1. Introduction
There is something that every single one of us does every single day and that is we evaluate our priorities.
We plan a day that ordered by our priorities.
For instance, I was scheduled with my family to work at the 4-H fair earlier this week but, I did not make it because Kirstyn got sick on Monday and Valerie had to take her to the doctor.
Just Friday, I was heading to Kernersville to a book sale when a friend called with a particular need. I detoured for a couple of hours to see if there was some way to help meet that need.
2. Describing the Biblical Text
Our text is from two different parts of the book of Jonah but they show us one thing.
They show us someone who is patently dissatisfied with the calling of God on His life.
God calls Him and he runs.
God uses him and he whines.
Jonah was just an unhappy person who did not want to be inconvenienced by the calling of God.
Jonah was just so pitiful that when God finally got his attention and really used him in power, he was unable to even recognize how significant his ministry was.
3. Narrate the Contextual application
I think we all have a general understanding of the Jonah account.
He was called by God and rand the other way
The storms struck the ship he was on and the crew threw him overboard at his own request.
They then worshiped Jehovah.
Then Jonah was swallowed by the great fish and had a repentant moment in the bell of that fish and prayed a great prayer.
Then voile, the Ipecac syrup kicks in and the fish gets sick and deposits Jonah on the beach.
Then Jonah proceeds to Nineveh and preaches repentance for all his worth and revival break out and the people repent.
As they repent, Jonah leaves town and watches from afa but rather than equipping these new disciples he has made, he forsakes them.
He is now upset that they did repent and that the Lord is choosing to spare them.
Jonah had his own agenda.
Jonah was about Jonah and not about what God wanted.
He was a racist and he was a spoiled brat.
4. Life Application (thesis)
This is why a calling from God requires that the cares of the world lose their luster.
5. SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Let’s take a look at a couple priorities that we need to make sure that we have in place as we come to the crossroads of life and we sense the Lord calling us into His service.
I need to be where God wants me to be.
When we look at Jonah, he is all about being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Arnold Spaugh and I are a different as night and day. I hate to be lost and he just figures he is out to see some new scenery. When I miss an exit on the interstate, I get all over myself. It actually took me a year to figure out new 85 and old 85 south of town. I even missed a church renewal conference because I couldn’t figure out the directions. Bob Allen and I were going to see Glen Pierce at Britthaven and we never found it because of that. Nothing frustrates me more than being lost. You wouldn’t know it by my record, but I hate to be late also. I try to do everything I can to be on time.
Jonah did not.
He just did not want to be where God wanted Him to be.
God said Go to Nineveh which on the map was east of where Jonah was and took a ship headed to Spain.
Jonah is taking ship in the rain
I can see the rudder boards heading for Spain
Oh I can see Jonah waving goodbye.
I think that there are times when we don’t want to be where God wants us to be either.
I know you know what I mean. It is another ten days before payday and a friend calls you and need a couple of hundred dollars to make ends meet. This friend knows that you are Christian and that you try to be a loving and helpful Christian. With all your heart, you want to be somewhere else for the next ten days just so they won’t ask you to help.
Or, you know that the future of your church depends on you and your response to the Holy Spirit. Yet, you have a couple of kids who will soon be in the youth group and you don’t see as vital a youth program as you want to see so you look to other churches even though the Lord may not have told you to.
I think it is interesting that Rick Warren says that the average pastor leaves a church over the grumbling of 6 or less people.
It is so easy to run from God
You never really get away and that is where the difficulty really begins.
God is there wherever you are and he hounds you and he hounds you until you either get back into his will or you just unplug the spiritual phone line.
You can kind of tell when it is happening, when people are feeling that tug. They kind of hang around. They find excuses to show up for special occasions. Then they talk about how wonderful it is at the new place not to convince you but to convince themselves.
That is what Jonah had done. I am going to take off on this cruise and I am going to get some rest and just enjoy myself.
In Spain, I won’t have to see a merciful God do anything because the Tarshishites are not being called by God anyway.
Obviously, Jonah was not going where God wanted Him to go.
Jonah was about to find himself miserable.
