What does it mean to be a friend of God?

In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham out of a pagan land with a staggering set of promises. Dr. Toby Holt opens the life of the man the Bible calls "the friend of God." Abraham came from Ur, steeped in idol worship, yet God chose him — not for his merit but by grace. God told him to leave his country and family for a land he had never seen, and he obeyed. God promised to make him a great nation and to bless all the families of the earth through him — fulfilled in Christ.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why did God choose Abraham? Not for his goodness — he came from a family of idol-worshipers. God chose him by His own sovereign grace.

2. What did God promise Abraham? To make him a great nation, to bless him, and to bless all the families of the earth through him. That last promise points to Christ.

3. Who are the true children of Abraham? Those who share his faith, not merely his bloodline. All who trust God as Abraham did are counted his children. "I will bless those who bless you… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." — Genesis 12:3 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

In Genesis 12, God made a series of incredible promises to a man named Abraham.

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However, God also told Abraham that he must leave his homeland and father's house behind.

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In other words, God told Abraham to leave his home and trust in him for all of his future needs,

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a trust that would soon be validated.

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Join us as we consider the faith of Abraham as well as the faithfulness of God.

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In today's text, we see the start, the start of Abraham's story, the start of the narrative of

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this great and important man. Now with that said, how old was this guy? How old is Abraham when we

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meet him here? How old? 75. We just read it in the text. So what was he doing in the years before

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that? We meet him, he's a 75-year-old man. He's an older man. At least he's older than I am. He's

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an older man, younger than some. With that said, what was he doing? Across all these decades,

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what was Abraham doing? Was he a good man? Was he a religious man? Was he a rich man? Did he

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have a lot of friends? Well, we don't know a whole lot, but we do know some things. First of all,

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we know this. Abraham was born and raised in a place called Ur of the Chaldees. This is in

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Mesopotamia. If you were to look at a modern map, it's actually Iraq is roughly where Abraham had

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come from. Now, Joshua 24 says that Abraham's family, the family he grew up with, including

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his father, Terah, who just died at the very end of chapter 11. Abraham's family was into idol

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worship. Joshua 24 says, long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates and Terah, the father

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of Abraham and of Nahor, and they served other gods. So Abraham, we know he came from a pagan

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setting and a pagan community. Well, that said, why this guy? So God's looking down at the nations.

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He's looking down at the whole globe and he says, all right, going to pick one to start this covenant

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community with, this one nation. Why Abraham? What about Abraham stood out that God said,

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oh, clearly it's got to be that guy? Well, scripture, as we're going to see here in Genesis

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12 verse 1, it gives us no reason whatsoever to comprehend why God chose Abraham. It doesn't

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build up his character. You know, if you read a book, whatever book you read, generally speaking,

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before you figure out what the protagonist is called to do, you learn about the protagonist's

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character. You learn why he's so important to the story. Well, here, God doesn't tell us. God doesn't

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give us a single reason why he picked Abraham. And for what it's worth, that's the way God routinely

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works. God doesn't choose people because they're already great. God doesn't choose people because

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they've earned his choosing. God doesn't choose people because they merit the choice. God chooses

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people for his own good purposes. And sometimes he picks the last people, you would ever guess.

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If you think of David, the little shepherd boy, even his own father, Jesse, didn't even think of

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him when he ran all the other sons before Samuel. Even his own father didn't think he would possibly

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be a choice. How about Saul in the New Testament? Saul was what? Saul was a Roman. Saul was a

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Pharisee. How in the world, why in the world would God have chosen that guy to write the bulk of the

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New Testament, to be this great apostle to the Gentiles? Well, we don't know. I don't know why

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he picked Saul of Tarsus. I don't know why he picked David. I don't know why he picked Abraham.

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I don't know why he picked you and I.

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No clue.

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But I know this much, it's not because we earned it.

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And that's the case here.

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Abraham's going to be introduced with no fanfare whatsoever.

