The Impact of Calling – Abraham
In preparing this month’s blog, I decided as Mikaela and I draw closer to going to Norway at the end of December/beginning of January that I should dedicate a series on The Impact of Calling. Essentially this will be a four part series spanning from now through December. The series will cover the impact of calling on Abraham, David, Jonah, and finally with Mikaela and I.
I believe the best approach to this is to first look at Scripture and see what does it say on the topic of The Impact of Calling and then how has that correlated into Mikaela and I’s life, but also how does it correlate into your life? Some of you may be familiar with this topic/teaching as I have preached on this in having a sermon dedicated to The Impact of Calling, however this will be slightly different from the sermon in a few ways. So if you have heard me preach on The Impact of Calling I hope you read each blog dedicated to this over the course of the next few months.
What I strongly desire to pull out of this blog series is leaving you with the question of, “How is God calling me?” Calling encompasses many different aspects of the Christian faith and comes in many different forms. God is quite unique in how he presents this invitation to believers as at its core it is responding to the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20. However, it is done so in many different ways in how God calls each and every one of us according to His purposes. A Christian author that speaks into this and sums it up quite well would be Timothy Keller who is an American pastor, theologian, and Christian apologist. In his book titled, “The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy” Keller writes the following…
Mission is not only for a spiritual elite, or for the well-rested, or for people with the gift of gab, or for outgoing personalities, or for those with theological training. It is for every person who belongs to him. It is because God is by nature a sending God. He never calls us in to bless us without also sending us out to be a blessing to others.
Timothy Keller
Scripture is full of biblical teaching on how God calls his people, his children to achieve great things that they could not have done without Him. However, it requires faith on our part to obey and listen to God’s calling in our lives as we see in Scripture how the patriarchs, prophets, judges, disciples, apostles, and those in the church who responded to that calling. When I learned of how much Scripture revolves around the teaching of calling, I’ve never been able to read the Bible the same way, because I discovered that the impact of calling is significant in how God leads his people.
As such, I want to start this blog series off in focusing in on the patriarch being Abraham. We find Abraham’s calling in how God speaks to him in Genesis 12. His name here at the time was Abram meaning “exalted father” as it is not until Genesis 17 that God changes his name to Abraham meaning “father of many” nations. I will be using both names throughout the blog. The following comes from Genesis 12 in God calling Abram.
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.
So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth – his livestock and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran – and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites.
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the Lord, who had appeared to him. After that, Abram traveled south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord. Then Abram continued traveling south by stages toward the Negev.
Genesis 12:1-9 NLT
God speaks to Abram and tells him to leave his native country, the place where Abram grew up all his life, but also to leave his relatives and dad’s family to an unknown land that God will show him later on. Talk about God calling a person out of their comfort zone. Especially in comparison in today’s generation one would still be able to keep in touch with family quite well through technology and would be much quicker to travel and see them within a day or two between flying and driving.
However, there’s a big truth here in the beginning of these verses in how God works. When God calls you, He is often going to push you out of your comfort zone into a place of unknown. It takes a lot of faith to respond to what God calls Abram to do here, but God is going to be with him every step of the way. God required obedience of Abram and that requires faith.
I looked up the definition of faith and this is what it says, “Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Abram had complete trust in what God told him and was confident in the calling that God placed in his life. As such he responded in obedience as a result of his faith.
After God tells Abram of the cost of his calling in verse 1, in the next two verses, God tells him of the blessings Abram will receive if he obeys what God tells him.
List of Blessings
1. I will make you into a great nation.
2. I will bless you.
3. I will make you famous.
4. You will be a blessing to others.
5. I will bless those who bless you.
6. I will curse those who treat you with contempt (essentially means that God will curse those who treat Abram as being worthless or disrespect him).
7. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.
After hearing all that perhaps Abram’s reaction was, “Definitely God, I can do that! See you later family” and he was gone and traveling to an unknown land. However, I also wonder if he was filled with anxiety, nerves, and sad to leave most of his family behind. We hear a lot of how great and awesome Abraham is in sermons, Sunday school lessons, and so forth and he is great example of faith. However, Abraham was still human, just like you and me. It is easy to take Biblical figures and set them up on a high pedestal, but Abram messed up too. I do not have time to write all about it here, but in your own time I would encourage you to keep reading on past chapter 12 in revisiting the story of Abraham, even if you have read it multiple times. Because we find in several instances how Abram put the covenant promise in jeopardy, but God faithfully intervenes so that his covenant promise will be fulfilled despite his short comings.
In verse 4 we find out that Abram was seventy-five years old when God calls him! I shared this to a group of 200 middle schoolers once and told them they still have roughly 6 lifetimes to get their stuff together as they laughed. Whether you are young, middle aged or elderly as you read this, perhaps you are beginning to see what calling God is placing in your life or already has placed in your life. For Mikaela, she was 14 years old when God spoke to her and told her that he wanted her to be a missionary. What was she doing when she received this calling from God? She was faithfully serving him on her churches youth group mission trip to the Dominican Republic in the midst of reading her Bible. God’s Word that is alive, powerful and true.
Continuing on with Abram, in Genesis 12. He does not follow God’s calling all by himself, he takes his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the people he had taken into his household, the livestock and his wealth. Here’s the thing about the impact of calling by God in our lives. The calling of God in our lives first impacts us and quickly impacts those around us. We see that in Abram’s life as he takes his immediate family with him in obeying God. I am also a living testimony and an example of being impacted by Mikaela’s calling. God’s calling for her and Norway first impacted her and then after we met in college it quickly impacted me and later our family and friends.
The author of Hebrews discusses great examples of faith and endurance in chapter eleven and of those he writes about, one of them is Abraham. The following is what he writes…
It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith – for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.
Hebrews 11:8-10 NLT
As the author of Hebrew illustrates, Abraham did not walk by sight, he walked by faith. He obeyed God by living in a foreign land where God promised one day that He would give this land to Abraham’s descendants and as such they would not be foreigners one day. Even though Abraham did not see that promise fulfilled, he confidently looked forward to something greater, his eyes were set upon heavenly things, not earthly things. A city that was designed and built by a divine and holy God in creating a new, unbroken world (see Rev. 21:1-2).
In moving forward in this four part blog series on The Impact of Calling, again I want to leave you with the question that everyone of us should ask ourselves being, “How is God calling me?” Perhaps you’ve never given your life to God and you’re unsure what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus and you’re seeking to learn more? Perhaps God is calling you to get to know Him better and wants you to spend time in His presence? Perhaps you’re a Christian who is weary and worn out in going through the motions and challenges of this modern life seeking to have a fire lit in your heart again like you once did when you committed your life to Him? Perhaps God is calling you out of your comfort zone in going to a new place to fulfill what He’s laid on your heart or calling you to stay where you’re at for a longer season because there’s more Kingdom work to be done? Perhaps you’re content and wondering what is next? Whatever the reason, my prayer is that God blesses you through what he has laid on my heart when it comes to calling. Blessings
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
Romans 8:28-30 NLT
Best Regards,
Derrick Shipley