I want to begin with what I perceive to be the beginning of a journey of faith. It certainly has been such a one for me, and I invite you to travel with me for the next little while.

I want to begin where so many others have also begun, that is, with Abraham and the immense journey that lie ahead of him. His journey is similar to the journeys we all take, and certainly a lot like the one in which I find myself: sometimes wandering, never quite sure where I am; sometimes blindly, yet taking steps progressing I know not where; but more often than naught with the same sense of purpose I am sure must have been with the assurance our father Abraham knew, even then!

Stephen is eloquent in his address to the Sanhedrin as he outlines the events that shaped Abraham’s life and the destiny of us all: the God of glory appeared to Abraham our ancestor while he was in Mesopotamia, before he had settled in Haran, and said: "Leave your country and your kinsfolk and come away to a land that I will show you." (Acts 7: 2-3, NEB)

The LORD God called Abraham out front among his people and out from his land. I hasten to add, however, that the LORD God did not call Abraham out simply to satisfy the whim of the moment but rather the LORD God called Abraham out to enter into the reality of a promise: to come away to a land that I will show you!

The reason for this is not made known to us. We can only speculate as to the probable motivation of the living LORD God in calling Abraham. Joshua helps us here by giving us a clue. In his address to the people of Israel at Shechem, Joshua says: This is the word of the LORD the God of Israel: long ago your forefathers, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor, lived beside the Euphrates, and they worshipped other gods. (Joshua 24: 2-3, NEB) The LORD God called Abraham out of a family and a nation and a land that gave their attention to other gods. This is a perfectly understandable thing to do. The principle applies even today. For instance, among those who find help and strength in the community as members of Alcoholics Anonymous, the methodology still applies. Certainly the principle is clear: for the recovering alcoholic it is important to withdraw himself from the companionship of his drinking friends; and more than that, it is vitally important that the alcoholic, if he is to achieve and maintain sobriety, must even stop hanging around the taverns and other places where alcohol is available. We recognize the difficulty and the likelihood of temptation for the recovered alcoholic who persists in frequenting taverns with his drinking buddies of long standing.

The principle applies equally well for Abraham. The LORD God knew that if Abraham was to enter fully into his service, it was necessary — indeed, it was imperative! that Abraham leave his family, but not his family only, but his community. For in that community was found the distraction of other gods and Abraham was less than likely to give his full attention to the LORD without moving away from the familiar ground where he stood!

We know what that is like, you and I. I know it to be true in my experience and I am sure that you can cast your mind back to where you once stood when first you heard the LORD’s call to go with him, to a land that he will show you.

We respond to such a promise without having any elaborate explanation of why God calls us. We find ourselves warming simply to the hope of a promise.

Abraham did that; but he didn’t do it well. He left Ur. But he didn’t do much better than that at the beginning. He settled in Haran, on the way, and that he stayed there until his father’s death. Abraham did not separate himself from his father and his father’s household by any response to the LORD made out of conviction. He was not so resolute. The fact of the matter is Abraham waited, like so many of us do, until circumstances simply worked themselves out. And then he journeyed on.

He placed each step with the hesitation perhaps not unfamiliar to us. So Abram set out as the LORD had bidden him, and Lot went with. (Genesis 12: 4, NEB) In the company of his nephew Lot, Abram found it difficult to break the ties with his past and to enter fully into what it was that the LORD had promised him. With a lack of resolve and a hesitant step, Abram journeyed through Canaan, where, we are told he pitched his tent east of Bethel and between Bethel and Ai he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the Name of the LORD.

All in all, we probably would find this satisfactory. It’s important to notice, however, that thus Abram journeyed by stages towards the Negeb. (Genesis 12: 9, NEB) Characteristic of us all, Abram continued to move on — not into his inheritance, but away from it; out of it, further south en route to Egypt! Abram, called by God, no longer was following the leading of the LORD and was himself now taking charge of his own affairs.

You’re familiar with the story, certainly. The beautiful Sarai, the wife of Abram, was seen by her husband to be a definite threat to his safety in Egypt. Now Abram’s shortcomings are enhanced by his deceit when he advises Sarai to tell the Pharaoh that she is his sister! This introduction is not altogether incorrect, for Sarai is indeed Abram’s sister by Terah, but by a different mother (cf. Genesis 20: 12). A half truth doesn’t measure up to the reality of the situation, just the same, and we begin to think even less and less of this patriarchal figure from Ur!

In Egypt, Abram is successful and is most certainly rewarded in materialistic ways as he enjoys the upward mobility accorded to the powerful and the authority of the Pharaoh’s court, but he is not blessed by the LORD God. Successful though he may be, he does not have the blessing of the One who first called him! It is the LORD who intervenes but does not pour out his blessing on his servant Abram. The Pharaoh’s rage expels Abram and his wife-sister from the luxury of the court and of the country.

And then Abram went up from Egypt and from the Negeb he journeyed by stages to Bethel, and Ai where he had pitched his tent in the beginning, where he had set up an altar on the first occasion. (Genesis 13: 1, 3, NEB). Abram found himself, as so often we find ourselves, drawn back to where we had invoked the LORD by Name, in the beginning! And it is precisely there that the LORD Cod resumes his gracious activity; and as with Abram, so too, with us!

By faith Abraham found himself in relationship with the LORD God and it is his faith, counted as righteousness before God that is singled out by the writer to the Hebrews (cf. 11: 8-19) as being exemplary in the life of the Patriarch. Faith eclipsed his tentative, transitory wandering and so, too, overcame his all-too-human deception before God in his response to his call. And as with Abraham, so, too, we must ask of ourselves.

As we are gathered by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must throw off everything that hinders us and entangles us (Hebrews 22: 1ff.). We are heirs of God’s promise to our father Abraham and as heirs we must hold up before the light of the Risen Lord Jesus ourselves so that our faith may be counted as righteousness. Not our goodness; not our successfulness; not merely our effort - for all these paled before the inscrutable eye of the Loving LORD God: but rather, our obedience, with all its imperfection, keeping our eyes ever on Jesus who is the author and perfector of our faith!