Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the emperor who ordered his favorite general to embark on a dangerous mission to conquer new land. Because that meant entering hitherto unknown territory, the maps stopped at the frontier of the previous exploration. Many months later, after completing his mission, the general sent a message back to the emperor: “What do we do now? We have just marched off the map.”
This was not the first time this had happened. Abram and Sarah were planning their retirement when God called them to “march off the map,” to blindly go wherever He led them into a territory unknown to them. Our text in Hebrews 11:8-10 tells us that Abram and Sarah went out “not knowing where he was going.”
Most of us like to be settled on our destination before we take off on a journey. We get out our maps or GPS on our phone and look for the destination and the fastest or best way to get there. But this is not always the way that God leads us in life. He doesn’t always lead us in straight lines. We don’t always “get there” the fastest way or the least difficult way.
My encouragement to you this morning is that God may want to intrude upon your settled, comfortable life and call you on a grand adventure that is beyond your wildest dreams.
A few years ago, I picked up a bargain book from one of my favorite authors, Gordon MacDonald. This book is called Mid-Course Correction and it deals with the need of those in the middle to later years to be open to change. It speaks to those who may have lost their vital optimism and their need for a mid-course correction to get back on track. He identifies three movements for those who get back on track—leaving, following and reaching. He uses the story of Abraham to talk about the importance of leaving. At the end of the book he says, “Many of us are disappointed in our faith experience because we have not left” (pp. 233-234).
Abram was about 70 years old at this time. For him, that was mid-life.
Our text says…
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
So far we’ve seen that every person identified (all males so far) has expressed their faith in active, tangible ways. Abel worshiped God; Enoch walked with God. Noah stood alone for God; Abram moves forward for God. In every situation they obeyed God’s revelation to them.
Let me ask you this question this morning: “Does your faith in Christ compel you to obey Him?” Or is obedience to you an option that you only rarely pursue?
Abraham, Moses and David tend to stand out in the minds of the Hebrews. Abraham was the “father of the faith,” Moses the giver of the law and David the greatest king. While Abel and Enoch are given a few verses in Genesis and Noah is given four chapters, Abraham’s life is on display in Genesis 12-25, a quarter of the entire narrative of Genesis.
Abraham’s faith was so celebrated in Old Testament times that the Levitical prayer of confession extolled God and lauded Abraham’s faith: “You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you. . . .” (Nehemiah 9:7, 8).
Paul, in the New Testament, also highlights Abraham’s faith: “. . . just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ . . . Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:6, 7; cf. Hebrews 2:16).
And in Romans 4 Paul states:
1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
Regarding his belief in God’s promise that he would have a son, Paul writes:
18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
James adds that because of Abraham’s faith, Abraham was called “a friend of God” (James 2:23). Thus, Abraham was the undisputed example of faith and therefore we have much to learn from his life of trusting in God.
I love that definition of faith that Paul gives in Romans 4:21, that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” That was what fueled Abram’s willingness to “march of the map” and go to a land he knew nothing about, his patience in waiting 25 years for God’s promise of a son from his own loins to come true, and his obedience in taking that very son to the top of Mount Moriah with the intention of obeying God’s directive to kill that promised, beloved son. All of that, and more, was catalyzed by Abram’s conviction that when God makes a promise, nothing can stop him from fulfilling it.
That is faith.
Now, remember that faith calls us to step out and obey. Paul even calls what saves us “the obedience of faith” in Romans 1:5. Obedience and faith are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they serve to interpret each other. True gospel preachers call people to a faith that obeys; we call people to an obedience which trusts.
And this describes not merely the moment one believes, but the whole life of faith that starts at that moment and continues until the last breath. The life of faith, from start to finish, is a steady obedience that fixes absolute trust on Christ’s saving merit.
Abram is a model of that obedience of faith. Abram was not perfect. His fallen humanity is on evident display throughout the narratives in Genesis 12-25. This is why our author reminds us, after this chapter on people of faith, to “fix our eyes on Jesus.” He is the only one to express perfect obedience and uninterrupted trust in His Father. However, there is still much we can learn about a life of obedient faith from Abraham.
But, where did Abram’s faith come from? Where did it originate? Did it come from an incredibly pious father and mother? Did he have ancestors who were believers? Did he sit for some years under good preaching? Was he homeschooled and learned good morals? What was the cause of Abram’s faith?
Well, let me tell you a little bit about Abram. He was a citizen of Ur, a prominent pagan city of about 300,000 located on the Euphrates River in what would today be called Iraq. It was a world-class city, much like New York today. It was probably also much like Las Vegas, “sin city,” today.
Ur was a cultural center for mathematics, trade and great religious activity. The city was dominated by a massive three-staged Ziggurat built by Ur-Nammu during the beginning of the second millennium B.C. E ach stage was colored distinctively, with the top level bearing the silver one-roomed shrine of moon god Nammu or Na-na. (I’m sorry if some of you grandmothers have adopted that moniker with your grandkids.)
This was a distinctly polytheistic culture. Moreover, the royalty of that time were buried in death bins, accompanied by dozens of human sacrifices intended to accompany them on their journey to the next world.