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God's simply going to say, you, you're the one.

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Out of my volitional will, I have chosen you.

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So let's see this choice, and then we're going to see Abraham's response.

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Let's look at verse 1, and again, we'll work our way through as time will allow this morning.

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Verse 1.

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Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family, from your father's

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house to a land that I will show you. If someone was to ask where you live, let's say you're in an

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airport or some setting. Someone says, where are you from? Where do you live? What would you answer?

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What would you say? Well, many of us would say, well, I'm from Gulfport, good sir. I'm from Gulfport.

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Or we might say, I'm from Mississippi, if we were somewhere in another state. Or if we're in another

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country, we might say America. And all those answers might be correct. With that said, I'll

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give you another place you live that we seldom think about, that we seldom name, that we seldom

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even consider to ourselves. We live out our lives in a place that, for our purposes, we'll call

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the comfort zone. You know who Rand McNally is? Before MapQuest, there was Rand McNally. So Rand

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McNally, he had all these maps and atlases and globes. If you find a globe somewhere and you

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look at it, there's a real good chance it says Rand McNally's globe. Now, if Rand McNally was

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to make a map, a map that took your physical plane, your physical location, and your spiritual plane,

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he might identify it with Goldport, Mississippi, and the United States, but he also might identify

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it as a comfort zone because we live the bulk of our lives right there. And so did, so did some of

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great heroes in Scripture until God came calling. Think about, let's do this for a moment with a

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few examples. Think about Jonah. We don't know a lot about him, but we know this much. He was a

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reluctant prophet. God comes to Jonah. God says, Jonah, I'm sending you. Why you? Again, we don't

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know. God chooses Jonah. Even Jonah didn't know why God chose Jonah. But God chose Jonah to go

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to Nineveh to bring a message of repentance. Jonah doesn't like any part of that. Why? Because God

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was taking him out of his comfort zone. Not only taking him out of his comfort zone, but sending

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him somewhere dangerous. God takes him out of his comfort zone and sends him to the last place he

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wants to go. And it's not the last time this will happen in scripture. You think of Moses. Now Moses

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can't have loved tending his father-in-law's sheep in Midian for all those years, but he definitely

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wasn't excited when God came to him and said, go back to Pharaoh's house. Go to Egypt. Go and tell

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him to let my people go. If you remember, Moses was like, there's got to be someone else who could

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accomplish these things. You have Israel. After God takes them out of Pharaoh's house, after they

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pass the Red Sea, they go where? Well, they go into the wilderness. God took his people, his covenant

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people, and he put them in the wilderness. And if you remember the reaction to that, they got like a

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day into that journey, and they're like, man, alive. It's hot out here, and there's bugs, and I'm getting

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hungry and where's the food and Moses brought us out here to die and then they sat here and said

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no good golly if only we could go back we go back to Egypt you know where the milk and the honey and

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the cantaloupes and all this stuff was I mean of course we were oppressed and we were slaves and

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that part was bad but the cantaloupe and the milk and the honey and all that stuff was good see what

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had happened is they had cried out to God let us go we need to be relieved we need to be taken out

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of Egypt and then when they were taken out they weren't just taken out of Egypt they were taken

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out of their comfort zone, and so they cried out about that. We're oftentimes far more desirous to

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live in our comfort zone than any other spot on the globe, as long as we can be comfortable

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where we're at. But if God loves you, most often he'll take you out. He'll move you somewhere else.

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Sometimes it'll be into an entirely different geographical location. Sometimes it'll just be

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a choice. Jesus stands in the water, calls Peter to come out onto the waves. Jesus talks to the

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rich man. He says, leave your wealth behind. Come and follow me. Sometimes it's not necessarily

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about going to another geographic location. Sometimes God calls us out of our comfort zone

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of something we've shrouded ourselves in. It's our finances. It's our vocation. Goodness knows

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what it might be. Whatever the case is, we see it here. You have this guy. You have Abraham.

