Passage: Genesis 12; 15; 17; 22

The Big Idea

Abraham had no spiritual résumé. He grew up among idol worshipers and was seventy-five years old when God called him. God didn’t choose him because he was ready; He chose him so He could make him ready. Over twenty-five years of waiting, God took Abraham through challenges that exposed where his trust really was: his weakness, his doubts, and a call to believe more than he did. Abraham’s life is the story of what grace does with a person who finally stops trying to help it along. And the mountain where his faith was tested is named for God’s provision, not Abraham’s obedience.

No Spiritual Résumé

Abraham grew up in Ur, a city of idol worship (Joshua 24:2). Jewish tradition even says his father made idols.

He had no spiritual résumé.
No church background.
No reason to expect the living God to show up.
He was seventy-five years old and had accomplished nothing that pointed to what God was about to make of him.

Then God spoke. His Word came. A call. (Remember when phones actually rang?)

And with the call came grace. Not because Abraham earned it, but because God chose him.

The call of Abraham is the first great act of sovereign grace in the story of God’s people. God doesn’t explain why He chose Abraham. He simply does. And the rest of Abraham’s life is the story of what grace does with a person who eventually stops trying to help it along.

That’s right. Grace is strong all by itself. There’s nothing we can do to assist grace, earn grace, or deserve grace.

Did God choose me the way He chose Abraham?

1. God’s Call Comes Before Our Qualifications (Genesis 12:1-3)

God told Abram to leave his country, his relatives and his father’s household and go to a land He would show him. God promised to make him a great nation, to bless him and make his name great, and to make him a blessing, so that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Abraham wasn’t called because he was ready. He was called so that God could make him ready.
That’s always the order.
The grace that saves us is the same grace that equips us.
We don’t become qualified and then receive the call. We receive the call, and then discover, slowly and imperfectly, that the One who called us is faithful to complete it.

Paul says we can be confident that He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

Our confidence rests in one place: Jesus. Exclusively.
We’ll go through many trials and many demonstrations of grace that purify that confidence.
Because when we start out, our confidence is always partly in ourselves: our religious ability, our efforts, our faithfulness.
God will strip all that away over time. That’s for sure.
Until we’re completely sure that God alone started it, and He will take responsibility for our lives. He’ll help us in every way we need. He’ll live through us completely and powerfully!
That’s the promise of the call. The call isn’t to be a slave, but a son, sharing His life!

2. God’s Promises Are Real Before They’re Visible (Genesis 15-21)

For twenty-five years Abraham waited for the son God promised.

He had faith, but it wasn’t always in God! God had to take him through some real challenges to reveal what he was actually trusting.

Challenge 1: You are weak

Your body can’t do it. You don’t have the energy, life or ability to do what God said must be done.

But weakness is no problem for God.

So Abraham tried to help (Genesis 16).

When it looked like God wasn’t going to keep His word, Abraham looked to his own flesh to make it happen.
What a disaster. He really messed up.
He and Sarah came up with a plan to have a child by human means instead of waiting and trusting the Lord.
That produced Ishmael. Even though Ishmael came from Abraham’s body, he was born to a slave woman, and Paul uses him as a picture of life by the flesh, in slavery, rather than by promise, in freedom (Galatians 4:22-31).

Will you trust in the flesh?

Challenge 2: You will doubt

When you don’t see God’s promises fulfilled right away, you’ll start to doubt. “Did I hear God right? Did I do something wrong? Did I disqualify myself from the promise?”

Abraham doubted (Genesis 15).

God came to him in a vision and told him not to be afraid: God Himself was his shield and his great reward. But Abram asked what good any reward would be, since he was still childless and his servant Eliezer would inherit everything. God told him that his heir would come from his own body. Then He took him outside, told him to look at the stars and count them if he could, and promised that his descendants would be just as many (Genesis 15:1-5).

How did God deal with Abraham’s doubt?

He reminded him of the promise, the Word!
Then He made a covenant with Abraham, but with a surprising twist: He didn’t let Abraham participate. He put Abraham into a deep sleep, and God alone passed between the pieces of the sacrifice, binding Himself to keep the covenant (Genesis 15:12-18).
God wants us to rest in His faithfulness to us!

When you doubt, and you will, remember that God calls you to rest in His covenant, not in your religion and not in your circumstances.

Weak people are good at resting.

Challenge 3: You’ll be asked to believe more than you do now

Abraham laughed (Genesis 17).

