Audio  The Bible is a book of books and a story of stories. It is the story of people who lived long ago and far away, and yet, at the same time, it is our story, here and now. The narrative flows in the shape of an hourglass. It begins broad and wide, with a focus on God’s dealings with the whole world in creation. Then it narrows to God’s dealings with the human race. It narrows further with a focus on the descendants of one of Adam’s sons, Seth. It narrows again to focus on one man, Noah, and his sons. From Noah’s sons, the narrative narrows once more to the family of one son, Shem. And from Shem, the story takes on an even narrower focus as it turns to one of Shem’s descendants, Abraham. As the story goes on, it will narrow further and further, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Judah, then eventually to David, then to Jesus Christ. It is here that the story finds it’s center. To this point, all preceding history raced toward. From this point, all subsequent history unfolded. As the story moves on from the center with Jesus Christ, it begins to broaden again. His twelve disciples begin to multiply, and the story begins to envelop Jew and Gentile alike until it ends with an innumerable multitude from every tribe and tongue, people and nation surrounding the throne of God for eternity in ceaseless worship. We come today to one of those crucial narrowing points – the beginning of the account of Abraham. He is called Abram here in Genesis 12, for God will later change his name to Abraham in accordance with His divine purpose for his life. He will do the same with Abram’s wife, Sarai, who will come to be known as Sarah. The writer of Hebrews provides us with this succinct summary of Abraham’s story: “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Those two words “by faith” summarize Abraham’s entire life from Genesis 12 forward. He is an example to us all of what it means to walk by faith in God. Yet, Abraham’s story has a far greater import than simply showing us what it means to walk by faith. It is through God’s covenant with Abraham that we see the unfolding of His promise-plan for the whole world, including ourselves. If we miss that en route to discovering the simple steps for walking by faith, then we have missed the most important thing about Abraham’s story. So we shall look at him under the heading of “Walking by Faith,” but with the understanding that it was through Abraham’s walk of faith that the purposes of God for the whole world were being carried out. I. The walk of faith begins with the call of God’s grace (v1) Different sports are governed by different rules. In football, the first possession of the game is determined by a coin toss. In baseball, however, the visiting team always bats first and the home team always bats last. But in the game of life, it is always God who makes the first move. All of our moves are in response to His initial moving. The walk of faith begins with the call of God’s grace. Abraham did not suddenly decide that he would begin to walk with God by faith. He did not make the first move. In Joshua 24:2, the Lord says to the Israelites, “From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River (that is, the Euphrates River), namely Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.” It isn’t like God was searching the earth for a faithful man, and said, “Ah, here is Abraham. Him I can use!” No, Abraham was a pagan from a pagan family living in a pagan land. But God, in sovereign grace, chose Abraham as the vessel through whom He would bless the world. Abraham’s walk of faith began with God’s initiative in the sovereign call of His grace. Inherent in this call of God’s grace is the call to leave the comforts of the familiar. God’s calling is always a call from and a call to. Before there can be movement to, there has to be movement from. So the call to