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And God comes to Abraham and says, get out. What a fascinating two words to start the

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engagement with. He says, Abram, get out. Get out. Get out of your country, from your family,

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from your father's house to a land that I will show you. Leave behind the known. Leave behind

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the comfort zone to a place I'm not even going to tell you about right now. You just have to trust

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me. You just have to trust me. With that said, the suggestion of verse one is that wherever Abram was

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going to be going is better than what he left. See, if God comes to you and calls you out of

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whatever it is, maybe it's a lifestyle choice, maybe it's a sin issue, maybe it is a location,

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vocation, what have you. If God, through the conviction of the Spirit and His Word and the

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like, convicts your heart that you are called out of whatever it is that you're in, the good news is

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this. It may be hard to leave what you've been doing and where you're at, but wherever He's

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taking, wherever he's leading, wherever he's nudging you is infinitely better than if you stay

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right there. At the time when we're there, again, this is our comfort zone. I don't want to go. I

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don't want to go. But wherever God's leading us, even if he doesn't identify it to you right now,

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we'll be better. So often we want God, if you show me the optimal path and show me how it'll

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turn out, if I take this left turn at Albuquerque, if I take this job, if I do XYZ, show me how it'll

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work out, you know, tell me what's going to happen, and then I'll have the confidence to do it. That's

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simply not the way that God works. So the rich man was, follow me. To Abraham, it's get out.

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And Abraham did. We're going to see in our next verses that he's going to do that

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immediately. Let's take a look at them now. Let's look at verses two and three. Verse two,

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I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be

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a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you, and I'll curse him who curses you, and you,

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all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So in these verses, in these verses, God has told

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Abraham to get out, but then he gives him a series of blessings. We're going to see in verse 4 that

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Abraham's going to depart like that, but in verses 2 and 3, God says, here are some of the tangible

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benefits that will come from your choice. Now, he still didn't know the specifics. Most of us know

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the tangible benefits that God has told you. If you give up sin, you live righteously. We can look

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in the book and we can find in broad strokes how our life will be better and we'll be blessed as a

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result but we don't know the specifics but we do know the specific things we enjoy about our

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sinfulness or our comfort zone or what have you which makes it harder to give up with that said

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he gives promises they are in the abstract but nevertheless they're promises now these promises

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principally involve taking abraham and setting him aside from all the other nations and then

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then bringing up a nation through him that will ultimately then bless the entirety of the globe

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around us. You know, there's a lot of people on this earth. I think I googled it like three months

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ago. I want to say 2.7 billion. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Whatever the case

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is, it's a lot. If there's a B involved, billion, it's a lot of people. There's a lot of people on

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this earth, and they're all made in God's image, even the ones you don't like, even the people you

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don't care for are made in God's image. With that said, not all of them are God's children,

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and there's a difference. What did we talk about a few weeks ago? We talked about Cain

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and Abel. Which one do you think was God's child? Well, we know that to be Abel. What

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about Jacob and Esau? Who do you got? Jacob or Esau? Jacob, right? But not Esau. No one

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said Esau. Gold star to you. No one said Esau. Why? Because later in the book, God will say

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this, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. Why did he hate Esau? I don't know. Why did he love

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Jacob? I don't know. Jacob gave him every reason not to love him, the way he misbehaved, especially

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early on in his life. And yet God looked down at this fallen globe and he separated wheat from

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chaff, sheep from goats, Jacob's from Esau's, Cain's from Abel's. That's just what he does. Why he does

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it? Ask him. But we know he does it. We know this is exactly what he does. Now, at two different

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intervals, at two intervals, God has separated some from the rest. He's created an institution

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on two occasions that was called out from everyone else on the globe. The first of these institutions

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was a nation, and it was called Israel. The second is the church, an ecclesiastical body. God has

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called his people out, not only from one nation, but from all nations, into a covenant community

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that is gathered still, but within the context of a church. Now again, why does he do this?