Move Forward to 4:5-11.
It is so cool when God teaches a lesson
As we see what God is doing with Jonah, let’s keep this priority in mind.
My contentment is from my obedience, not from results or circumstances.
When we look at those first 4 verses, we see Jonah getting ticked so again he leaves the scene.
But, this time, he has preached and a great revival has taken place.
Chapter 3 tells us that people believed the Lord.
Most of us lament because more people don’t believe but Jonah was just the opposite.
I wan to tell you something.
Jonah was too busy being focused on Jonah.
First of all, He had problems with God’s nature.
People are the same today.
I was listening to a story about a preacher on an airplane who was talking to a woman about God. He asked her what God was like. When she described her opinion of God as she saw it, he told her that she just made herself God. When she seemed confused, he simply explained that as long as we can make God what we want him to be, rather than what the Bible teachs that He is, we are making ourselves God.
That’s what Jonah did.
He wanted God to be vengeful and destructive in His wrath against the Assyrians in Nineveh but God was being merciful to them.
Now days it’s just the opposite.
God is seen as some heavenly Santa Claus who sits around tolerates anything and everything because he is loving.
The only people who don’t identify with Him would be the faithful followers of Christ because they are judgmental.
What else has Jonah done here?
He is whining about his circumstances.
How often do we in the church do that?
All the time.
In Philippians, Paul says that he has learned to be content.
Most people who listen to Christians are leaning how to be malcontents.
We are a bunch of whiney people.
We complain about everything. And argue about even more.
We were at the pool about two weeks ago when a lady just began to caricature a particular strain of evangelical theology and two of us sitting there happen to embrace that set of teachings.
What does that look like?
It looks like followers of Jesus cannot get along.
So what do we need to do?
We need to focus our lives on being obedient to Christ.
We need to focus our lives on serving the God who sent His son to die for us.
If we were as worried about whether or not our lives were giving glory to God as much as we worry about some of the meaningless tripe in our lives and on our minds, we could actually get something done.
I think that it is especially true in church.
We really do haggle and discuss things that have very little if any eternal value as though they were issues of great importance.
Tony Compolo, a sociologist was once telling about a church in New York that split and do you know what issue was?
It was over stained glass windows.
Not that they were too expensive, the issue was that there was going to be a picture of Adam from the creation account in the Bible. Someone raised the question of whether or not Adam should have a belly button on the stained glass.
Now we all know that if he did not have a belly button, his birthday suit would fall off.
Why would a church let something like that split them up?
It is because their eyes are on gourds and vines and stained glass and not on the lost souls that God prepared for their ministry to reach.
Look at verse 9.
God is telling Jonah
Here you are missing a vine that you had nothing do with and you want that I should abandon people that I created.
But we do that all the time.
We spend so much time looking inward that we fail to focus our attention on mission.
The lost world is out there and out there is where we are going to look
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
CROSSroads -- Isaiah 6 -- The CROSSroad of Availability
Introduction
It was about 8:30 at night on July 8.1996. Valerie and I were meeting with a doctor because something sign9ificant was happening. She had started labor. And we were waiting for Kirstyn to be born. But, the labor was starting to puke out a little and we kind of thought it might be a false alarm. The Dr. told us to go home and to grab some supper and before we left he handed us something. It was piece of paper with his home phone number on it. What was that saying to us?
He was saying I am available whenever you need me. Just call.
In our fast paced got to get the kids here and there and then show up for this and be there for that world, it is very difficult to make ourselves available to anyone and to everyone who needs us.
But even more important than that is that we are available to God.
Describing the Biblical Text
We see that availability in this passage and it is summed up in 5 words, 5 one syllable words. Here I am, send me.
This is the calling of the prophet Isaiah. He was a member of Israel’s royal family or had some connection to the royal family and was visiting the temple of God in the year that King Uzziah Died.
But he as an encounter that is really not like anything else in the Bible.
We see God and His attendants in a way that is actually comprehensible to us.
We see the chief attribute of God, holiness, exclaimed by the angels.
We see a cleansing of the mouth of Isaiah with fire.
We see a calling and a sending.