God came again to remind Abraham that the promise was still coming, even though Ishmael was already thirteen.

Abraham fell on his face and laughed, thinking, “A baby for a man of a hundred? And Sarah, at ninety?” He asked God to let Ishmael be the one to receive His blessing. But God said no: Sarah herself would bear him a son, he would name him Isaac, and God would establish His everlasting covenant with Isaac and his descendants (Genesis 17:17-19).

We’re called to believe, and to keep believing.
We’re born again by trusting Jesus, and we grow to trust Him more and more.
And yes, we’ll be challenged to believe more!
“There’s no way God would ask me to trust Him that much!”
It seems unreasonable. Crazy. Impossible.
Full faith is all those things.
Are you ready to believe more than you do right now? Are you ready to be shown where you don’t yet trust the Lord?

Abraham went through all these challenges, and each time his faith grew, not always through success.

And God kept the promise anyway, at the time He had set, in a way Abraham could never have produced (Genesis 21:1-2).

God’s promises don’t depend on our ability to hold them together. They depend on His.

How much do you trust Him?

3. The Deepest Test Is Trust, Not Work (Genesis 22)

God tested Abraham. He told him to take his son, his only son Isaac whom he loved, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering. Abraham got up early, saddled his donkey, took Isaac and two servants, cut the wood, and set out. On the third day he saw the place in the distance and told the servants to wait: he and the boy would go worship, and we will come back to you.

Abraham laid the wood on Isaac, and he carried the fire and the knife. Isaac said, “My father, here’s the fire and the wood, but where’s the lamb for the offering?” Abraham answered, “God will provide for Himself the lamb, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.

At the place, Abraham built the altar, bound Isaac and laid him on the wood, and reached for the knife. But the Angel of the LORD called from heaven and stopped him: don’t harm the boy. Now it was clear that Abraham feared God, because he hadn’t held back his only son. Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket, and he offered it in place of his son. He named the place “The LORD Will Provide” (Genesis 22:1-14).

The offering of Isaac is the high point of Abraham’s faith. God asked for the thing Abraham loved most, the very gift the promise had given him. And Abraham obeyed, with one sentence that holds the whole gospel: God will provide for Himself the lamb. He wasn’t managing the outcome. He was trusting the God who had never failed him.

That’s faith.

Hebrews says that by faith Abraham, when tested, offered up Isaac, reasoning that God could even raise him from the dead, and in a sense, he did receive him back from death (Hebrews 11:17-19).

God called Abraham to follow Him and trust Him, not merely to serve Him.
So let me ask you: Why are you here?
Do you serve the Lord because you have to, or because you trust Him?
Do you spend time with Him in loving fellowship, or do you just focus on what you need to do?

Jehovah-Jireh

Notice: the mountain is named for God’s provision, not Abraham’s obedience. Jehovah-Jireh: the LORD will provide.

That’s the name God gets. Not “the mountain of Abraham’s faithfulness” or “the mountain where a man passed the test.” God’s provision, every time.

And two thousand years later, on that same range of hills, God did provide the Lamb, His own Son, and this time no substitute stepped in to spare Him (John 1:29; Romans 8:32).

That’s your testimony too.

For Pastors in Hard Places

You didn’t choose your assignment. God called you to it: the village, the city, the unreached people, the congregation that has nothing. Abraham was asked to leave everything familiar and go to a place God would show him. He went without knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). That’s pastoral ministry in hard places. The address arrives one step at a time.

But the God who gives each step has already prepared what comes next.

Our first calling isn’t to serve God. It’s to know Him, love Him and follow Him. Serving will be the natural fruit.

For Discussion

When did God first call you? What were your “qualifications” at the time?
Where are you currently waiting on a promise God has given you? What does Abraham’s twenty-five-year wait say to you in that waiting?
What is the “Isaac” in your life, the thing you love most that God may be asking you to hold more loosely?

Grace Takeaway

God called a seventy-five-year-old former idol worshiper with nothing to offer, and spent twenty-five years teaching him to stop helping and start trusting. He’ll do the same with you. Your weakness, your doubts and your small faith don’t disqualify you; they’re the very places God shows His faithfulness. On the mountain, God provided the lamb. He still does. Rest in His covenant, and let the LORD who provides finish what He started.

← Rest in Jesus | All Topical Messages notes | Isaac: The Grace That Works Despite Us →

Abraham: The Grace That Calls the Unqualified