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Because this is his desire. He volitionally sets some apart. And what he tells those who've been

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set apart is that as those who've been set apart, we have to be careful, careful to be holy, which

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means set apart. Holy just doesn't mean uber righteous. Sometimes we think holy is just a

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euphemism for righteousness. Wrong. It's different. Holiness means set apart. God says, be holy as I'm

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holy. He's saying, be set apart from the world around you. He says to Israel, you are not the

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Philistines. Israel, you are not the Moabites. Israel, you're not the Amalekites. Israel, you

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are set apart by me, for me. And my presence will dwell in your midst in the tabernacle and the

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temple, and it will not dwell with the Philistines. They will have Dagon and their false gods. You

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will have me. He sets them apart in the Old Testament. You don't have to like the doctrines

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of election and predestination, but you cannot deny God called, elected, predestined a people.

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In the Old Testament, we call them Israel. He's done so also in the New Testament. We call them

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the church, and you and I are also called to be set apart. Listen to this passage from 2 Corinthians 6.

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Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

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Do not, do not, do not, do not

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be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

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For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?

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What communion has light with darkness?

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What accord has Christ with Belial?

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What part has a believer with an unbeliever?

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What agreement has the temple of God with idols?

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For you are the temple of the living God.

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As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them.

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I will be their God and they will be my people.

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Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

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Well, here in today's text, in Genesis 12, verses 2 and 3,

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God does that for the first time.

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He says, Abram, I'm calling you out to be separate,

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and so will your progeny be.

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And then in verses 2 and 3, he not only calls them out, but he says,

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now there are going to be some blessings that are going to befall you,

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but also your children and your great-grandchildren and the like.

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Now, the Jewish Talmud, you ever hear that term?

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It's actually a collection of rabbinical writings.

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They're extra-biblical outside of the Bible, but they're the rabbis' writings.

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The Jewish Talmud says that there are seven different promises that are made here in verses 2 and 3.

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Seven different categories of promises.

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And I agree with that, so I'm going to repeat them here.

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The first is this, is that God says to Abraham, you're going to be the father of a great nation.

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We know that to be Israel.

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Secondly, he says you're going to be blessed.

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We know that came true.

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Thirdly, he says your name would be great.

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Abram probably never lived to see his name great,

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but 4,000 some odd years later,

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here we are in Gulfport, Mississippi,

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talking about his name.

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I think God honored this promise.

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Number four, he said Abram would be a blessing to others.

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Number five, others will be blessed in relation to him.

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And number six, others will be cursed in relation to him.

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Those who curse him will be cursed.

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And finally, number seven, interestingly,

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not only will this nation,

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not only will your ancestors through physical lineage

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be blessed from having come from your seed,

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But, ultimately, the entire globe will be blessed.

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Now, how's that going to happen?

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Well, we're going to see here in a few minutes.

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Now, with that said, if God stopped you,

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comes to you when you're 75 or 35 or 25 or whatever,

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I don't think it's going to work out this way.

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But if he did, and he made you seven promises like that,

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would you believe him?

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We all like to say, yes, we would.

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But remember how many times people like Moses and others would,

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yeah, you know, they'd question, they'd wonder what's going on.

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Abram, interestingly, Abram believed like that.

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Abram was not a perfect guy.

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We'll see this in the next few weeks

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as we study other aspects of his character.

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Abram was not a perfect guy.

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He did some things wrong.

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But he had this interesting thing right about him,

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this interesting thing that made him a friend of God.

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And what was that?

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He believed what God told him.

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God says, I'm going to do the most amazing things,

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not just once or twice or thrice, seven things,

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seven mind-boggling things I'm going to do for you, Abram,

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Even though you've given me no reason to do this, I'm going to do that.

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And Abraham nodded and said, Amen.

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And then he departed to go do exactly what God had told him.

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Let's look at his departure.

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Let's look now at verses 4 through 9, the last verses in our text.

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Verse 4.