Narrate the Contextual application
Isaiah was willing to do something that very many people would never do and that is to admit and to acknowledge his own sinfulness.
He did not decide that he was too good to be approached by God but he responded, “Woe is me I am undone.”Isaiah was coming unglued and it was by the vision of God’s holiness.
In contrast to God’s holiness, we find ourselves in a cesspool.
We are unholy and impertinent creatures that refuse to admit our fault and our sin.
Yet, we are called much like Isaiah.
We are called to acknowledge our shortcomings in order to rely on God to make us adequate.
Life Application (thesis)
Yet here, Isaiah shows us something more.
He shows us availability to God.
He shows us that God’s call can profoundly impact our lives.
What we see here is this.
A calling from God requires availability to God.
That being the case, we need to look at this passage and see what that means.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
We need to comprehend the work of God in our lives.
In the first place, it is difficult for us to actually comprehend that Gods would want us to have fellowship with Him.
Just look at these angels
Holy Holy Holy they exclaim yet the Bible say that our hearts are wicked above all things.
In the Disney Movie, Oliver and company, there is a little Chihuahua Named Tito who is desperately trying to woo the affections of a very high class French poodle. At first this poodle wants absolutely nothing to do with the little dog but wants to ignore it.
Truth be known, that is really how God should be treating us.
He is perfectly holy and we are not.
We are scarred and stained with Sin.
Yet, God does desire to have fellowship with us as His people but we need to really understand how that is accomplished.
His son Jesus came to accomplish that on our behalf.
The Bible tells us that we are all sinful and gone astray which translates into the idea that we can never be holy enough to come to God on our own merit.
God therefore did something very important.
He transferred to us His merit.
He did that by offering His son Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
This what Peter meant when he wrote that the just died for the unjust.
The righteous replaced the unrighteous.
Jesus replaced us.
Therefore His holiness replaces our unholiness when we come to him.
Isaiah found himself in the presence of a holy God and completely fell apart but who can blame him.
Should not we all fall apart in the presence of the Holy Creator?
Woe is me for I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.
And then what happened?
God cleansed him.
He did the same for us in Jesus Christ.
Do you know Jesus here this morning?
I want to give you that opportunity right now, today.
If you want to know Jesus, his forgiveness, his love and his holiness, call on Him at this moment as we pray together.
Dear Lord I am a person who is unclean but I knowe you can cleanse me. I would like to receive Jesus into my life now for that cleansing. Thank you Lord for saving my sould in Christ and now help me to live for you. Amen
The work of God in our lives is marvelous and it is supernatural and when we comprehend the depth of it we cannot respond any other way than to make our selves available to God.
Another reality that we would consider is this.
We must be faithful with the message.
What if God told us that LABC would never reach anyone and we would never baptize anyone?
But, he told us to stay right here and to continue to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Essentially, that is what he told Isaiah.
It is said that preachers should never make life decisions on Mondays.
There is real truth to that. I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to throw my hands up and say that’s it I quit.
But, there are two things that always come into consideration when that happens.
The prayer, “God, are you done with me here?”
And the question, “Can I continue to take care of my family.”
In all honesty, it does come down to that.
In ministry discouragement does come.
It came to Isaiah here before he ever began.
Listen to the Lord describe Isaiah’s ministry and then listen to the question that he asks.
God told Him it would not be a fruitful ministry so Isaiah as how long?
I think we would all probably ask that question but in God’s answer to that question we find a new and even more exciting reality.
We may not have the message for the masses but we can reach the remnant.
After there is a judgment, there will still be a faithful remnant.
That remnant will continue to hear the word and to react to the covenant of God.
That is what we are being called to reach right now at LABC.
There is a remnant that we must reach in order to see this church reach her future potential.
But, we have to be ready to reach the People that God has called us to reach.
Last year in the spring I was emailing two of our former members about planning and as we shared emails, I shared a statement with them about what I saw the future of LABC to be.
Last October the deacons were discussing something in a meeting and one of the deacons made the statement about our church, the people we have and our facilities. This is what I had prayed for as I had taken this very same vision statement into the meeting only to be shared if the Lord opened the door for it and the door not only opened, it was like a screen door in The Wizard of Oz blowing off the house.
