Who Are You Most Like?

Genesis chapter 12. Abraham is who we're gonna look at here this morning. He stands as the greatest figure in the ancient world and there are three world religions that revere him as their father of their faith. Anyone name those three religions? Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

Those are the three. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and so he's a pretty important figure in history. Here's another interesting thing, a little backdrop here. Archaeologists have explored the cities of Abram's origin and they've traced his journeys, probe the ruins of towns mentioned in Genesis, and have reconstructed a striking portrait of life two thousand years before Christ and guess what they've discovered. In detail after detail the bible is absolutely correct and beginning in Genesis 12, God begins to deal with one man, one nation, one nation through a man named Abram.

In fact, this is a great turning point in scripture just like Acts chapter nine is a turning point in the New Testament. Does anyone know what happened in Acts chapter nine? The Apostle Paul got saved. Let's look in Genesis chapter 12 here beginning in verse one. We'll just read down to verse eight.

It says, now the Lord had said unto Abram get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house into a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him and Lot went with him and Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their substance that they had gathered and the souls that they had gotten in Haran and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan and into the land of Canaan they came and Abraham passed through the land unto a place of Sichem, unto the Plain Of Mora and the Canaanite was then in the land, and the Lord appeared unto Abram and said unto thy seed will I give this land, and there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him.

And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the East of Bethel, and pitched his tent having Bethel on the West and Hai on the East and there he builded an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord and Abraham journeyed going on still toward the South. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you so much. Again, for your wonderful precious word that we have to be fed with. It's our spiritual food and just pray that you'll use what we look at today in our lives to strengthen us and encourage us and challenge us.

And I pray your Holy Spirit might have his way. Each one of our hearts and I pray Lord if there be one here that has never trusted you as their savior, the Bible way. Pray this would be the day they'd make that most important decision that they'll ever make in their life of trusting you as their personal savior and leaving this place as a child of God forever and we thank you Lord for the promise that you give us related to salvation and and the plan of salvation and again, Lord, we thank you for each one here. We pray for those that are unable to be here today. Just meet their needs and encourage them wherever they might be and help em even sense your presence with them.

If they're your children. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. There are a number of people mentioned in regard to Abraham and his family here, Tara. That's his dad.

His name means delay and he lived up to his name. He also was a worshiper of idols. Then we come across a lot. He's a believer but he's carnal and could not seem to walk by faith and he caused a lot of problems for Abram. And then we have Abram.

You know, there's a lot of misinformation by those that do not believe the Bible about Abram. The fact is he was a sophisticated and wealthy pagan. He was from Ur which was a well developed city back in that day. He grew up around idols and idol worship. He was middle aged, settled in life, and yet God called him And we just don't know, you know, you see some of the most unlikely people getting called by God and that's pretty much what first Corinthians chapter one verse 26 through 31 tells us.

He calls unlikely people because he sees the beginning from the end and probably Abraham in the eyes of many and maybe even us. If we were back then we wouldn't kind of expect him to be called to do such a great and important thing for God. But we do know his call was all of grace. John fifteen sixteen says, You have not chosen me but I have chosen you. He appears unto Abraham seven times in Genesis and we see he sees the living God and then the dead idols kind of lose their appeal.

That happened in the New Testament. First Thessalonians chapter one verse nine says, for they themselves show us what manner of entering in we had unto you, how you turn from idols to serve the living and true God. You know when a person gets saved or a person answers God's call for salvation, true conversion takes place and that results in change. I remember one time DL Moody came out of a meeting and he was being mocked by people and there was a guy laying in the gutter, you know, with the bottle and and the guy says to Moody and kinda lashed at him and he says, hey, there's one of your converts and Moody said, yeah, he probably is my convert. He certainly isn't God's and then I remember one time I did a prison ministry up in Pensacola area when I was in college and this one fellow trusted the Lord as his personal savior in prison and then he got out And I opened up the paper about a week later and on the front page of the paper there he is laying in the town fountain drunk as a skunk, you know.

