Chosen to Believe

Overland | Noah Coates | August 15th, 2026

Genesis 12:1-4

"The LORD said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran." Genesis 12:1-4 (CSB)

Main Idea: God has chosen you to believe in who he is, and that is the best place for you to be.

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, THE UNIVERSE OBEYS.

"The LORD said to Abram" v1a

God's authority: he spoke, and creation came into existence

If God can speak to the world, create, and call it good, don't you think he can speak to your life and turn good out of it?

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, THE UNIVERSE OBEYS.

So Abram relied on God's authority and obeyed

YOU MUST LEAVE WHAT'S COMFORTABLE TO OBEY GOD.

"Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you." v1b

Faith involves real risk. It's riskier to trust what you can't see than to stay comfortable, and that's risk-taking faith, not blind faith.

Four things were on the line when God called Abram to go: his Standing (his nation, his clan, his legal protection), his Security (a functioning economy traded for nothing but a promise), his Safety (a thousand-mile walk with no map, at 75 years old), and his Seed (Sarai was barren, making the promise not just costly but biologically impossible).

Faith isn't cushy or comfortable, it's a conviction. Leave your comfort behind and receive much more, the God of all comfort, if you withstand the trial.

GOD MAY DELAY THE REVELATION, BUT HE WILL NOT DELAY THE EXPECTATION.

"Go to the land that I will show you... I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt.

Of the eight "I will" statements in this text, the first is a will of revelation and the next seven are wills of expectation. Revelation is progressive: God isn't giving the whole picture yet, he keeps revealing as you keep walking.

You can live with delayed revelation when you have divine expectation. Hold onto what God said is coming, even when he hasn't shown you the road that gets you there.

ALL THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH WILL BE BLESSED THROUGH YOU.

"And all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you." v3b

Waypoint believes Jesus is still blessing all people, so we're planting this church with the future in mind. We take God seriously: eventually all the people of St. Louis will be blessed by his gospel, here, now.