I am going to share some of that statement with you this morning, because I believe that we are at a crossroad.
We are at a place in the life of this church where we can all see that we must move boldly and drastically if we are to see tomorrow as a church.
AWANA could be small part of that or a big part.
What would we do if we as a congregation we had nothing but the buildings we occupy and the people who are here and we were going to start a new church.That is fun to think about
It was about 8:30 at night on July 8.1996. Valerie and I were meeting with a doctor because something sign9ificant was happening. She had started labor. And we were waiting for Kirstyn to be born. But, the labor was starting to puke out a little and we kind of thought it might be a false alarm. The Dr. told us to go home and to grab some supper and before we left he handed us something. It was piece of paper with his home phone number on it. What was that saying to us?
He was saying I am available whenever you need me. Just call.
In our fast paced got to get the kids here and there and then show up for this and be there for that world, it is very difficult to make ourselves available to anyone and to everyone who needs us.
But even more important than that is that we are available to God.
Describing the Biblical Text
We see that availability in this passage and it is summed up in 5 words, 5 one syllable words. Here I am, send me.
This is the calling of the prophet Isaiah. He was a member of Israel’s royal family or had some connection to the royal family and was visiting the temple of God in the year that King Uzziah Died.
But he as an encounter that is really not like anything else in the Bible.
We see God and His attendants in a way that is actually comprehensible to us.
We see the chief attribute of God, holiness, exclaimed by the angels.
We see a cleansing of the mouth of Isaiah with fire.
We see a calling and a sending.
Narrate the Contextual application
Isaiah was willing to do something that very many people would never do and that is to admit and to acknowledge his own sinfulness.
He did not decide that he was too good to be approached by God but he responded, “Woe is me I am undone.”Isaiah was coming unglued and it was by the vision of God’s holiness.
In contrast to God’s holiness, we find ourselves in a cesspool.
We are unholy and impertinent creatures that refuse to admit our fault and our sin.
Yet, we are called much like Isaiah.
We are called to acknowledge our shortcomings in order to rely on God to make us adequate.
Life Application (thesis)
Yet here, Isaiah shows us something more.
He shows us availability to God.
He shows us that God’s call can profoundly impact our lives.
What we see here is this.
A calling from God requires availability to God.
That being the case, we need to look at this passage and see what that means.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
We need to comprehend the work of God in our lives.
In the first place, it is difficult for us to actually comprehend that Gods would want us to have fellowship with Him.
Just look at these angels
Holy Holy Holy they exclaim yet the Bible say that our hearts are wicked above all things.
In the Disney Movie, Oliver and company, there is a little Chihuahua Named Tito who is desperately trying to woo the affections of a very high class French poodle. At first this poodle wants absolutely nothing to do with the little dog but wants to ignore it.
Truth be known, that is really how God should be treating us.
He is perfectly holy and we are not.
We are scarred and stained with Sin.
Yet, God does desire to have fellowship with us as His people but we need to really understand how that is accomplished.
His son Jesus came to accomplish that on our behalf.
The Bible tells us that we are all sinful and gone astray which translates into the idea that we can never be holy enough to come to God on our own merit.
God therefore did something very important.
He transferred to us His merit.
He did that by offering His son Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
This what Peter meant when he wrote that the just died for the unjust.
The righteous replaced the unrighteous.
Jesus replaced us.
Therefore His holiness replaces our unholiness when we come to him.
Isaiah found himself in the presence of a holy God and completely fell apart but who can blame him.
Should not we all fall apart in the presence of the Holy Creator?
Woe is me for I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.
And then what happened?
God cleansed him.
He did the same for us in Jesus Christ.
Do you know Jesus here this morning?
I want to give you that opportunity right now, today.
If you want to know Jesus, his forgiveness, his love and his holiness, call on Him at this moment as we pray together.
Dear Lord I am a person who is unclean but I knowe you can cleanse me. I would like to receive Jesus into my life now for that cleansing. Thank you Lord for saving my sould in Christ and now help me to live for you. Amen
The work of God in our lives is marvelous and it is supernatural and when we comprehend the depth of it we cannot respond any other way than to make our selves available to God.