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So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.

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And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.

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Then Abram took Sarah, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son,

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and all their possessions which they had gathered,

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and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan.

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Let me stop there for just a moment. Notice, he took everyone. He took everyone. If a minister

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was to go to Ireland, and show up and say, I'm here to minister, and they say, oh, great, we can

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use the gospel here. Tell us, is your wife with us? Well, no, she's back home. But I'm here for

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the long haul. Oh, well, how about your kids? Are they here? No, they're back home as well. In fact,

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all my stuff's back there. But you got me, and I'm going to stay. Would you believe it? Well,

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I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But in this case, God tells Abram to go. And Abram's commitment

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wasn't just, all right, I'll go check it out. And if it doesn't work out, I can come back.

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What does Abram do? He says, all right, everyone, God has spoken. Let's move it out. And he takes

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everything. He takes everything, everyone, and he goes where God has told him. That's a level

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of commitment we're seeing there in those verses four through five. So then Abraham passed through

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the land of the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Morah. And the Canaanites were

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there in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your descendants, I will give this

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land. Stop there for a minute. Abram shows up. There's the land. The land is great, flowing with

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milk and honey. Great land, great land, great land. But there's a problem. The Canaanites.

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Boo. That's second behind the Philistines. Canaanites were there, right? But then what

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does God say? Abram's looking at the Canaanites. God says there, to your descendants, I will give

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this land. Never mind the people who are already here. Never mind that. To your descendants, I will

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give this land. And so there he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. And he moved

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from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and I on

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the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called in the name of the Lord. And so Abraham

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journeyed going on still towards the south. All right. In verses one through three that we read

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earlier, God told Abraham what to do. Verses 4 through 9, Abraham did it. As I said a moment ago,

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this is a big part of what makes Abraham a friend of God. Friends, the closest people to you. You

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can pick up a phone and say, I need you. All right, tell me where you're at and I'll be there.

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Now, there's acquaintances in your life that say, I need you. Come pick me up, you know, at the corner

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of 10th and Main or what have you. What? What are you doing there? What's going on? I got other

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things. You know, the Golden Girls are on. I got other things on the TV or what have you. Some

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people will not have any immediacy in their response, but others, no matter what your need

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is, if they're close to you, then they will drop what they're doing, and they'll be there for you.

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With that said, we see that Abram departs. God tells him he departs. He goes and does what God

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has said. He trusted God with his life, as friends do. Now, let's bring this home to us.

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Do you trust God with your life?

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And think about that.

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You know the answer that we should say, but is it the true answer?

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Is it the real answer?

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Do you trust God with your life?

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When he says, get up from your land, get up from your job,

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get up from this relationship that you shouldn't be in,

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get up from what you've been doing and go over here.

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And I won't tell you all that's going to happen when you're there.

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I won't even explain it to you, but you know you should do it.

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When God leans on your conscience to steer you away from sin,

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or perhaps he simply is nudging you out of your comfort zone,

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how do we respond?

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When God says, I need you over here, I desire you over here,

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how do we respond?

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Well, again, Abraham responded through faith.

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And that repeatedly is assigned to Abraham as the principal characteristic.

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Abraham believed and was accounted to him for righteousness.

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You see, he wasn't saved to the degree Abraham was saved.

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He wasn't saved by doing a bunch of stuff, by earning God's pleasure, by meriting it.

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He was saved because he had faith.

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Let me read to you from Galatians chapter 3.

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Therefore, know this, that only those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham.

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And Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,

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preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying,

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In you all the nations shall be blessed.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

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Now, to you and I, we might hear that and just nod and go, yes, that sounds biblical.

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If you were a Jew and you heard that, it was a stop the presses sort of moment.

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Why?

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In the first century, when Paul was writing these words, why would that have stopped the presses?

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Because in the Jewish community, the Gentiles were the enemies.

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They were the Romans.

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They were the pagans.

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They were the people putting their boot down upon you.