And, yeah, maybe he got saved. I don't know and backslid but, you know, in Bible, when you read your Bible and you read about somebody that gets saved, their life changes. And if you made some kind of a profession or you've prayed and your life hasn't changed, I would be careful about that. But Abraham was changed. He turned from idols eventually and we'll see here in the message how he progresses.

You know when a person gets saved God's word is important. Romans ten seventeen, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So one thing we can glean from that is one of our most important jobs as believers is to get the word of God out. Romans ten fourteen, how shall they call on him and whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher?

Back in the Old Testament before scripture was recorded, you know, God spoke directly to people and he he worked in reaching people in some unusual ways. He revealed himself in some special ways but today we have the scripture. You know, God reveals himself in the Bible. He reveals himself through believers. Matthew five sixteen, let your light so shine before men.

Acts chapter one verse eight, we're called to be witnesses for him. Receive his power and and you shall be witnesses the bible says in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and to the outermost parts of the world. You know, God still calls people. He chooses by his grace. He still calls people by his word.

He calls unlikely people. It's kind of a humorous story but it's true of me and maybe you could tell a humor story but I remember you know when I was in high school I was kind of a class clown kind of a guy you know I like to fool around and with a good sense of humor and liked I kind of fit into about every crowd, know, the sports figures, the academics. I just kind of, you know, that kind of a personality. And I, you know, I was I did get in trouble sometimes in school. And I remember my mother was in a hospital and this nurse years later, this nurse came in and she said, Oh, your name is Volk.

You wouldn't happen to know David Volk, would you? And my mother says, Yes, that's my son. And the nurse said, well, what's he doing now? She said, oh, he's a pastor and a missionary. And she said the nurse just about dropped her tray.

She couldn't believe it. And, you know, that's true of me. You know, I was an unlikely type of a person but God called me in the ministry. He called me to salvation. He called me to service.

And he called Abraham here. Why did he call Abraham? Well, first of all, he wanted to save him and Sarah because he's a personal God interested in each one of us but he also called him to service. He wants to bless the world through them. Remember, God knows the beginning from the end.

We know the whole story, you know, through Abraham and that decision that he made long time ago in answering God's call. We've we've we've we've we've gotten Jesus Christ through that line. We got the scriptures through that. We have Christians today that you you read in scripture. It all goes back to Abraham.

He calls us to be an example of true faith just like he did Abraham. Now, they were not perfect. Abraham and Sarah but they were generally faithful. They suffered when they sinned and there's quite a lot of scripture about Abraham his life. He failed sometimes in fact if you study his life it'll be kind of like this he's on the mountaintop and then he's back on the mountaintop and he stays there for a while and he back again and but if you look at his life overall he was generally faithful and that's what's why he's an example of faith.

When they sinned and they sought forgiveness from the Lord and repented of their sin, the Lord forgave them. And another thing that we see in the life of Abraham and his his life there is that no test is impossible with the Lord and that no failure needs to be permanent for the believer and God uses Abraham and Sarah as an illustration of faith. They're mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 if you want to read that and verse eight speaks of Abraham. He was willing to obey God even though God didn't give him a lot of details and it was enough for Abraham to know that it was God giving the commands. He didn't ask what's in it for me.

He didn't ask how much will I make. He didn't say, you know, the weather is not right. He didn't say it's too hard. He didn't say who else has to do it. He didn't say why me or you know, so and so can do it.

He just obeyed. Remember he didn't have a lot of details. It's all new for him. The content of the call here is leave your country, leave your culture. A lot of missionaries do that.

We talked a little bit about that in Sunday school. Ruth coming into a new culture and she needed Naomi's help to fit in and understand how you you they did things. Well, Abraham was told to leave his country. He was called told to leave his kindred, his peers. He was called to told to leave his father's house and family.

He was to abandon his country, his home, his friends and he had to renounce the kind of life that was found in his country, idolatry. He grew up in an idolatrous pagan heathen society even though it was wealthy and well developed, he grew up in that, it was an idolatrous country. So he had to leave the familiar for the unfamiliar. He had to leave the known for the unknown. He had to leave what appeared to be security for insecurity and uncertainty.