Another reality that we would consider is this.
We must be faithful with the message.
What if God told us that LABC would never reach anyone and we would never baptize anyone?
But, he told us to stay right here and to continue to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Essentially, that is what he told Isaiah.
It is said that preachers should never make life decisions on Mondays.
There is real truth to that. I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to throw my hands up and say that’s it I quit.
But, there are two things that always come into consideration when that happens.
The prayer, “God, are you done with me here?”
And the question, “Can I continue to take care of my family.”
In all honesty, it does come down to that.
In ministry discouragement does come.
It came to Isaiah here before he ever began.
Listen to the Lord describe Isaiah’s ministry and then listen to the question that he asks.
God told Him it would not be a fruitful ministry so Isaiah as how long?
I think we would all probably ask that question but in God’s answer to that question we find a new and even more exciting reality.
We may not have the message for the masses but we can reach the remnant.
After there is a judgment, there will still be a faithful remnant.
That remnant will continue to hear the word and to react to the covenant of God.
That is what we are being called to reach right now at LABC.
There is a remnant that we must reach in order to see this church reach her future potential.
But, we have to be ready to reach the People that God has called us to reach.
Last year in the spring I was emailing two of our former members about planning and as we shared emails, I shared a statement with them about what I saw the future of LABC to be.
Last October the deacons were discussing something in a meeting and one of the deacons made the statement about our church, the people we have and our facilities. This is what I had prayed for as I had taken this very same vision statement into the meeting only to be shared if the Lord opened the door for it and the door not only opened, it was like a screen door in The Wizard of Oz blowing off the house.
I am going to share some of that statement with you this morning, because I believe that we are at a crossroad.
We are at a place in the life of this church where we can all see that we must move boldly and drastically if we are to see tomorrow as a church.
AWANA could be small part of that or a big part.
What would we do if we as a congregation we had nothing but the buildings we occupy and the people who are here and we were going to start a new church.That is fun to think about
Monday, September 03, 2007
CROSSroads -- The Crossroad of Obedience -- Genesis 12:1-8
Introduction
Family plans sometimes just don’t work out do they? We have all had plans go awry. There was a guy who had a date with a girl that he wanted it to be kind of special. Well, the date was anything but special. He had a terrible meal and just had a terrible time. And to end things, they had gotten milkshakes and wouldn’t you know that the lid on his was not on correctly and it fell open and spilled all over her dress. It was a terrible date and the night though not special was certainly memorable. I believe that God used that to help that relationship fall apart for something better that he had planned.
Describing the Biblical Text
Abram’s life at this point was probably just as memorable with his family’s plans changing.
We are finding Abram in Haran with his family and they are settled pretty comfortably there.
It is one of those situations where they have been there a while and they are settled in and going through the normal things of life.
For instance, while in Haran, Abram’s dad passes away.
Narrate the Contextual application
So, the family is just kid of sitting around minding their own business and all of a sudden, they hear form God.
Well, they don’t but Abe does.
He hears God tell Him to do something that is slightly out of the ordinary, like it was an everyday thing to hear from God.
Abram is at a crossroad in His life.
God is calling him and he is having to look both back and ahead to see if this is a calling that He wants to accept.
Life Application (thesis)
Has there been a time in our lives when we have heard from God?
Has there been a time in our lives that we have had to examine everything and then determine that we are going to follow Him and do His will no matter what it might take or where it might take us.
There is something here that is so important that if we miss it, the meaning of this passage will be lost to us.
A calling from God requires a surrender to God.
That is a big statement because surrender always means that you have lost a battle or a war.
So why do we surrender?
We surrender because any other response to God is making ourselves arrogant and disobedient thinking more of ourselves that we should.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Surrender to God certainly requires something from our lives doesn’t it?
Actually, it requires everything.
We really cannot keep anything back and legitimately claim to be surrendered.
This is why I cannot let my life get in the way of hearing God.
Life can really take some curves and twists.
