OK, here’s the story: man worships many gods; man hears voice of real God speaking; man drops everything he’s doing and moves away; man has kid at 100 years of age to 90-year-old wife. That story’s a dime a dozen; I’m sure every one of us can identify with it, right? Or not…
But consider the same story from another angle: man clearly understands what God wants out of him, and is faced with a life-altering decision to make. Does he step out and take the risk, or does he play it safe with the familiar? Now, how many of us can identify?
At beginning of Genesis 12, here’s what we know of Abram:
• Son of Terah, in the line of Shem (son of Noah)
o “Semites”
o Shem, not “Shemp”, by the way, as in Shem, Ham and Japheth, not Shemp, Moe, and Curly
• Married to Sarai
• Unable to have kids
• From Ur of the Chaldees
• Headed with father and family from Ur to Canaan, but stopped in Haran
Here’s what else we know of Abram, with reference to his relationship to God:
• Not monotheistic in origin (Law wasn’t given ‘til Exodus 20, remember)
• Gods were connected to nature
• Likely, his father Terah worshipped the moon god; Ur and Haran centers of moon worship
• We’ve all heard of the “man in the moon”, but the “god in the moon”? And yet, very likely, this is the first idea that Abram had about the concept of “God”, that he was a “moon god”.
• Worshipped by being flattered, cajoled, humored, appeased—manipulated
• Most families had family deities as well, if you will—the great cosmic deities were respected and honored, but weren’t the gods people dealt with regularly (sort of like we respect the president and national office holders, but if we’ve got a problem with our trash collection, we call a councilman or a supervisor, not Condoleezza Rice)
• Point is, YHWH is not a God already worshipped by Abram, then; we can almost imagine Abram asking, “uh…do I know You?”
• Abram had heard this call of God prior to Daddy leaving Ur (Acts 7:2-4)
• Finally, in Genesis 12, we learn that Abram begins to obey
Hebrews 11:8 says that it was by faith that Abram obeyed, when God called him to leave his home and family, and he went without knowing where he was going.
What is this quality of “faith”? What does it cause us to do? What are the blessings of faith? What are the obstacles to faith? Why is faith essential in the life of the Christian?
We want to define “faith”, sometimes if we’re not careful, in ways that resemble Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “cheap grace”. I was once on a mission trip in Brazil, and the objective, rightly, was to bring people to Christ—or at least that’s what we supposed—but after awhile, it almost seemed to be more about making the stats look good. The question at the end of every day was, “how many professions of faith today?” In one setting, we were taken to a public school—funny what they’ll allow you to do in a public school setting in a Catholic country that you can’t think of doing in the land of the free. We were taken to four-five different classrooms of elementary-aged students, where we were given five minutes or so to explain the “plan of salvation”, call for a faith response, and say our goodbyes. In every classroom, every hand went up when the invitation was given; every head was counted; every “conversion” was reported upon.
I’m not particularly proud of being involved in that experience. I grant that that was an extreme, but is saving faith, and living faith, about nodding mental assent to a few theological propositions? Is that what the Bible refers to when it talks about “faith”?
Faith is trust plus obedience, put in simple terms. James challenges us that it isn’t enough just to say, “I have faith”, but that real faith demonstrates its reality by doing something. Faith doesn’t sit on its holy posterior; it steps out in concrete action. And I think that actually, really, truthfully living by faith in God is extremely difficult for most American Christians.
“Ah, but Abram was one of those ‘special guys’, real men of faith…we can’t be expected to live like that!” Well, no; Abram was an idol-worshipper who later in this same chapter acted like a real man—a real “girly man”, that is. And furthermore, yes, that’s exactly why Hebrews 11 lists him, so that we, who are called to “walk by faith, and not by sight”, can take our cues from a real, flesh-and-blood guy who did just that: really walked by faith in God!
Faith
• Trusts God and takes Him at His Word
• Now let’s get this out of the way right up front: faith marks the beginning, the foundation, and the context of our relationship with God. We cannot claim to be Christians without saving faith—Abram “believed God, and God credited to him as righteousness”—but there is more to the life of the believer than simply beginning by faith. We live by faith, walk by faith—that is, if we are being obedient to God.
• May seem obvious that faith trusts God, but today we have the unfounded notion being taught that what we need is “faith in our faith”; I don’t know about you, but my faith falters sometimes and isn’t faithworthy!
• No, it is God in Whom we place our faith, not anything in ourselves.
• Prompts us to leave some things behind
What does God call Abram to do? Leave country, relatives, and father’s house. What does this entail?
• “Leaving father’s house” – This was more than just moving away; this entailing giving up any claim on his inheritance and his right to family property!
• “Leaving country” – All that had become familiar to him, whatever friendships he’d made, whatever associations he’d pursued. He’d give up his membership down at the VFW, have to stop coaching the Little League team, the membership at the pool; all of that down the tubes.
• “Leaving relatives” – This wasn’t a situation where he’d be able to hop a plane and visit during the holidays; this was permanent. The family that Abram left was family he’d never see again.
• Jesus said that His followers need to lay down their lives, take up their crosses, and follow; that is what He did for us
“Safety Net”
• We speak of a “societal safety net” that theoretically keeps people from living lives of poverty and want.
