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 What is Faith? The Example of Abraham
Genesis 12:1-5; Hebrews 11:8-10
November
17, 2002
In his book, Finding
Faith (Zondervan, 1999), Brian McLaren gives us a “thought exercise.” He writes,
“Let’s think about the word ‘know’ for a few minutes. Consider these sentences.
1. I know the capital city of Uzbekistan.
2. I know I exist.
3. I know that 4 x 13 = 52.
4. I know that water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.
5. I know Tim Ayers.
6. I know the town of Hancock, Maryland, like the back of my hand.
7. I know a bargain when I see one.
8. I know that black holes exist.
9. I know that Abraham Lincoln was an American president.
10. I know that Abraham Lincoln was a great American president.
11. I know the meaning of the word “flagma.”
12. I know God exists.
13. I know God.
What do you make of the various uses of “know” in these statements? In which cases does the word “know” mean complete, unassailable certainty? How many different meanings does the word “know” have in these statements? How do you know? Now consider the word “believe” in these situations:
1. I believe it’s going to rain.
2. I believe in extraterrestrials.
3. I believe in democracy.
4. I believe the square root of 9801 is 99.
5. I believe Abraham Lincoln made a mistake in launching the Civil War.
6. I believe I can be a success.
7. I believe that music is a universal language.
8. I believe it because I saw it with my own two eyes.
9. I believe it is safe to swim in that lake.
10. I believe that all mammals bear living young.
11. I believe that God exists.
12. I believe in God.
13. I believe God.
How do these two words, “Know” and “believe” relate? How might knowledge and faith relate?”
(pp. 51-52)
McLaren taps into our confusion about what we know, what we think we know, and what we believe. What is opinion and what is belief and what is faith? Can I truly know anything with perfect certainty?
If I give you my opinion by saying, “I think…,” I am confessing that I may not be right, that I may be ignorant of all the facts.
If I say I “know” something, I show an even greater confidence; I am saying that I am certain of something. But if I am pushed, I must confess that I am not 100% sure. I must admit that my imperfections, my imperceptions, the fact that I do not know all things keeps me from knowing anything for absolute certainty.
So when it comes down to it, even the things I say I “know,” like that today is Sunday, that I am balding, that I am breathing air, I in fact take to be true based on “faith.” I have faith that the next time I look at the calendar, church will be on Sunday, the next time I look in the mirror, there will still be no hair there, the next breath I take will allow me to suck in some oxygen. I take these things for granted that they will be the same in the future…I have faith that what was true a second ago will be true tomorrow.
You see, “faith” expresses more than what I think or know—it expresses both these things, but even more so, for faith is of a higher order of reality than what I can touch or smell or see. Faith is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the inner certainty of things we cannot yet see (see Hebrews 11:1). And as such, faith is what makes me who I am—without faith, I have no hope for the future, for there is no stability in my world.
You can dismiss my “opinion” without hurting my feelings in any way. You can say that you do not share my thoughts on politics or football or the like, and that would be fine. You can say that you question whether I have all the facts about what I “know,” and I should certainly listen so that my knowledge would be closer to the truth. But “faith” is different. Faith is what we trust our lives to, issues of life and death. Faith is trusting that we have a future of purpose; faith is destiny, faith is what we base our lives on.
Faith is when I so embrace a promise that it not only determines my future, it effects my every action in the present.
Notice that in each category—not in opinion, nor knowledge, nor faith—there is no absolute certainty. Someone might say that “knowledge” must be at the top of the list, for you can only know that which has 100 percent certainty. But, again, I question whether 100 percent certainty is ever possible. Isn’t it true that an unreflective person claims to be 100 percent certain a lot more than a reflective person—because a highly reflective person eventually realizes that there are many different things that can warp our perception of reality?
So, in reality, we all live by “faith” to some degree or another. We live our lives with certain preconceptions of reality, all of which we take by faith to be true. And without our faith, we could not function. So, maybe faith needs to elevated back to its rightful place again. Maybe “knowledge” is not the highest rung on the ladder, maybe faith is!