I will never forget Palm Sunday 2006. I was talking to someone in the FLC following our early service that day when I saw Randy Robinson bolt out the door and down the sidewalk. What I did not realize was that Valerie had fallen on the sidewalk between the buildings and had broken her knee. That event changed our lives. She had to wear a cast for several weeks, she could not drive a car, deliver the kids to any of our practices. As you can imagine, it disrupted our live tremendously.
This word from God was something more to Abe than just a disruption
It was in fact a calling but it was very much more than that as well.
There is a passage in the book of Joshua that rolls us back to this very day in a sense.
Listen to the words of Joshua as he calls the people into obedience.
Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.
It is interesting to note that even though Abram was a descendant of Shem, he had apparently inherited as heritage of paganism and polytheism.
So what really happened at Haran when God visited Abram and called him to Canaan?
This is where Abe was converted.
This is when he believed and his measure of faith was received and he followed Jehovah God.
How many times have we heard someone tell us that they have been called into some ministry or they felt God leading them to do something significant for Him?
What we need to see is that this in a very real sense is a conversion experience.
It may not be when they first follow Christ but at this point, they are being instructed by God to essentially cancel the rest of their lives regarding the plans and the reservations they have made and simply let the Lord start leading the way.
Verse 1 so clearly says, “To the land that I will show you.”
My life cannot get in the way of my following the Lord
If it does, then am I really following?
Am I really letting Him lead the way?
It’s like Spiritual ADD; God calls us and he tells us what we need to do and we respond to Him in a series of distractions.
It is like one of us men when the wife asks us to vacuum. All of a sudden the nails on the deck steps need to be resunk, the car needs washer fluid, it’s time to return that screwdriver to the neighbor that you borrowed last year.
Well, God, I have sort of planned this career thing and a marriage and I was hoping to put a couple of kids in college.
None of that is bad stuff but it is stuff that will get in the way of truly hearing God if we let it.
I can’t let my life get in the way of hearing God, because, surrender means trusting God even when I don’t know where I am going.
Blind faith is a hard thing.
Stepping out on faith is very difficult to do.
When we think about when a church calls a pastor. There are some things that you can know about him before he comes but the future of His leadership is really a mystery. Most people don’t like that so there are all kinds of checks and balances in churches to keep a pastor from leading in an unpopular direction. There are boards, committees, business meetings and other less formal entities.
It is like when we give a large sum of money to a cause. We don’t just Willy-nilly give money. We discuss it and pray about it and make sure it is what we are supposed to do.
We take a logical approach.
But, what about when we step out on faith?
Can we logically step out on faith?
I don’t think so.
If we can see it, if we can figure it out, it is not faith and neither is it following the call of God in our lives.
Look at verse 4
So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
No meetings, no discussions, they just picked up and went.
Now what is ironic is that God finishes the journey that they started before.
Back your eyes up to the last verse of chapter 11. They were headed to Canaan. According to Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, God visited Abe before to instruct Him to Go to Canaan.
But, here is where he got self out of the way and obeyed.
Why stop in Haran on the way?
Why there? There was family there.
Move your eye up one more verse.
There is Haran, the father of Lot who was born and died in Ur.
That is the land of his kinsmen but Haran left a legacy far away from where he died and that is where Terah and Abe stopped on their journey to Canaan.
Maybe they were just going to drop Lot off in Haran.
They are in the land now of Lot’s inheritance.
Can you imagine how much harder that made it to leave Haran?
But when Abe left Haran, something was clear to Him.
Trusting God means believing that God is doing His best for us.
There is no other way to follow Him.
If we think that God might not do what is best for us, then we are going to look to whom to do it better?
We will look to ourselves.
That would and does make us most pathetic as we claim to be the people of God.
So we cannot let our lives keep us fro hearing God.
Surrender means trusting God when I don’t know where I am going.
Here is something else we need to think about.
My surrender today bears on my life tomorrow.
Really and truly, there is not a lot in life that does not come to bear on our tomorrows.
If we buy a car today, we are agreeing to make payments for the next 4 years.
If you have a baby, you are committing your life to raising the child for the nest 18-20 years.
