This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to week three of our look together through the book of Genesis. This is
day 12, so we're going to be looking at Genesis chapter 12. And Genesis chapter
12 is all about Abraham, Abraham, who was called in the New Testament the father
of our faith.

He's called this because of two simple choices. He moved to the promised land
and he trusted God for a son. He moved and he had a child.

Now to many of us, those don't sound like big accomplishments. Those are just
expected things in life, but these were huge to God. In Abraham's life, they
were huge because they were all about the way that he had faith, the way that he
trusted.

And oftentimes in our lives, what seems small to us is big to God. We often get
focused on the wrong thing. God is focused on the places that you and I can
trust.

In Genesis 12, chapter 12 to 25 is all about Abraham. As you look through those
chapters, as we go through them the next several days together, we're going to
see that these chapters are really built around six conversations between
Abraham and God. Abraham's always talking to God, always talking about faith.

How does faith work? How can I have faith? He's always struggling his way
towards faith.

Abraham, the father of our faith, does not begin with perfect faith. We're going
to see this in Genesis 12, and he doesn't live with perfect faith. We're going
to see this in all these chapters.

But he is a man of faith because he always struggled his way to faith. And his
first step of faith is in many ways his greatest step of faith, because without
it nothing else could have happened. It happens in Genesis 12, verses 1 to 9.

His first step of faith is a step to leave for the promised land. Listen to what
happened in these verses, Genesis 12, 1 to 5, let me read. The Lord said to
Abram, remember he changes his name later to Abraham.

So these first chapters is going to be Abram. The Lord said to Abram, "Leave
your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I
will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who
bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse. And all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.

" So Abraham left, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75
years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife, Sarai, and his nephew
Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had
acquired in Haran.

And they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Hebrews tells
us what happened, Hebrews 11, 8 says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a
place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he
did not know where he was going. " That's faith.

He did it just based on God's Word, nothing else. What took Abraham to this new
land, this promised land? God's call.

That was it. Nothing else. God said, "I want you to go.

Leave your country, your people and your father's household, and go to the land
that I will show you. " Now, God's not through calling. He may not call you to
move to a different land, but God has a call in every one of our lives.

And you never know which one is going to be the one, the hinge point in your
life on which everything else turns. This was true for Abraham here. How about
you?

God is calling in your life. How does it sound when God calls? For Abraham, God
called with an audible voice.

I've never heard God speak in an audible voice. I really don't know anybody who
has. So how does it sound when God calls today?

He usually uses His Word and His people and His church, His body. God calls
through His Word. You're reading the Bible or somebody else is teaching the
Bible, and you have this deep sense of God's direction for your life.

And then He also uses His people. You talk to other people of God about it,
other followers of Jesus Christ. And they say, "I see God's call in that in your
life.

It fits your gifts. It fits the timing. It fits what God wants to do.

" Everybody may not agree. Some people may have their own selfish motivations or
fearful motivations. But you begin to see some agreement.

And He also uses His body, the church. Oftentimes when you're sitting in church
listening to a message, when you're in a congregation, a group of other
believers, God in that moment taps you on the shoulder and you sense that He is
saying something specifically to you. In Abraham's case, it was move from here
to there.

In your case, it could be a thousand things. What is it like when God calls? Let
me tell you five clear qualities of God's call in your life.

And this might help you to see what God is calling in your life right now. It's
person to person. It's clear direction.

It's a powerful command. There's an awesome promise and there's an instant
change. Those five things are all about God's call.

First, it's person to person. You get this sense of a conversation between God
and Abraham. It's not somebody else telling you God's call for your life.

You have this sense that God is talking to you personally. You have this sense
in church as the pastor's talking that He's been reading your mail and somehow
He is saying something that how could He know this? Well, it's not the pastor
who knows it.

It's the Holy Spirit. It's God speaking to you. Have you ever felt like God is
talking just to you?

That's when God is calling. And it may be a seemingly small thing, I need you to
do this this week, it might be a big thing to you. It's going to take great
faith.