This, this is the culture, the milieu in which Abram grew up. He had no monotheistic background. He was an idol worshiper. He was not a “good man.” He was no better than the average run-of-the-mill person of his day. He was a pagan, raised by pagans in a decidedly pagan culture. He went along with the flow. Jeremiah 24 and Joshua 24:2 tells us that his family worshiped “other gods.” In other words, they were not obeying Exodus 20:3-6 about worshipping the true God, Yahweh, exclusively and apart from any physical representation (idolatry). Everything about his life was immersed neck deep in God-despising idolatry.
So how does a man go from rank paganism to being the epitome of believing obedience?
The same way it happens with you and me—by virtue of the sovereign display of the intervening grace of God. God takes the initiative to take idol-worshipping, immoral sinners and call them to himself.
Listen to the way Genesis 12:1 describes it:
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
We don’t know what Abram was doing. Maybe he was involved in his business; maybe he was at home getting ready for supper with Sarah; maybe he was worshipping his gods at some temple.
But ONE THING comes and saves Abram—God’s word, God’s calling. And that Word, like the creative word of Genesis 1, performs what it demands. It creates in Abram a life that first trusts, and then obeys.
Notice the wording of Hebrews 11:8. “By faith Abraham, when called…” The Voice called out to Abram. We don’t know if that Voice spoke loudly or forcefully, but it spoke effectively. It called Abram to “leave” to “go from.”
Acts 7 fills this event out a little more fully. Stephen says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham…” (Acts 7:2-3). God made himself known both visually and verbally.
God told Abram, “go from your country.” God had no plans to save the people of Ur, not even most of Abram’s family. But it was God’s pleasure to call one man out of that cesspool of a city, Abram.
But why did God call Abram? What it because he was on a quest for the one true God? Was it because of his own free will he intuitively inclined toward the religion of Yahweh? No text tells us that Abram was any better than any other person in Ur. In fact, if we read the text carefully, we find that Abram did not immediately leave his relatives and go to the land God was directing him to; rather, he along with his father settled in Haran for a number of years until his father Terah died. Eventually Abram did obey. Genesis 12:5 says, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.”
So, don’t presuppose that Abram had anything to do with his calling. It was God that initiated it. It was God who kept at Abram until he did finally obey.
Abraham did step out in faith, going to the place God promised him; but his faith was less than perfect. This is seen by comparing Genesis 12:1-5 with Acts 7:2-4, where it is evident that Abraham first went half way to where God called him, and only eventually obeyed completely. Yet thousands of years later, God did not “remember” the delayed obedience, only the faith.
Abram was a fallen son of Adam just like you and me. God’s grace came to Abram. He didn’t deserve it. He could do nothing to earn it. By this calling of Abram God not only reveals God’s grace to us, but in a far more profound way it illustrates for us the sovereignty of God’s grace! Out of 300,000 people God chose one—Abram. Why? Simply because it pleased God to do so.
God works in salvation in the same way today. God still today chooses people not because of their own goodness (in fact, we are “still sinners,” Romans 5:8). It is totally and fully because of God’s sovereign grace. God doesn’t choose us based upon foreseeing anything in us. According to Romans 9:16 God’s choice “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” It doesn’t depend upon our will, our choice one way or another; it doesn’t depend upon any exertion of action, either good or bad. God chose us solely because He is a merciful and gracious God.
Saint Augustine was a man many consider the single most influential Christian thinker the world has ever known. If you have ever read his Confessions, you know that his life before Christ was vile, self-centered and degraded. Here is how he speaks of God converting him.
Who am I? What kind of man am I? What evil have I not done? Or if there is evil that I have not done, what evil is there that I have not spoken? If there is any that I have not spoken, what evil is there that I have not willed to do?
But You, O Lord, are good. You are merciful.
You saw how deep I was sunk in death, and it was Your power that drained dry the well of corruption in the depths of my heart.
And all that You asked of me was to deny my own will and accept yours. But, during all those years, where was my free will?
What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to Your easy yoke and take Your light burden on my shoulders, Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer?
How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose and was now glad to reject! You drove them from me, You who are the true, the sovereign joy.
You drove them from me and took their place, You who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, You who outshine all light yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, You who surpass all honour though not in the eyes of men who see all honour in themselves.
At last my mind was free from the gnawing anxieties of ambition and gain, from wallowing in filth and scratching the itching sore of lust.
I began to talk to You freely, O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.”
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 181. (9.1.1.)
Did you hear that? Where was my free will when sin and all its lusts dominated my life? Where was my free will when my heart was enslaved to that iron cage of sin?
So, Augustine, if it wasn’t your free will to choose Christ, then what happened?
You drove them from me and took their place
This is what the Puritans called “The expulsive power of a new affection” (Thomas Chalmers) or what Quakers used to say about one’s salvation, “Have you been seized by the power of a great affection?” It reminds us that our salvation is about being called into a relationship with Jesus Christ that is best described in the image of the bride and bridegroom.
My dear friends, true Christian faith, the kind of faith that we see in Abram is not the consequence of a man’s free will. It is the product of the sovereign grace of God in choosing to manifest His selecting love upon us. This is where faith comes from: it originates in grace.
When faith is the product of grace, it will display the same kind of attributes that we see in the faith of Abraham: a faith that obeys, a faith that endures, a faith that anticipates the greater reward.
And it is this kind of faith that we will look at in the coming weeks.
Grace Still Amazes 