But, what about when you surrender to the call of God.
There are eternal consequences involved.
Abram’s name was changed to Abraham.
He fathered Isaac who fathered Jacob who fathered Judah whose line led to Jesus.
We might be thinking that God won’t do anything that significant in my life.
Really?
I have never pastored a mega church but under my ministry, 5 men have been called to the ministry and one has been called to the mission field.
As far as we know, all of us have lives with several tomorrows left.
But those tomorrows depend on what we do today.
They depend on our willingness to be obedient to leave Haran and to go to Canaan.
Living for Christ, following Christ mans that we are stepping out in faith everyday as we seek to obey him and we serve Him.
If we are walking by sight, we are not surrendered and if we are not surrendered, we are not serving and if we are not serving it is very possible that we are not saved.
Are you feeling that call today?
Is there that sense that God wants you to step out and to follow Him in faith without looking back to Ur or Haran?
Maybe you are hearing his voice for the first time today saying come unto me you who are tired and carrying that heavy load and I will give perfect rest.
You can come to Jesus Christ this morning and you can surrender your life to following him today.
Family plans sometimes just don’t work out do they? We have all had plans go awry. There was a guy who had a date with a girl that he wanted it to be kind of special. Well, the date was anything but special. He had a terrible meal and just had a terrible time. And to end things, they had gotten milkshakes and wouldn’t you know that the lid on his was not on correctly and it fell open and spilled all over her dress. It was a terrible date and the night though not special was certainly memorable. I believe that God used that to help that relationship fall apart for something better that he had planned.
Describing the Biblical Text
Abram’s life at this point was probably just as memorable with his family’s plans changing.
We are finding Abram in Haran with his family and they are settled pretty comfortably there.
It is one of those situations where they have been there a while and they are settled in and going through the normal things of life.
For instance, while in Haran, Abram’s dad passes away.
Narrate the Contextual application
So, the family is just kid of sitting around minding their own business and all of a sudden, they hear form God.
Well, they don’t but Abe does.
He hears God tell Him to do something that is slightly out of the ordinary, like it was an everyday thing to hear from God.
Abram is at a crossroad in His life.
God is calling him and he is having to look both back and ahead to see if this is a calling that He wants to accept.
Life Application (thesis)
Has there been a time in our lives when we have heard from God?
Has there been a time in our lives that we have had to examine everything and then determine that we are going to follow Him and do His will no matter what it might take or where it might take us.
There is something here that is so important that if we miss it, the meaning of this passage will be lost to us.
A calling from God requires a surrender to God.
That is a big statement because surrender always means that you have lost a battle or a war.
So why do we surrender?
We surrender because any other response to God is making ourselves arrogant and disobedient thinking more of ourselves that we should.
SO WHAT!! (Outline)
Surrender to God certainly requires something from our lives doesn’t it?
Actually, it requires everything.
We really cannot keep anything back and legitimately claim to be surrendered.
This is why I cannot let my life get in the way of hearing God.
Life can really take some curves and twists.
I will never forget Palm Sunday 2006. I was talking to someone in the FLC following our early service that day when I saw Randy Robinson bolt out the door and down the sidewalk. What I did not realize was that Valerie had fallen on the sidewalk between the buildings and had broken her knee. That event changed our lives. She had to wear a cast for several weeks, she could not drive a car, deliver the kids to any of our practices. As you can imagine, it disrupted our live tremendously.
This word from God was something more to Abe than just a disruption
It was in fact a calling but it was very much more than that as well.
There is a passage in the book of Joshua that rolls us back to this very day in a sense.
Listen to the words of Joshua as he calls the people into obedience.
Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.
It is interesting to note that even though Abram was a descendant of Shem, he had apparently inherited as heritage of paganism and polytheism.
So what really happened at Haran when God visited Abram and called him to Canaan?
This is where Abe was converted.
This is when he believed and his measure of faith was received and he followed Jehovah God.
How many times have we heard someone tell us that they have been called into some ministry or they felt God leading them to do something significant for Him?
What we need to see is that this in a very real sense is a conversion experience.