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But here's the thing.

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in God's plan, God didn't just want to save one set of DNA, one set of lineage, physical descendants

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from Abraham. He didn't want to save just one nation, one people group, who are tied together

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only by DNA. Rather, he told even Abraham at the start, before there was any other Jews, he says,

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in time, through you, all the nations will be blessed, including those within your physical

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lineage and those outside of your physical lineage. And that's what Paul said in Galatians.

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Those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham.

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This morning, if I was to ask you, are you a Jew?

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How would you answer that?

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Now, let me stop.

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Don't answer it yet.

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Think about that.

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Physically, maybe not.

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Physically, likely not.

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But I want you to listen to what Romans 2 says.

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He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor a circumcision, that which is outward in the flesh.

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But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and the circumcision is that of his heart through the Spirit.

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You see, what Paul was saying is this.

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You and I are children of Abraham if we have the faith of Abraham.

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Abraham was saved through faith.

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If you're saved at all, it's by the same means.

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And in that sense, you're a child of Abraham, and more importantly, a child of God.

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You remember, we talked about this last week.

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Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, and the Pharisees are coming at him and accusing him and reviling him.

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And they're talking all sorts of bad things about Jesus.

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And then they start to talk about their father.

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They talk about God as their father.

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They talk about Abraham as their father.

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And Jesus, he just stops the process.

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He says, stop it. Stop it.

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If you were of Abraham, then you would know me.

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If you were of your father, Abraham, then you would have faith in me.

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And he stops him and says, you've got your ancestry.

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You've got your lineage.

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You've got your spiritual DNA all wrong.

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You are indeed of your father, but your father is not who you think it is.

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Your father is who?

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the devil. You could not hit anyone with a rhetorical, semantical, two-by-four heavier

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than that to tell the Pharisees that Abraham was not their father, but to tell them that the devil

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was their father. But this is the point that Paul is speaking to in Romans 2. It's the point that we

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see even here in Genesis 12. The children of God are not children simply on the basis of physical

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lineage. They're children on the basis of their faith. That's what makes you a son. That's what

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makes you a daughter of god your faith in his only begotten son if you have that faith you are a truer

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israelite than anyone who only possesses the physical dna that would be a bold claim to make

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except this it's in the book it is exactly what scripture says he is not a jew who is one outwardly

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nor circumcision that which is outward in the flesh but he is a jew who is one inwardly and

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circumcision is out of the heart in the spirit all right before we close let me offer one last

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thought. Notice in verse 8, notice in verse 8, Abraham, the father not only, not only of the

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Jewish people, but the spiritual father of people even in this room here. Notice Abraham, what he

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did to lead his spiritual family. In verse 8, we read, he moved from there to the mountain east of

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Bethel and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and I on the east. And there he built an altar

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to the Lord and called him the name of the Lord. Do you see the difference between two things he

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constructed. On the one hand, you have what? You have a tent. Who is the tent for? For him.

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On the other hand, you have an altar. The priorities in Abram's life following God's

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call were not about Abraham. Of course, he sinned. Of course, he messed up. And we'll see this in

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these other chapters. But generally speaking, across the breadth of his life, the priorities

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of Abraham were not about Abraham. Abraham wasn't the hero in his own story. The priorities of

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Abraham were God. And so where Abraham went, he routinely pitched tents for himself. He routinely

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put himself in undesirable abodes, and he regularly built altars in the places he traveled. And across

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his years, do you know how much land he owned? A burial plot. That's it. That's the land of Abraham.

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His life was about pitching tents to dwell in, not prioritizing the things here, and yet building

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altars to God. That should be your work too. We get so caught up in building for ourselves a utopia

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here in this fallen war zone. Well, it should be about pitching tents, temporary things that will

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pass, not prioritizing those things, but rather prioritizing God and his worship. And Abraham did

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this not only in chapter 12, but we're going to see next week, he did it throughout the balance

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of his life. Let's pray.