December 2, 2001 Hebrews 11:8-10; Genesis 12:1-20
“Traveling without a map”
INTRODUCTION – talk about expectations that you build up as you anticipate Christmas and maybe even expectations that you have of what is in a particular package. Kid in “A Christmas Story” who wanted a B.B. gun. He got a lot of nice things, but they didn’t satisfy. He was disappointed because his expectations were not met.
LEAVING
We are first introduced to Abraham when he is 75 years old. He is living in Ur where he was born, where he grew up and where he expected to one day die. Everything was moving along well. He was his dad’s firstborn which meant that he would one day inherit dad’s business and properties. In fact, by this time in his life, he was probably handling most of dad’s affairs, allowing dad to supervise and call the really big decisions. Abraham was married without children. As far as we know, the “without children” part of his life was the only negative thing going on with him. But other than that, things couldn’t have been better. One day, God interrupted that comfortable life, and things were never the same from that point on.
“When he was called” “When he was being called”. Maybe Abraham did not immediately respond to God’s call. The first time that God called, Abraham dismissed it as an after-effect of that pizza with anchovies that he had eaten the night before. But then God called again…and again…and again until Abraham finally realized that that feeling of uneasiness and anticipation in his soul was God speaking to him. He hadn’t wanted to admit it at first, but he knew it was God speaking, and he knew what God was saying – leave. Pack your bags, kiss your relatives goodbye, and hit the road. Abraham didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to leave his life behind. He like his life just the way it was, thank you.
Up to this point, as far as we know, God hadn’t done anything in Abraham’s life to cause him to trust God. No miracles. No answers to prayer. No immediate ancestry of people who followed God. The closest relation that we know of that followed God was Noah’s son Shem, and he was 9 generations back in Abraham’s ancestry. Abraham was raised as a pagan in a pagan society (Josh. 24:2). It was not easy for him to follow God.
He struggled with God. Faith in God doesn’t always mean that you immediately jump when God says go. But it does mean that in the end, when you’ve given God all the excuses of why you can’t do things His way, you choose to go His way anyway. (Moses gave God lots of excuses of why he couldn’t be the deliverer of Israel, but in the end, he believed God and obeyed God’s call on his life)
For most of us, the reason we don’t do things God’s way is not because of some excuse or even a legitimate reason – it’s because we just don’t want to. The cost is too high, or the risk is too great.
What all would Abraham have had to leave behind in order to follow God? God told him to leave his country, his people and his father’s household. (Gen. 12:1) In the Persian Gulf, not far from where Abraham grew up, there are men and women who have left their country behind in order to defend her. They are the people of the U.S. armed forces. But though they are far from home, they have not left their people or their culture. On Thanksgiving Day, they had turkey and dressing and all the fixings. The people that they are with are people who share common experiences, common likes and a common goal. It is a sacrifice for them to be there, but all that they have left behind is country. The next level of leaving is leaving your people. That’s leaving behind your culture and people who are like you. It would be like one of those soldiers being sent on a secret mission with maybe only a few of his fellow soldiers with him. He’s sent into foreign territory where he may not know the language, where he does not know the customs, and where he may be in danger. And all of these men and women have left family behind, perhaps the hardest of all these separations emotionally.
As we think of our American forces around the world during this holiday season, we must also remember that this is the week of prayer that we set aside every year to pray especially for those Southern Baptist missionaries around the world.
The land that Abraham left behind was fertile. He lived in-between two major rivers – the Tigris and the Euphrates. Depending on how much the flood changed the topography of the world and therefore the position of rivers, Ur may have been very near the Garden of Eden.
Remember that Abraham was 75 (Gen. 12:4) years old when he responded to the call of God on his life. He was settled in his ways. He was comfortable.
God told Abraham to leave his country, his people and his father’s household. All the things that gave comfort, security and stability to his life. His culture, protection, inheritance, friends, security, etc. But the thing that Abraham missed most, that thing that was the hardest to leave was the stability.
“Come, follow me.” Matthew left his tax collector’s table. James and John left their nets, their job and their dad. Jesus left heaven.
“Old things passed away, all things become new.” “Forgetting those things which are behind, I press toward the mark…”
The disciples – “We have left everything behind to follow you. What will be our reward?”
The disciples left everything to follow Jesus. But when things didn’t turn out the way that they expected, they were tempted to go back to their old life of fishing.
What do you need to leave behind in order to follow God? Is it worth it?
Abraham did as God commanded and left, and he went without a map. Heb. 11:8 says that he didn’t even know where he was going, and he didn’t know how things would turn out. When God told Abraham to leave, he didn’t tell Abraham where he was going to end up. He just said, “Go to a land that I will show you.” God demanded of him a pilgrimage from his old pattern of living into a new kind of life. God cannot lead us into new ways of living until he leads us out of the old. When God says, “Leave”, our response should be, “I don’t know what you’re going to do with me, Lord, but I’m going to drop all those things. I don’t know what you’re going to substitute for those things I’ve left behind, but I’m going to let them go.”
EXPECTATIONS
Abraham must have had all kinds of expectations as he traveled from his homeland to the place of God’s promise. He had left so much behind. He felt that he had a right to expect a lot from God in return.