He had it pretty good there. He was wealthy. Wealthy city life. But God says, you gotta get out and you gotta trust God. You gotta live a new life and trust God to care for you and your family and God did bless him with much more than he would have even imagined.

Here's the picture for us kind of tying it into the New Testament and the Christian life today. We've got to forsake the old life for the new. There's a verse that sounds pretty hard in Luke chapter 14 verse 26 it says, any man come after me, come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. It doesn't mean hate in the sense that we know it today. It just means that our love for God in comparison would almost seem like hate when it talks about our family, our brothers and sisters and friends.

And what it really comes down to mean is this, it just means no one is to have a place between us and Jesus. No one is to be more important to us than Jesus Christ. Not family, not friends, not things, not wife, not parent, not child, not things, not pastor, not anyone, not anything. Just have first place. Who's to have first place?

Christ. Can I give Jesus first place and still love you? Can I give Jesus first place and still love my wife? That can be done. Sounds kind of strong.

But in a nutshell, that is what God told Abraham. God's gotta be first and guess what? It applies to us too today. This is what God is telling us too. This is his call to us too, and we are just as responsible as Abraham, and he is presented to us as an example of true faith.

Look at Hebrews chapter 11, look at a couple verses maybe one verse. Hebrews chapter 11 verse eight. Hebrews chapter 11 verse eight, by faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place where he should after receive should after receive an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whither he went. And that's what God required of Abraham and as believers today, that's what he requires of us. He doesn't always give us a lot of details just like Abraham, but he does give us his promises.

Look again in Genesis chapter 12 here. I'll read the first three verses. It says, now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing and I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. He doesn't give them a lot of details but he does give them promises and that's all we have sometimes. Just promises.

You know, the Bible's full of those. He gives promises to Abraham here. The purpose was to give he to get faith and strength for a lifelong pilgrim's journey. And our response to promises, God's promises determines what God will do in our lives. If we believe his promises and act on those promises, God will bless us.

The Bible's full of them. He doesn't always give a lot of details when he promises us things. But if he promises us things, he will fulfill those promises and he says to Abraham here, I will show thee, I will make thee, I will bless thee. I will make thee a great nation. I will make thee a blessing.

I will bless them that bless thee. I will curse them that curse thee and all the families of the earth will be blessed in thee. You know what? That includes us, believers today. If you have time read Genesis chapter 11.

It's kind of the backdrop for chapter 12 here and that's where, we read about Nimrod and and the Tower Of Babel. But there's quite a contrast. You know, in Genesis chapter 11, Nimrod and the Tower Of Babel, the they they're saying, us do that something. Let us build the tower. But in Abraham God says I will do it.

God will do it. In Nimrod and Babel in chapter 11 their goal was to make a name for themselves. In chapter 12 God says he'll make Abraham great. In chapter 11 with Nimrod and the Tower Of Babel they tried to unite but they ended up divided. With Abraham, God's going going to unite believers in Jesus Christ.

There's quite a difference when we do things on our own and strive in our own strength versus letting God do it. And that's the difference in chapter 11 and verses chapter 12 in Genesis. Galatians three fourteen says this to believers that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. You know, these promises to Abraham have been fulfilled to a great extent. There's a nation of Israel still.

We've got the bible. We have the savior. There are millions of Christians and God reaffirmed the promise with Isaac and Jacob and fulfilled it in Jesus Christ. Acts chapter three twenty three and twenty five through 26 it says, ye are the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers saying unto Abraham and in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed unto you first, God having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his inequities. So there's been so many of these promises and parts of these promises have been fulfilled already and we see them throughout the Bible.

There's still a future aspect that will be fulfilled in Christ's millennial reign and it will be fulfilled because God keeps his promises. He does not lie and every believer is a part of the promises that he gave Abraham. You know God's great plan that he has there. There's another truth here that I want to consider here and as we look at Abraham's life it's it's pretty interesting life. He became a pilgrim not a fugitive he became a pilgrim in his journey and we are pilgrims in our walk of faith the bible says.

