Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
January 12, 1986
Walking By Faith
Genesis 12:1-5 and Hebrews 11:8-9, NIV
Do you have faith? Even atheists have faith in something. By sitting down in a chair you have faith that it is strong enough to support you. You don't give much thought to it because you've sat in chairs all your life. But almost everyone knows of one chair that collapsed on you. So if you come across one that's a little flimsy-looking you may want to test it first.
Every once in a while we are asked to put our faith in something new. Something we've had no experience with and we can't test except by trying it. This kind of faith can bring out cold sweat on a person.
When God encountered Abraham, he asked him to have this second kind of faith. First we have to understand Abraham's situation. Verse 4 makes it sound like he was in a city called Haran but the other passages like Acts 7 make it clear that the actual call of God came while Abraham was in Ur. Ur was a fabulous city. It was near the Persian Gulf, over by Iraq, and even in 2000 B.C. it had an advanced culture.
Back in the 1920s and 1930s Sir Charles Leonard Wooley excavated Ur and came up with some of the greatest treasures of archeology. In Ur's royal cemetery they found sixteen tombs, each one filled with golden headdresses and gold and silver harps. Each tomb also contained the bodies of servants - up to 74 - who were buried alive with the royalty. Woolley's excavations also revealed that the houses in Ur were two stories high and were whitewashed to be pleasing to the eye. The larger homes had up to twenty rooms with well equipped kitchens, good plumbing and sanitation. Their schools taught mathematics, astronomy and medicine.
Abraham was not a yahoo from the back side of the desert who didn't know anything. He probably had a very comfortable life in the most advanced culture of that time. He was also in his golden years. But what does God say to him? In Genesis 12:1 he tells Abraham:
"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."
That's a tough command. Moving always causes turmoil in a person's life. You lose your old friends, familiar surroundings and the comfort of your daily routines. As an army brat, I was born in Koizumi, Japan; then moved to Ft. Benning, Georgia; St. Louis, Missouri; Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas; Syracuse, New York; Munich, Germany; Berlin, Germany; Salina, Kansas; Heidelberg, Germany; Wheaton, Illinois; Ipswich, Massachusetts and finally West Lafayette, Ohio. That's thirteen moves in all. The average American moves every three years and if you are like me you have dreaded every one of them. But one thing made Abraham's move different from any of mine. I always knew where I was going. He didn't. As it says in Hebrews 11:8,
"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."
Even the five promises God gives him in Genesis are not concrete. The first promise is that a great nation would come from him. The fulfillment of this was Israel and to a greater extent the church. But Abraham didn't live to see either of them.
The second promise is that he would be blessed. This was the most concrete of any of them because Abraham became prosperous in his own lifetime, but the blessing wasn't a pure one - Abraham also experienced war, famine and a nagging wife.
The third promise is God would make Abraham's name great. It's hard to put a value on this. A good reputation is worth having but I don't know if I would leave a comfortable setting for it. It is significant, however, that God offers to make Abraham's name great. Over in Genesis 11:4 the city of Babel, which was populated by godless people, had a different idea. It reads;
"Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves....' "
This is self-worship. A lot of people want to make a name for themselves. They do it by being the biggest goof-offs in class; or the biggest flirt, or the person with the biggest bank account. If this is how you get your name made, the Bible says enjoy it while it lasts. Eternal value only comes when God makes our name great, which he will do for every servant of Christ.
The fourth and fifth promises are related - God will bless those who bless Abraham, and curse anyone who curses him. These are not equally balanced because the blessing gets the most emphasis. You'll notice that the blessing is for them, plural, while the curse is for him, singular.
Abraham was going to be a good influence on most people. The last phrase reinforces this: in Abraham shall all families of the earth be blessed. This is one of the most important promises of the Old Testament. Most of the Jews were like the prophet Jonah who wanted to keep the blessings for Israel only, but God has always intended for his blessings to be poured out on all people. The New Testament recognizes this. Turn to Galatians 3:8. Paul writes,
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: 'All nations will be blessed through you.' "
The way Abraham responded to God is the same way anyone on earth can be blessed. As Genesis 12:4 says very simply,
"So Abram left, as the LORD had told him...."
He gave up everything that offered security for his old age. He began a journey that would end up being 1,000 miles and Abraham never knew where he was going. He only knew whom he was following.
What would you do if God gave you the same command? Would you drop everything and go? When Jesus called his disciples, the Bible says they dropped everything and followed him. I personally know men in their fifty's with successful careers that have dropped everything to go into the ministry. Usually they have sold their business, their home and liquidated their savings so they can enter a four-year seminary program and get a small church. It helps if their wives hear the same call from God....
A call from God does not have to be so dramatic. As a matter of fact, Abraham answered God's call in stages. In 12:1 he is told to leave his country, his kindred (or clan) and his father's house. But when Abraham left Ur, he took his family and father with him. It is not until the end of chapter 13 that he has completely broken away from his ties.
God is still calling people today. Sometimes the call is clear and supernatural but usually it is an inner conviction of what God wants you to do. The most important call God makes is that we repent of our sins and turn to Jesus to be forgiven. This is the most basic kind of faith. Faith is not just believing God exists but doing what he says. Through the Bible, God tells us to abandon the way the world does things and to turn our lives over to the control of Jesus Christ.
Repentance is only the first response we make to God. He keeps talking to you after that. Maybe you feel God is leading you in a certain direction. Perhaps he wants you to be a missionary - "God wouldn't really want me to do that!" Are you sure?
Take responsibility in church. Or something for your family, in your business.
It's a simple choice: do what you want - or what God wants.
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Typed on July 13, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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