll read verses one through three, and then we'll look at it. 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.

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. 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.

Now in these early verses in Genesis 12, the book lays out, the inspired author Moses lays out the circumstances of Abraham's call. And what we find is that God's selection of Abraham is not the result of something meritorious in him, nothing meritorious on his part.

It was not conditioned by Abraham's obedience. It was not because he had done something somehow to get God's gaze upon him that he might choose him for himself. But instead, what we find in these first three verses of Genesis 12 is a perfect picture of the unconditional election, the selection, the choosing of a man from God for God.

And in verse one, we see it in these words, that when God called Abraham, he said, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house. And this tells us something about the unconditional call of Abraham.

Well, if we look together at Genesis chapter 11, we can see of his father, Terah, who fathered Nahor and they moved into Haran and all these things. If we look at Genesis 11 and 12, it might lead us to believe that Abraham was called out of Haran and that maybe God was calling him already to a place where he was headed to, that is to the of Canaan.

But when we begin to look at scripture and look at the intersections of the different relationships between the texts, what we find is that God called Abraham long before he'd ever made it to Haran with his father, Terah.

If we look at Genesis chapter 15 and verse seven, let's look at that together. Turn with me there. We read this. And he said to him, that's God speaking to Abraham. I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you to this land to possess.

So he brought him not out of Haran, but out of Ur of the Chaldeans. In Acts chapter seven and verse two, Stephen, just before he is stoned, gives a commentary of where God called Abraham out of. In Acts seven two, he says, brothers and fathers, hear me.

The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. And the reason why this is a significant is because I want to demonstrate to you that Abraham was not with his family moving from Ur of the Chaldeans already to Canaan when God saw him, but that God called Abraham out of the land, out of his own land, the land of his kindred, Ur of the Chaldeans, even in spite of his father taking him to Haran later.

It is significant that the God did not see something in Abraham that was noble or good about him. He did not see that he was headed into a particular place. He took him out of a wicked place. He took him out of a godless circumstance and called him to himself.

When I say that Abraham came from a wicked place, I really do mean it. We think of Ur of the Chaldeans. I mean, most of us, most people don't even know how to say it correctly, but Ur of the Chaldeans, what is that place?

Babylon? Ur is very, very close to the city of Babylon. One observer writes about Ur of the Chaldeans this. They write, Ur of the Chaldeans was dominated by a huge temple tower or ziggurat, three stages of which rose to 150 feet above street level.

On the top, surrounded by terraces lined with trees, stood a blue and silver temple dedicated to Nanar, the moon god, and the principal deity served by many of the class of priests. Their religion at this time was polytheism of the grossest type.

More than 300 distinct gods were worshiped. According to Jewish tradition, Abram's father traded in these idols and in this polytheism, and it was the feature of Abram's early home life. That as Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans, you need to see this with me.

We're so used to the idea that here's Abraham, he's the father of all who have faith, that he must have lived in some pre-Israel state where he's already a worshiper of God, doing his thing, following God, but that's not true at all.

And not just from the historical commentaries, but from the commentary of scripture itself. In Joshua chapter 24 and verse 2, Joshua actually recounts what Abram's life was like before he was called of God, and it says this, Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abram, and of Nahor, and they served other gods.

John Calvin, speaking on this, he says the calling of Abram is a signal instance of the gratuitous mercy of God. Had Abram been beforehand with God by any merit of works? Had Abram come to him or conciliated his favor?

Nay, we must ever recall to mind that he was plunged in the filth of idolatry, and now God freely stretches forth his hand to bring back the wanderer. Charles Spurgeon, commenting on the same, says Abram's call was in the first place the result of the sovereign grace of God.

And then what we see is, as the passage moves forward into verse 2, is the remarkable dimensions of God's blessing that he calls Abram to, that he calls Abram out of a place of darkness into a place of astounding light, of astounding blessing, that he will give Abram a great nation and a great name.

Now I want you to think about that. Did we not hear some of those words just last week? Those who are seeking a great name. In Genesis chapter 11 in verse 4, I think I heard it over there, but let's look together at what it says.

In Genesis 11 4, then they said, come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top to the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth. That what men sought to do in their own power, here God calls another man to himself to do by his own power.