But I noticed in Abraham's life here, he did not follow God completely at first and sometimes the first steps of faith are not always giant steps. Now you'll have to read Acts chapter seven verses two and four. I won't turn to that now but what we see in the beginning when God first called Abraham, the picture I see here, he didn't leave his family. He took his father with him. He took Lot and they hindered and delayed Abraham's service to the Lord.

You You know when we begin to follow the Lord and we bring things from the old life they're always going to create problems for us and sometimes that's in the form of habits and associations and false religion and there are a lot of things from the old life sometimes, you know, it takes a while, shed those off and we're not making giant steps in the beginning but, you know, Abraham, you he he does take a few steps but he's not doing exactly what God wanted him to do at first. He brings some things from his old life that he was supposed to leave behind and they created problems for him and they'll create problems for us. A life of faith demands separation from what is evil and a devotion to what is right and holy. That's the message for Abraham and for us. Abraham was called earlier in Ur of the Chaldees in Acts chapter seven verses two through four tells us that.

He was in Ur. Ur is here. Canaan is here. Haran is up here. He didn't go from here to here.

He went from here up to here. And then he's called from there again and he does eventually go down to Canaan. He went to Haran with his family and relatives not Canaan at first. He partially obeyed but partial obedience is disobedience. But God calls Abraham again.

He doesn't give up on Abraham. God is faithful. He speaks to the believer that is in compromise many times and even us as believers, when we get off sometimes, when we fail sometimes, and God hasn't forgotten us. He's still trying to get through to us and he calls again in Haran. Remember, Haran's up here.

Er's over here. Canaan's over here. Abraham doesn't go there. He goes up there and then he gets called again and then he eventually answers, obeys when he gets this extra chance and then he commits his way to the Lord. He finally commits his life and future to the Lord.

He obeyed what he had been commanded and now they could get what God had planned for them. You know when God calls like he did Abram, he calls us. We cannot be double minded. James one tells us that we're not going to receive anything of the Lord. We can't serve two masters, Matthew chapter six verse 24.

We got to make a commitment. You know, that's one of the hard things in our day to get it across to people that there are some things that we just have to make a commitment to and stick with. And we don't see that in our society many times, you know, when it comes to marriage or jobs or, you know, being parents or even being a loyal citizen in your country. A lot of times the word temporary is the word, not commitment, not dedication. And we see that today.

You know, sometimes believers even, they only want to serve the Lord if it doesn't interfere with something else. You know, always something else has a greater importance and that's not the way that we can allow God to work in our lives but we see Abraham and Sarah, his wife, Eventually, you know, their lives are considered lives of faithfulness. Generally faithful. Does that mean they were sinless and perfect? No, that doesn't mean that.

Just means that overall as you view their whole life, they were faithful people. They failed. They confessed their failure. God forgave them. They moved on.

To more victories. They struggled. And as you watch his life through Genesis, you'll see him going up and down. And then he starts to kind of level off and in the end, you know, he's doing real well. And that really pictures our life.

You know as pilgrims in this life, you know our home, our ultimate home is in heaven with the Lord, but I often thought where would we be if Abraham had not been faithful? Where would we be if previous generations were not wholly given to the Lord at least, you know, some people in those generations. And there's always been a trail of really faithful people that have kept the gospel alive and the Bible before people. There've always been people like that through the years. Not every Christian is like that.

There have been some probably the majority or not. But there have been some that have really held up God's word and they they have a concern about the next generation. And Abraham's life here is marked by a tent and an altar. A tent marked him as a stranger and a pilgrim to this world. He was not a fugitive.

He was a pilgrim, a stranger and a pilgrim to this world. That's what the tent marked him as. But the altar marked him as a citizen of heaven who worshipped God. No longer idols, but he worshipped the true and the living God and that's what we see in the life of Abraham. You know, when we commit our way to the Lord, you I'll guarantee you you're gonna have opposition, not gonna be an easy road.

You know, I'm going to be looking in John chapter 12, I think it is tonight, where Mary worshipped the Lord and poured the spikenard on Jesus. And when some saw her do that, not only Judas but the other disciples too said, what are you doing that for? That's a waste. You know, when you commit your life to the Lord as a believer, there'll be others that will look at you and say that you're wasting your life. You're wasting your money.