It's person to person. When God calls, it's also about clear direction. God says
to Abraham, leave this country, leave this household, go to this land, I'm going
to show you right where it is.

It's not some foggy sentiment. Feel better about life. Feel better about people.

You should feel better about life and people, but that's not what God's call is
all about. It's more like one of those maps you see in a mall where it says you
are here and you see where you want to be and you know exactly the line between
the two. God gives clear direction in His call.

You wait for a clear direction. The third thing in God's call is this sense of
powerful command. God didn't come to Abraham and said, you ever thought about
what it would be like to move somewhere else?

You ever wondered what it would feel like to live in a different land? God
didn't come that way at all. God came and said to Abraham, leave.

Leave your country. It was clear as a bell. God, when He commands in our lives,
commands us because He loves us.

But God, when He commands in our lives, commands us because we need direction.
He knows who we are. And you and I, we could spend the rest of our lives
thinking about how we would feel about something.

What is God's command in your life? What has God commanded you to do that you
haven't yet done? Do that first.

That's where you start. You do that first. It's a powerful command.

But alongside of that powerful command, there's a fourth thing. There's also an
awesome promise. God says, I'm going to send you to this land and I'm going to
make you a blessing in that land.

I worry sometimes about people who seem to hear God's call, but they don't hear
God's promise in it. It's like, oh, I'm going to go and suffer. It's going to be
terrible.

I'm going to do it for God. I'm a martyr for God. As I read through the Bible,
there are difficulties.

There is suffering. There is struggle that goes along with God's call. No doubt
about that.

But there's also promise. And if you don't hear the promise in it, I doubt that
you're hearing from God because God is a God of promise. And when He's sharing
honestly His call in your life, He's going to share the promise that goes along
with that.

And many times it's the very same promise as Abraham got here. Other people are
going to be blessed. I'm going to bless you in order to be a blessing to other
people.

What does God's call sound like? It's person to person. It's clear direction.

It's a powerful command. It's an awesome promise. And there's also an instant
change.

That's our part of it. It's never too late to change. Abraham was 75 years old.

That idea of you can't teach an old dog new tricks, well, we're not a dog and
we're not talking about tricks. We're talking about people. We're talking about
God's call and what He wants to do in our lives.

And when you and I think about what God wants to do, God's call is only
completed when there's that instant change. Now, in your life, maybe God called
25 years ago and the instant change hasn't happened yet, but it still can.
Because the instant change I'm talking about is the change that happens in our
minds when we say yes.

That one word, yes. Abraham said that. By faith, he stepped out.

He went to a strange land, even though he didn't know where he was going.
Sometimes we let our fear of the unknown keep us from doing something great,
becoming someone great. Unless we know all the facts, exactly what we're getting
ourselves into, we don't want to get involved.

We want to sign contract. We want an exact itinerary. The problem is life, have
you noticed this?

Life does not always come with an agenda attached. What is God calling in your
life? What do you do when you sense that God is calling?

How do you make first steps of faith? How do you have the faith to do that? Do
what Abraham did.

You look at the first step instead of the whole journey. You take that. You look
at God instead of looking at yourself, and you move towards him, and you look at
the blessings instead of the struggles, and you recognize the promise of what
God's going to do.

Let's take a second. Let's take a moment to talk to him together. And as we talk
to Jesus, ask him today, Jesus, what is your call in my life?

What have you called me to do that I haven't yet done? I want that instant
change of a yes to happen in my life today. What are you calling me to do that I
haven't taken the time to hear?

Lord, if you want me to stay right where I am, doing right what I'm doing, I'm
happy to do that. But if you're calling me to do something different, give me
the faith to do that. Jesus Christ, what are you calling in my life?

I ask this because I want to live a life of faith. And so I ask this, Jesus, in
your name, give me the faith to respond. I ask this in your name, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to see together that it took faith for Abraham to go to the
promised land. It also takes faith to live in the promised land. Amen.