And he says, I'm going to take you, the exalted father, I'm going to make you a great nation, and I'm going to give you a great name. And this is no coincidence whatsoever, that God promises to Abraham something that only he can accomplish by his own strength and his own grace.

And then in verse 3, I will bless you, or I will bless those who bless you, in him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now how is that? We begin to see some of the the covenantal structures of Abraham's relationship with God.

That God is not only going to call Abraham to himself, but he's going to call him to himself to fulfill a great purpose, namely to be the head, the father of those who will serve as the fulfillment, or the one who will be the fulfillment of the proto-evangelion in Genesis 3 15.

That it would be through Abraham that the Christ would be born, the very one who would come to fallen man to save him from the grip of the serpent, who would take the bruised heel that he might crush the serpent's head.

What we see here in Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 through 3 is a picture again of the gospel. And maybe you have looked at this with me up to this point, maybe you heard me last week, and you're saying, I don't know Shane, I think you're playing it pretty fast and loose with these texts.

Do we really see the gospel in Genesis? If we look at the commentary of the New Testament, as the New Testament looks back at the Old Testament, as the New Testament looks back at the book of Genesis, what you'll see is that I am not taking any liberties whatsoever.

In the book of Galatians, in chapter 3 and verse 7, we actually see the apostle Paul speaking to this very verse in Genesis 12 3. There he writes this, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, listen to this, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, he's speaking directly to Genesis 12 3, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

So men, those who are of, so then, sorry, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. The book of Genesis, we need to see it again and again and again. We can't be Marcionites.

We can't piggyback on that damnable heresy, that Genesis means nothing, that it doesn't somehow corroborate or align with the gospel. What we see in Genesis chapter 12 is the gospel preached to Abraham in you, in your seed, through the proto-Evangelion, through the descendant of the woman, all the families of the earth will be blessed, that through you, the gospel itself will be realized.

And verses one through three, I want you to see this with me a little bit more. We see the use of the word blessing or bless five different times in those three verses, that God has every intention of blessing.

But I want you to see another thing in each of these three verses. In verse one, I want you to see God's use of the words, I will. Go to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you.

I will bless. I will curse. That what God is seeking to show us is that everything that is done in these opening verses of Genesis 12 is all of sovereign grace, that he is going to do it, that he is going to do it.

I called you. I will do this. I will do the blessing. I will do the cursing. It is about me. So what we have then in this picture, these first three verses, is God doing the heavy lifting, God doing it all, God calling Abraham unconditionally, undeservedly, that from the beginning, the gospel has only ever been a gospel of abundant and unmerited grace for sinners.

This is not a passage that highlights man's free choice. It's a passage that highlights God's sovereign and gracious choice. Like the Tower of Babel, when man tries to go it alone and achieve what he can on his own, he loses it all.

But when God chooses of his own free grace to show kindness, he can never fail, and he is certain to accomplish everything that he sets out to do. And it makes me wonder, have you ever thought about this?

What would Abraham's life have looked like if God had not called him? Maybe he would have bounced back and forth between Ur of the Chaldees and Haran, back and forth. Maybe in his old age, we might find him at the ziggurat, worshiping the moon god of Nannar.

Maybe he would have been trading, buying and selling idols like his father, or at least as Jewish tradition would say it. But alas, I trust that he not only went into the land of Canaan, but is headed towards that city whose builder and founder is God because God called him.

And it makes me wonder, where would you be? Where would I be? Where would we be if our God had not called us to himself? Where is your Ur of the Chaldees? Think about that. The moment that the Lord saved you, if you can even, sometimes we don't know the day, we don't know the time, that's fine.

But even the season, where were you and where were you headed before God called you to himself? I can think of where I myself would be, because I can remember where I was when he called me. Can't you see that by God's grace you are who you are?

That you are here by God's good design, not because you chose to be here, but because he is a gracious God who chose you to be here. And that must necessarily fuel all of our hearts worship offered to him.

That there is no room, with this understanding that I am here by the grace of God, there's no room for half-hearted worship. There's no room for half-hearted devotion. There's no room for half-hearted obedience.

That we were, like Abraham, dead in our trespasses and sins. We were barren, exalted fathers, if that makes any sense. We were living in darkness. We were following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of obedience.

We were nothing like Abraham when God called us to himself. That has always been the way that God does business. That has always been the way that God has interacted with his people. He takes a people who are no people, and he calls them to himself.