But to the Lord is not a waste. And there have been people throughout history that have served the Lord through ridicule and and mocking and they've had all kinds of opposition that they've hung in there for the Lord. And we will have out with opposition. We'll have challenges. We'll have obstacles.

And we see that in the life of Abraham in Genesis and he for the most part lived a faithful life and God used him in a mighty way still using him. So Abraham here now in Genesis 12 here, he's now in the place of God's appointment doing what God had told him to do. And, you know, we might think that's the end and him, you know, sometimes believers make a choice for God to get saved or make a choice for God to do something and they almost think that's the end but not really. It's the beginning of a walk with God. And that's how it was with Abraham here.

I began the message looking at three characters and actually, they present three ways of life. Terah, Lot, and Abram. Three ways of life. I've heard it put this way one time. You know, there are three basically three kinds of people.

People that make things happen. Speaking of faithful people. People that watch things happen. Speaking of temporary type people. And then there are others that say, what happened?

They're not even clued in at all. Three types of people. Make things happen, watch things happen, say what happened. Happened. But these three characters, this is where I want to close, they confront us with three ways of life.

Terah, that's the father. Good intentions but never any action to do right. Other things were more important than the true and living God and his name means delay. Terah means delay. You're always putting off what needs to be done.

I'll do it tomorrow and it'll never happen. Then we have Lot. He started out right but he wouldn't walk by faith. He's mister temporary That would only serve God if it was convenient or if it didn't disrupt his comfortable life and schedule. And then we see Abram here.

He started out with small steps of faith but he eventually followed God faithfully. Even in tests and trials and problems he learned to trust God. He wasn't perfect and that's one of the reasons I believe the bible's true. It doesn't hide anything about people. It tells us the truth even about these great people like Abram, tells us the truth about David and we see some pretty bad things that Abram did in his life, lied about his wife not being his wife and things like that.

Put his wife in jeopardy. But overall, Abram, his whole life in view was generally very faithful. So we have Terah, Lot, Abram and we all fall into one of these categories. We're either like Tara, Lot or Abram. Not that we're perfect but I think it's pretty obvious which one God desires us to be like.

Now, Abraham is mentioned in scripture about 308 times and he's given in scripture especially in Hebrews chapter 11 as an example of faith. Let me just ask you this in closing and I want you to think about this seriously. Which one are you most like? Tara, Lot, or Abram? In fact, I should word it like this, which one do you choose to be like?

Let's pray. Father, we do thank you so much for the life of Abraham and Genesis chapter 11. We know that it's not an easy thing to follow you, and and yet you don't leave us alone. You're never going to leave us nor forsake us. You're always there for us.

Even when things look impossible, you're there. And we're to acknowledge that you're there and we're to have faith and and hope in you. And Lord if there be believers here today that are struggling. Lord maybe they've only taken taken some small steps of faith and and yet you want them to reach higher ground and and they're struggling with that decision of letting go of old things in the old life. In the form of habits and maybe associations and maybe even religion.

I pray father you would help that one to just let go of that and to embrace what you have for them and and help help them to see that your way is the best way. And that you'll help them you'll be able to fulfill promises that you've given to them and Lord if there'd be one here that's never trusted you as savior I pray they'd do that today. They'd open their heart and and forget about what others think and just be willing to call upon you the Bible way and and be born again today right in this very place. So, they might leave this place rejoicing in you. And again, Lord, we thank you for your word and and I pray that you'll use what we've looked at today and each one of our hearts to encourage us, challenge us, build us up, comfort us, perhaps, and I pray Lord that as we leave this place that you would be the one exalted in our hearts and mind and it's your word that we'll be thinking about and not your messenger or how well I delivered the message or how how well I didn't deliver the message.

I just pray that you would just help people to just know that it was your word that was given and that it's there to help them. Thank you again, Lord and as we sing the invitation hymn, Lord, I pray that we might really sing it from our heart. And sing it to you and about you. And help us again Lord just to forget about others. Just help us to think about our own self before you and help us to worship you in our song.

In Jesus name I pray. Amen.