When Abraham got to the place of promise, something was very wrong. There was famine in the land, and it was a severe famine (Gen. 12:10). You’d think that God would have rewarded Abraham’s faith by giving him lush fields to come to. What a promised land – everything was dry and barren. The land that he had left was one of the most fertile parts of the world. The culture in the land of his origin was advanced. The land he went to was filled with people who didn’t have time for culture. They were just trying to survive. He left that to come to this?
Going where God says to go may make you worse off than you were to begin with – at least for a while.
Not only was there famine in the land, but the land was already occupied by someone else – the Canaanites (Genesis 12:6)
Contradictory evidence. Abel had faith, and was murdered because of it. Abraham had faith, and all that it got him was a dry and barren land. When Paul and Silas obeyed God, they got thrown in jail. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego obeyed God, they got thrown into a fiery furnace. (Heb. 11:35b-37 examples of those who lived by faith and suffered for it.)
The purpose of faith is not to get you an easy, pain-free life. The purpose of faith is to get you into a right relationship with God. [Romans 4]. It’s not going to make everything all rosy in your life. In fact, many times, all that you will be able to see and experience is the thorns. But your faith will enable you to smell the roses even if you never see them.
Abraham was feeling like God had failed him. The evidence seemed to indicate that. But faith is about living above your feelings and even above the evidence that your senses give to you. It is about living life based solely on what God has said. Abraham was willing to do things God’s way for a while, but as soon as “God messed up”, he took things back into his own hands.
Faith doesn’t necessarily make everything work out beautifully in the world around you.
Abraham came in from the north and continued south. It’s as if he was trying to find the place that God had intended for him. Everywhere that he went, it was dry from the drought. All that there was was scrubbrush. “This can’t be the right place! It’s awful here. Surely, this isn’t what God had in mind for me. God’s gifts are always much better than this. I’ll just keep moving until I find the right place.” But Abraham never found what he was expecting. There was famine everywhere. So he kept on going south, right out of Canaan until he took a turn to the west and ended up in Egypt.
You will never find what you are looking for on earth (Solomon tried. If you ever fool yourself into thinking that you can, read Ecclesiastes). Abraham was searching. He didn’t find what he was looking for in Canaan when he first got there. And really, he never found what he was looking for – on earth. He was constantly traveling; moving from one place to another.
Abraham didn’t leave enough behind when he left Ur. He should have left behind his fear and his feeling that he had to make everything work out okay.
When God didn’t live up to Abraham’s expectations, Abraham changed the plan. He left Canaan behind, and he headed on down to Egypt.
DISILLUSIONMENT
Abraham didn’t go back to where he started from (Ur and Haran), but he went a great distance (Egypt) from where he was supposed to be (Canaan). He didn’t intend on staying there forever or even for a long time (Gen. 6:10 – “for a while”). He just intended on staying there until the famine was over. Many people who get saved find out that things don’t always turn out quite as rosy as they expected. They get disillusioned, frustrated, even angry. They left their old life behind and feel like God didn’t come through on his end of the deal. He didn’t keep His promises. So in response, they take matters into their own hands and renig on the commitments that they made. They may not go back all the way to their old way of life, but they go pretty far away from the new life that God intended for them.
Abraham knew that there was one problem with this plan that he had. Every time that he took a look at Sarai, his wife, his blood began to boil. She was a knock-out. The only nice thing about his time spent in Canaan was that since it was sparsely populated, he could stay to himself. He didn’t have to go where there were large groups of people – particularly large groups of men. But that wouldn’t be the case in the cities of Epypt. Those men down there would take one look at Sarai, and their blood would begin to boil too. And they might be willing to do anything to get Sarai for their bride – including killing off Abraham. So Abraham came up with a plan. He told Sarai to tell anyone who asked that she was his sister. That way, no one would feel like they had to get Abraham out of the way in order to get to Sarai. Look at what Abraham said in Gen. 12:13 [read it]. Sounds like a great man of faith, doesn’t it? How would you ladies react if your husband told you to do that? (slap him)
If Abraham was concerned enough about the envy of Pharaoh and his officials to have Sarai lie about her relationship with him, she must have been a real looker. How old do you think Sarai was at this point? 18?…25?…30? She was 65 years old! (NOTE: Gen 17:17 says that Sarai was 10 years younger than Abraham, and Abraham was at least 75 at this time.) This same set of circumstances happened again in Gen. 20 with Abimelech and Sarah. By this time, she was 89 years old! She got whisked away again. [Sarah died at the age of 127 (Gen 23:1)] God had blessed Abraham with a wife like that, but he wasn’t thankful enough to do what God said, and he was committed enough to fight for her.
Whenever you get outside of the place that God has for you, you’re going to have to make compromises to stay there, you’re going to have to face dangers that God never intended, and you may very well face the loss of the blessings that God has already put in your life.