• We have “securities” (meaning money investments),.
• We have “insurance” (ever think about the silliness of the term “life insurance”? When a kid, I used to think that somehow I couldn’t die if I had “life insurance”.). How many different kinds of insurance are there out there?
o Life
o Health
o Auto
o Property
• We buy “warranties” on our appliances and our equipment.
• I’m not against those things, but isn’t it interesting that we do all kinds of things to “play it safe”, to make sure that our equilibrium isn’t too badly upset in the event of some catastrophe.
• How often does the average American really step out and do something “without a net”? How often do we ever get outside our “comfort zones”? Does the average American Christian really ever very often step out in a sheer act of faith? Does the average American church ever very often step out in a sheer act of faith?
• God moved Abram away from the familiar, away from the easy, away from those things which would hinder him from knowing and following God.
• Paul said, “Forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth to what is before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” To follow Jesus by faith, there are some things to leave behind.
• Is God calling you today to leave some things behind, and if so, what might those things be?
• Moves us in a new direction
• Again, we can speak of the salvation event, of the fact that if anyone is “in Christ”, he is a new creation; that’s a new direction if ever there was one. But I want you to understand that we need to recognize that faith in God continues moving us in the new, the different, the unprecedented direction.
• When we think we’ve gotten God and His ways all figured out; when we think that we’ve got this Christian life thing down pat; when we grow accustomed to things, we’re no longer walking by faith in God, a God Who moves us in new directions.
• The Abram Equivalent of “we’ve never done it that way before” is “I’ve never gone that way before”
• Abram had never gone this way before; because of his faith, though, he totally committed himself, unreservedly, to move in the direction God called him. He didn’t just involve himself in God’s direction and purpose; he committed himself to it. There’s a difference, illustrated by the conversation between the pig and the chicken over what was for breakfast.
• “Ham and eggs!”, said the chicken.
• “Not so fast”, said the pig, “for you, it’s momentary involvement, but for me, it’s total commitment!”
• For Abram, it was total commitment, not occasional, nonchalant involvement.
• What new direction is God moving you in? This church?
• Steps out even when that direction isn’t fully clear
• “Go the land that I will show you”
• That was it: no detailed map, no strategic plan for the rest of his life
• Abram couldn’t have looked it up on Mapquest if he’d wanted to
• Back to the safety net issue: maybe we will relinquish our grip on the present, but are we willing to move into the great unknown with God?
• I like Star Trek, and the opening lines rightly situate Abram in his context: to boldly go where no man has gone before! Abram, along with Noah before him, were forerunners of the faith, boldly going where no one had gone before—even though they were dealing with the utter unknown. Sometimes faith demands that!
• Are you willing to step into the unknown holding firmly to the hand of God?
• Believes that the change of direction will be worth the effort
• It is faith which God rewards (Hebrews 11:6)
Note the offer God makes:
• Doesn’t reveal Himself in full to Abram
• Doesn’t insist that Abram put away his family gods
• Doesn’t give Abram a doctrinal treatise
• Doesn’t make demands as to “this is how I want to be worshipped”
God makes Abram a pretty good offer. What does God promise to Abram?
• Land – This represented livelihood for people; the land would be worked for profit, by herdsmen tending animals, by farmers raising crops. Several millennia later, we’re still fighting over this little plot of land that God gave to Abram’s descendants.
• Descendants – This represented legacy, heritage, the future. Our children are representatives of us that we send into a place we’ll never go; what we instill in them represents the extension of our own lives. Children were to take care of parents in old age, and to attend to decent, honorable burial, things of this nature. In some Near Eastern cultures, children were considered to be essential in maintaining a comfortable afterlife (and remember, at this time, Abram wouldn’t have known any better!).
• Blessing – More generic, but the sponsorship of a God Who would give him the “good life”.
• Through you, all earth shall be blessed – We want to leave something behind after we’re gone, don’t we, something more than a block of granite with our names, a block that will weather with time and fade away? Certainly the idea of this type of legacy had to have appealed to Abram as well. We who live this side of Calvary and the empty tomb know just how God pulled that off, don’t we? It is through Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham, that God has blessed the entire world!
Promises made, promises kept. Abram began the wonderful journey of faith with the first step in obedience to a God who said, “go”.
When God says “Go”, what do you do?
Abram
• Exchanged the known for the unknown
• Found his reward in what he could not see (and would never live to see)
• Trusted in the God Who was intangible, unlike the “solid” household gods
• Lived with hope for what lay yet future, and the blessing he would impart
• Walked by faith when he couldn’t see by trusting the God Who promised
Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard told a story he called “The Domestic Goose”. In his story, he set a gaggle of geese in the barnyard, where every Sunday they’d go to Goose Church and hear the Gander deliver a message on the purpose of geese, the wonder of wings, and the wonderful gift of flight. And then, every week, the geese would turn around…and waddle back home. With faith firmly in God, church, we can fly…how then can we waddle any longer?
In Your Life
1. Honestly, how much do you live by faith in a world that lives by sight? Can you name some tangible ways in which you “live by faith” in ways that the average person does not?
2. When is the last time God told you to “go”—and what did you do?
3. What do you find to be the scariest thing about walking by faith? What stands in the way of your really walking by faith in God?