It may not be when they first follow Christ but at this point, they are being instructed by God to essentially cancel the rest of their lives regarding the plans and the reservations they have made and simply let the Lord start leading the way.
Verse 1 so clearly says, “To the land that I will show you.”
My life cannot get in the way of my following the Lord
If it does, then am I really following?
Am I really letting Him lead the way?
It’s like Spiritual ADD; God calls us and he tells us what we need to do and we respond to Him in a series of distractions.
It is like one of us men when the wife asks us to vacuum. All of a sudden the nails on the deck steps need to be resunk, the car needs washer fluid, it’s time to return that screwdriver to the neighbor that you borrowed last year.
Well, God, I have sort of planned this career thing and a marriage and I was hoping to put a couple of kids in college.
None of that is bad stuff but it is stuff that will get in the way of truly hearing God if we let it.
I can’t let my life get in the way of hearing God, because, surrender means trusting God even when I don’t know where I am going.
Blind faith is a hard thing.
Stepping out on faith is very difficult to do.
When we think about when a church calls a pastor. There are some things that you can know about him before he comes but the future of His leadership is really a mystery. Most people don’t like that so there are all kinds of checks and balances in churches to keep a pastor from leading in an unpopular direction. There are boards, committees, business meetings and other less formal entities.
It is like when we give a large sum of money to a cause. We don’t just Willy-nilly give money. We discuss it and pray about it and make sure it is what we are supposed to do.
We take a logical approach.
But, what about when we step out on faith?
Can we logically step out on faith?
I don’t think so.
If we can see it, if we can figure it out, it is not faith and neither is it following the call of God in our lives.
Look at verse 4
So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
No meetings, no discussions, they just picked up and went.
Now what is ironic is that God finishes the journey that they started before.
Back your eyes up to the last verse of chapter 11. They were headed to Canaan. According to Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, God visited Abe before to instruct Him to Go to Canaan.
But, here is where he got self out of the way and obeyed.
Why stop in Haran on the way?
Why there? There was family there.
Move your eye up one more verse.
There is Haran, the father of Lot who was born and died in Ur.
That is the land of his kinsmen but Haran left a legacy far away from where he died and that is where Terah and Abe stopped on their journey to Canaan.
Maybe they were just going to drop Lot off in Haran.
They are in the land now of Lot’s inheritance.
Can you imagine how much harder that made it to leave Haran?
But when Abe left Haran, something was clear to Him.
Trusting God means believing that God is doing His best for us.
There is no other way to follow Him.
If we think that God might not do what is best for us, then we are going to look to whom to do it better?
We will look to ourselves.
That would and does make us most pathetic as we claim to be the people of God.
So we cannot let our lives keep us fro hearing God.
Surrender means trusting God when I don’t know where I am going.
Here is something else we need to think about.
My surrender today bears on my life tomorrow.
Really and truly, there is not a lot in life that does not come to bear on our tomorrows.
If we buy a car today, we are agreeing to make payments for the next 4 years.
If you have a baby, you are committing your life to raising the child for the nest 18-20 years.
But, what about when you surrender to the call of God.
There are eternal consequences involved.
Abram’s name was changed to Abraham.
He fathered Isaac who fathered Jacob who fathered Judah whose line led to Jesus.
We might be thinking that God won’t do anything that significant in my life.
Really?
I have never pastored a mega church but under my ministry, 5 men have been called to the ministry and one has been called to the mission field.
As far as we know, all of us have lives with several tomorrows left.
But those tomorrows depend on what we do today.
They depend on our willingness to be obedient to leave Haran and to go to Canaan.
Living for Christ, following Christ mans that we are stepping out in faith everyday as we seek to obey him and we serve Him.
If we are walking by sight, we are not surrendered and if we are not surrendered, we are not serving and if we are not serving it is very possible that we are not saved.
Are you feeling that call today?
Is there that sense that God wants you to step out and to follow Him in faith without looking back to Ur or Haran?
Maybe you are hearing his voice for the first time today saying come unto me you who are tired and carrying that heavy load and I will give perfect rest.
You can come to Jesus Christ this morning and you can surrender your life to following him today.
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