Abraham’s plan to go down to Egypt and to lie appeared to work out well at first. He acquired a great deal of wealth as a dowry or as a means to gain his favor so that Pharaoh could get Sarai (Gen. 12:16). Egypt reminded him of where he grew up – fertile land, cultured people. The temptation to stay here and go back to the way of life that he had left behind would have been great. And he might have stayed, but God intervened. Somehow, God made it possible for Pharaoh to find out that Sarai was actually Abraham’s wife. And he expelled Abraham, Sarai and everyone that was a part of his entourage. Abraham had to leave once again.
Abraham was not where God wanted him to be. Abraham may have given up on God, but God had not given up on Abraham, and God was not willing to let him go. So God arranged the circumstances in such a way to get Abraham back where he needed to be.
RETURN
When Abraham got back to the land of Canaan from Egypt, the famine was still raging (probably). The famine in the rest of the land was what made Sodom and Gomorrah so attractive to Lot. And it would have been attractive to Abraham too. It was fertile. It was settled. The buildings had foundations, not tent pegs to hold them down. There was cultured living there. But Abraham had learned something while he was in Egypt. Fertile land means nothing if you have a dry soul. Comfortable surroundings give no satisfaction when your heart cannot rest. But he had also learned that a famined land cannot steal your joy when you have a full heart – a heart that trusts solely in God. A heart that receives all of its satisfaction out of a relationship with God. And he had learned something else too. He had learned that it was okay to be a traveler – a sojourner on earth. He had learned that what he was looking for was not on earth. He had a new goal now – a new set of expectations. He was looking for God’s city. (Heb. 11:10)
“A city with foundations”. Abraham was looking for stability. “Foundations” is plural. I don’t think that he was talking about the imagery that John gives in Revelation of heaven having 12 foundations. Rather, he was talking about every building in the city all being squarely placed on a foundation. He wanted to live somewhere where everything is secure – where everything stayed the same (i.e. Mayberry). Abraham didn’t enjoy moving around. I know what that’s like.
“designer and builder is God”. Not just an architect of a building, but a city-planner. He’s the guy who determines where the roads are going to go, how to zone certain areas, what public utilities will be needed and where they’ll be located. He determines where traffic lights will be placed and what timing sequence they will follow. How well the city-planner does his job determines how smoothly all the systems of the city function and how well the needs of the city dwellers are met. The plan of the city designer makes sure that the resources of the city are distributed according to the needs of the city’s inhabitants. (Jn 14:1ff – “many mansions…prepare a place.” “My Father’s house is a big city. I need to go back and get everything ready so that when you get there, the city will be perfectly prepared to meet your every need.”)
CONCLUSION – “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) Did God live up to Abraham’s expectations? No. There was still a famine in the land when Abraham came back from Egypt. But God surpassed his expectations by giving him a son when he was 100 years old.
By the time that Abraham’s descendants, as numerous as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky, were ready to leave their captivity in the land of Egypt, the nature of the land of Canaan had changed drastically. It wasn’t in drought anymore. Now, the land of Canaan was referred to as “a land that flows with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8) The land that Abraham first walked into was a famined land. But by faith, he could see that it would one day be a place that God would describe as a luscious land – a land of sustenance (milk), and a land of sweetness (honey). Who would have ever thought that a thing like that could happen?
And many more centuries later, wise men came from the same area where Abraham had grown up. They too had been traveling without a map. All that they had was a star to follow. They too came to Canaan, and they came to worship the ultimate fulfillment of all the promises to Abraham – the birth of the Son of God. Who could have ever expected something like that?
God always keeps His promises, and God always makes things work out right, but He does it on His timetable and in His way. All that God wants out of us is the obedience that comes from faith.
INVITATION
Where are you this morning?
Ur
God’s been calling you to leave – to place your faith in Him and travel without a map. But you’ve been struggling with Him. You don’t want to go. You’re comfortable where you are.
Faith always means leaving. Eventually, it means leaving this world behind. But once that happens, you never have to leave again. Once you’re there, you have arrived. You never have to leave again. “So shall we ever be with the Lord.” “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Regardless of whether or not you have faith and are willing to leave your past behind to follow Jesus, the day will come for you to leave the world. Without Jesus, you will be on your way to a place that you wish you could leave. But you will not be able to leave – ever. You will be trapped.
“I can’t leave all these things behind!” Jesus left heaven for you, lived as a stranger on earth (Son of Man has no place to lay his head), and now enjoys the city of God.
Canaan
You may be living in a very dry place. You figure this can’t be the place that God intended for you. You’re tempted to go back to some of that old way of lifestyle. You’re tempted to take back a little bit of that control that you handed over to God. After all, God doesn’t put people in places like this, does He? Especially not obedient people. Did you ever think that the dry place may be exactly where God wants you to be right now? Maybe He’s put you in a dry place so that you will look only to Him for the meeting of your needs and the satisfaction of your longings. Hold on. Have faith in God’s promises. God will do more than you could ever imagine if you just hold on.
Egypt
You haven’t turned your back completely on God, but you’re certainly not where God wants you to be. You tried the total commitment stuff, but things just didn’t work out like you thought, so you backed off. Jesus is still in your heart, but the world is in control of your life. Go back to where God said for you to be. That’s the only place that you will find all that God has in store for you.