But what a marvel, he doesn't just call them to himself, he affects the response. We see it here in verse four, the affected response. That's our next heading. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.

The Effective Response to God's Call (Genesis 12:4-9)

Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. 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, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Morah. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.

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. 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. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negev. This is a remarkable picture, that Abram is in Ur of the Chaldees. He's in Haran.

He is not living the life that God has called him to. God calls him, and verse four, so Abram went as the Lord had told him. You know, if Abram was a toddler, it would be a remarkable scene for dad, for the father to say, go here, and immediately he goes.

This is astounding, that God would speak to Abram, and immediately he goes. So Abram went. I like what Spurgeon says. He says, so Abram went. He had already attained a fine old age, but he had another century of life before him, which he could not then foresee or expect.

He might have said, Lord, I am too old to travel, too old to leave my country, and to begin to live a wandering life. But he did not talk in that fashion. He was commanded to go, and we read, so Abram went.

And such prompt obedience is noteworthy, truly. It's noteworthy because of Abram's age. He's 75 years old. He's not a young buck. He has established a life for himself on the other side of the river. But it's also significant because of the place that he's coming from, and the place that he is going.

Now, ancient documents record that Haran was a notable city. It was named after the Babylonian and Assyrian word haranu, which can be translated as highway or road. And so it's had a bit of an intersection, as it were.

And it was a notable city for its culture and its commerce. But Abram leaves Ur, he leaves Haran, and he makes the difficult journey all the way to the distant land of Canaan. And we need to remember that as Abram goes, if the Lord were to call you today to Canaan, it would be easier for you to get there today than it was for Abram.

That it was some 1100 kilometers from the land that he was called to in Haran, all the way into the southern parts of Israel, of Canaan, where he would eventually end up. That he didn't hire a moving truck to help him get across the wilderness.

It was a trip that was made on foot, often with livestock. We hear that he already had possessions and people, and at great peril to the travelers. Well, one scholar writes, no one dared to plot his own route, but traveled by the traditional ways taken by merchants and armies through the centuries.

And that's because not only was the landscape harsh and unforgiving, but at certain points, especially where travelers were especially vulnerable, there would be raiders who would come and attack you.

So here you are with your livestock trying to get over this hump. It's a notable place. Everyone knows that the traveling groups struggle at that place. You not only have to fend with the mud and the hills, the terrain, or the lack of water, whatever it might be, but now raiders who want to ambush their victims as they're traveling.

So from Haran to Bethel, the distance, like I said, was over 1100 kilometers across desert, deep, twisting valleys, and then up steep mountains. And some have written, it's interesting, when I do my studies in these texts, I read a ton of commentaries.

I enjoy the study of commentary sometimes. Commentaries, for those of you who have preached, you know, they can be a really good procrastination device. If I just keep reading commentaries, then it puts off the difficult work of having to really think deeply, think clearly, write clearly about these things.

But I've read a number of commentaries that said, look at this picture of Abram's obedience. We have this man, he is called of God, what a noble man, he goes. And it almost becomes a celebration of Abram's unbridled use of his own free will, that God calls him.

There's this great, formidable distance, this formidable journey that is ahead of him. 75-year-old Abram gets up, and he goes, praise Abram. But wait a minute, is that how scripture views Abram's going?

Again, if we take a basic hermeneutical principle of interpreting scripture with scripture, is that how scripture speaks of Abram's going? Let's go to Acts chapter seven for a moment. Acts chapter seven in verse two.

It's remarkable, we've talked about this before, that when we're in Genesis, we end up going everywhere else. Genesis takes us to every part of the Bible. And in Acts chapter seven in verse two, we see this picture of Stephen, right?

He's been in this conflict. In Acts 6 .15, I love this picture. And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. And then in Acts seven, a high priest said, are these things so?

The accusations against Stephen. And Stephen said, brothers and fathers, hear me. We've read this once already. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.

The first thing we need to see is that not only did God call Abraham, but he showed himself to Abraham. That he appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. It was a transformative event that he saw God.

And no doubt that moved him. Now, if I relied on that verse alone, you'd have every reason to say, well, that's not a very strong argument. It's an argument, but is it a strong one? I'm not sure. Look at verse four, still speaking about Abraham.

Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, what does it say? God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. That idea of God removing.

