Hebrews 11:8-10 NIV
[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. [9] By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. [10] For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.8-10.NIV
Genesis 12:1-5 NIV
[1] The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. [2] “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” [4] So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. [5] He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.12.1-5.NIV
Regardless of where you are in the world, it seems that nomadic tribes and people don’t always have the best of reputations.
In the UK, traveller and Roma families are often suspected of crime and of not being very clean.
In Romania, they are treated with suspicion and disdain due to their lack of literacy and frequent association with law-breaking, both at home and overseas.
In Asia, the sea gypsies, or badjao, whilst respected for their incredible abilities to free dive, are often viewed as dangerous.
In Africa, itinerant tribesmen are often accused of grazing their flocks on other people’s land, and some of them also have a reputation for violence and even terrorism.
Some of this is due to our lack of understanding of their communities – suspicion is often fuelled by outright ignorance and stereotyping.
Sometimes there is some substance to it, but it is exaggerated beyond any semblance of truth.
So what happens with the father of three of the world’s major religion is something of a surprise.
Abraham is called to be a nomad. At a time when people much younger and more able than him are settling in homes and cities. And he remains that way, in obedience to the Lord, until he dies.
This is another of those situations where faith in God causes a huge change in lifestyle and challenges established habits to the core.
Yet things are a lot more subtle than they might seem.
We’ll examine Abraham’s journey, called by God and continued in obedience at incredible cost, under four headings.
The first might surprise you – and is easily missed. That is, A Journey Begun.
You might think that Abraham’s long journey with God began in Genesis 12:1-3.
Well, it did... and it didn’t.
In the previous chapter, we read these words:
Genesis 11:27-32 NIV
[27] This is the account of Terah’s family line. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. [28] While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. [29] Abram and Nahor both married. The
name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. [30] Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive. [31] Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. [32] Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.
So we have a family whose journey is marked by bereavement: first Abraham’s brother Haran, in Ur of the Chaldeans (modern day Iraq); then his father, Terah, in Harran (south-central Turkey). Terah had set out for Canaan, but had settled on the way in a city where the same sun god was worshipped as in Ur, and had not continued his journey south-west.
The thing is that Abraham received this call before reaching Harran - while he was still in Ur (Acts 7:2-3).
What we know is that in Harran Abraham’s journey had begun, but had not ended.
Whatever the cause of Abraham’s delay on Harran, we know that it took God’s intervention, and possibly even his father’s death, to move him on. Because after we see a journey begun from Ur, we then see A Journey Paused at Harran.
We do not know why or how long his journey was delayed. What we do know is that it was delayed in a place that wasn’t quite Canaan, but was similar to where they had left.
What we know is that Abraham’s family set out for Canaan but stopped halfway.
What we know is that, however long they tarried in Harran, by the time Abraham left there, both he and his wife Sarah (or Abram and Sarai, as they were then) were both barren and advanced in years (Genesis 12:4).
Now, I don’t want to seem at all ageist, but the nomadic lifestyle is arduous, exhausting and perilous. I would not want to take it on and I am a smidgen over half of the age Abraham was when he left Harran.
This teaches me a very important lesson. At his age and circumstances, most of us would agree that his life was practically done. But Abraham has faith in God. Abraham steps out in that faith, regardless of the challenges ahead, because He trusts the One who called him.
Can we not so the same?
And that leads us on from a journey begun and journey paused to A Journey Continued.
And this is one huge continuation. Abraham strikes out for Canaan aged seventy-five. He died, still a nomad, at a hundred and seventy-five years old. This means that Abraham spent at least one hundred years living as a nomad in a country where the only land he ever owned was the strip of land where he buried his wife, Sarah (Genesis 23).
A hundred years of wandering, when he was already an old man at the start of his journey, and never settled, right to the end.
That takes faith.
Hebrews 11:9 NIV
[9] By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.9.NIV
Isn’t it interesting that the one relative of theirs who gets himself into severe trouble is the one relative who chooses to live in a city – Lot (Genesis 13:10-13, 14:11-12; 19:1-13)? Do you see how the temptation worked? First Lot saw the cities in the Jordan Plain, then he pitched his tent next to them, then he lived in them, and then he had a house there – despite the dangers that came with it.
But even while his own nephew is being seduced by a lifestyle Abraham is told he will not have, Abraham remains faithful to God’s call on his life, even if that meant living like a nomad in a land he would never own, and not seeing God's promise fulfilled in his own lifetime.
He believed, and never saw the fulfilment of what he believed in.
That takes faith.
The writer to the Hebrews praised him for even more than that. After a journey begun, paused and continued, we see A Journey Ended.
Hebrews 11:10 NIV
[10] For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
In other words, he says that Abraham’s belief in heaven caused him to live as a landless nomad on earth.
He clung to the vision of an eternal hope, and this caused him to hold lightly to temporal trinkets.
Abraham lived without a home on earth because he knew he had a home in heaven.
That is essentially what these verses are saying.
And at the time they were written, these verses would have been of tremendous comfort and challenge to Jewish Christians:
Hebrews 10:32-39 NIV
[32] Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. [33] Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. [34] You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. [35] So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. [36] You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. [37] For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” [38] And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” [39] But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Many of these Jewish Christians found themselves as fugitive refugees and asylum seekers, driven away from their homes and their livelihoods by those who wished to destroy them. The writer to the Hebrews deliberately includes this insight into Abraham’s mentality because Abraham was the founder of the Jews. He was their patriarch. The writer to the Hebrews is telling his readers that when they lose everything and are reduced to stateless, landless wanderers, then they are truly identifying with Abraham.
Look what the Jews said about Abraham when they made their offerings:
Deuteronomy 26:5 NIV
[5] Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.
‘Aramean’ can also simply mean ‘northerner’ – Abraham wasn’t actually from Aram. But what this verse points to is the origins of Israel in the body of a landless, stateless, wandering nomad, who had no home in the very land God promised his offspring, and who remained faithful despite never seeing this promise fulfilled in his lifetime because he knew God had something better for him.
That truly is extraordinary.
Abraham is a man who sets on the journey his father began, at the age of seventy-five, and dies a hundred years later, still a wandering nomad, because he believed in God’s promise for him and his offspring.
As we saw earlier, faith is no idle notion. It impacts the way we live. It changes our lives.
I know of few people it impacted more than Abraham.
So about you?
How far are you willing to trust God and have faith in Him?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I am challenged deeply by the life of faith Abraham lived. Help me to touch lightly the things of this world and cling tightly to You, wherever that will lead me. Amen.
Questions
1. In what ways did Abraham continue the journey of his father? Are you continuing anyone else’s journey?
2. Put yourself in Abraham’s situation. How do you think it would feel to be a landless, stateless wanderer, while everyone around him was settling into cities?
3. Why did Abraham live like this? What drove him to do it?
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