Here it is an active verb, that God is the one doing the thing. And it means that God not only issues the unconditional call, but he affects the response. It's the Greek word metokisin. It means to cause someone to change their place of habitation.

It's used later in Acts 7 .43. If we look there, Acts 7 .43, it's interesting how the Lord in his providence inspired it to keep it all together. You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your God, Rephan, the images that you made to worship and I will send you into the exile beyond Babylon.

That word send, it's sometimes translated deport. God deported Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, of Haran into the promised land. So it's fair to say that it's not Abraham who hears God's word and then he goes, it is God deporting him out of the land that he is in, sending him, making him to go to the very place that he must go.

So that one observer, one Mr. Charles Spurgeon, he says, the call of Abraham was divinely applied and enforced. That he calls him and then he applies and enforces the call. He calls him and then he brings him to himself.

And what a remarkable outcome this is. I'm telling you, when I'm in Genesis, I begin to geek out as I look at these things. I'm developing, I got a, it's a newer Bible. I decided I'm going to write in it and now already I'm going to have difficulty reading what's written there because my notes are everywhere.

But verse six, Abraham passed through the land to the place at Shechem to the oak of Morah. Shechem and the oak of Morah. These are remarkable places. Abraham stopped in Shechem, a place that would be prominent hundreds of years later.

The place Shechem, it means shoulder. And it's called shoulder. If you lived in the city of shoulder, not boulder, but shoulder. It's because it was placed on the shoulder of Mount Gerizim in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.

If you recognize those names. Mount Gerizim to the south and Mount Ebal to the north. This is the very place that, that a number of years later, Moses would instruct the nation of Israel to assemble, to rehearse the covenant blessings and the covenant curses of the nation.

You might remember that it's in Deuteronomy 27 and Deuteronomy 28. This, this blindness and this horrendous curse that will come upon the nation if they violate the covenant or these great blessings, too good to be true blessings that come if they fulfill the covenant.

It was fulfilled in Joshua chapter eight. Again, in Joshua chapter 24, you know that speech, choose today who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That was done at Shechem between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.

You can, you can go there today on Google maps and drop yourself into the valley and look at the mountains. I don't know if you ever do that. It's a, it's a great journey. I know the land doesn't look always the same as it did back then, but to drop yourself into those places and say, this place is real.

It existed. I know I say this probably once a year, but we're not the Mormons. We don't have a belief system that has no basis in history. We don't have a belief system where, where Jesus comes on a field trip to North America and starts a new religion.

We have a historically, geographically verifiable faith. And here, Abram passes through Shechem. We might call it the valley of the covenant. It's the place where, where the Bible comes back again and again and again to make and confirm the covenant between God and his people.

And it mentions the Oak of Morah. Why is that? What is that? Well, Morah is very closely related to the Hebrew word that means teacher or instruction. And it might have this name because it was likely at that time, because we're told that the land still was, belonged to Canaan that at that time, the Canaanites were in the land.

I'll say it that way. It likely became that or was called that because it was a place of pagan shrine and a place of divination where people would, would, would engage in divination and receive instructions through this, this pagan witchcraft type of activity.

And we get more insight into that. You don't have to turn here. I'm going to take us on a bit of a wild goose chase, but follow along with me in Judges chapter nine and verse 37, where during the wicked period of the judges, Abimelech set an ambush for Shechem in this exact valley in the same place.

And we read there, look, people are coming down from the center of the land and one company is coming from the direction of the diviner's oak. So the oak of Morah or the terebinth of Morah. But in this account, we see that the tree is meant to have a totally different role in the story.

That this tree becomes a marker for covenant faithfulness. We read about it in two different places in Genesis 35 and verses one through four. We have Jacob. He goes up to Bethel. They're going to dwell there.

And what he tells them, he tells his people, put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Let us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make there an altar to God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me whenever I have gone.

So they gave to Jacob, hear this, all the foreign gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. So follow, follow with me. I think I'm losing you.

That Abram passes through Shechem. There he references the oak of Morah. We know that that place was used by the pagans in that land for all kinds of pagan purposes. But later it becomes a place where everyone drops their false gods.

They renew their covenant. This is a place where everyone comes and they say, the old life I lived, I leave behind. Genesis 35 tells us that. Joshua 24, choose this day who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

In verses 23 through 26 of that same passage, we read, Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God.