Listen to Brian McLaren’s words: “What if faith, instead of being a step back from the limits of our abilities to know and understand, could actually be a flight beyond the rim? What if the word ‘knowledge,’ used to denote certainty gained by rationalistic and empirical means, is actually only appropriate for mundane facts, pedestrian inquiries, common commodities? What if there is another category of reality in the universe, no less real just because it doesn’t shrink itself to our instruments and portals of ‘knowledge’? What if that category of reality—let’s call it mystery or spirituality—dwarfs all our knowledge, as space dwarfs our little earth? Are we humble enough to look up from the little things we are so proud of comprehending and controlling, to face massive realities—humbling mysteries—greater than ourselves, and therefore greater than our ability to squeeze into our little boxes of ‘certainty’ or ‘knowledge’? Are we willing to step off the narrow ledge of knowledge to soar into broad spaces of faith?”
(pp. 59-60)
That’s the question isn’t it? “Are we willing to step off the narrow ledge of knowledge to soar into broad spaces of faith?”
That is the question God asks Abraham in Genesis 12.
God comes to a man named Abram (that is his name at this stage of the story, meaning, “father is exalted”, but this was changed by God later to
"Abraham," meaning “father of a multitude”).
The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
(Genesis 12:1-5)
Think for a moment what God was asking Abram to do.
“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 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.”
William Lane relates a story of visiting Stuart Barton Babbage, a pastor in Australia. On his office walls hung four photographs of open desert—that looked almost identical. He asked Babbage why he displayed these side-by-side. Babbage told him that he was at the ancient site of where Abram’s father lived, and aimed his camera north, east, south and west, in each direction, snapping a picture. Whether on looked to the south or the east, to the north or the west, beyond the walls of the oasis city was nothing but a bleak prospect. Where Abram grew up and he lived his entire life, there was prosperity, fertile plants nourished by the annual flooding of the Euphrates River. But beyond the city was nothing but empty, dry terrain.
(William Lane, Hebrews, A Call to Commitment, Hendrickson, 1985,
p. 152)
Abram’s security and happiness and comfort were all within those city walls. Abram’s future is there as well. He is guaranteed his father’s inheritance, which meant not only wealth and livestock and property, but the legacy of a family name, and, most important in those days, the family gods were handed down to the next generation. Abram’s future and security is there. His people are there—people he has known all his life, people who he could depend on in hard times. Abram’s comfort in relationships is here.
And God says, “Leave it all.”
Abram must choose whether to abandon his land in favor of a land sight unseen. He must decide to abandon a people that he undoubtedly is close to in order to create a new people, even though his wife has not been able to have children. He must decide to set aside his certain material blessing (his inheritance) for a blessing that God promises.
In a word, Abram is asked to decide to go beyond what he “knows”—that which he can see, touch, smell, and control. He has to choose to have “faith” in God to provide instead. Abram must trust that God can deliver on what is being offered to Abram, in order to give up everything that he has “known” all his life and everything that he “knows” to be true for his future if he remains.
And he chooses to leap off the narrow ledge of knowledge into faith—to cross that desert, not knowing what lies on the other side. To trust that God will give him exactly what is promised, even though it rubs against everything a logical person would do.
He goes in faith. He chooses to believe that there is more to life than what he can “know.” He realizes that, in fact, what he “knows” is really quite arbitrary anyway.
What if the Euphrates runs dry next year? What will come to the place of such fertility and safety? What if a catastrophe takes away his family or friends? What if his inheritance is nothing more than a baseball card collection?
Nothing is certain; we can take nothing for granted. In fact, the more we think about it, the more we realize that all the things we think we “know” can change in a heartbeat. Sickness, financial crisis, disasters happen all the time to people. When we put our faith in that which we can control ourselves or that which we take for granted will always be there, it is then that we are on the shakiest ground.
We need to place our faith in something beyond what we can “know.”
In the New Testament, the story of Abraham is equated to the story of everybody who becomes a follower of Jesus Christ.
Think about it for a moment: We all live lives in an oasis of sorts. I take for granted that my comfort and security will always come from my paycheck and my new car and my mortgaged house. I rent movies like crazy, looking for the latest bit of amusement that can make me feel entertained and satisfied for a couple of hours (but the VHS tape system isn’t good enough anymore, I’ve gotta get that DVD player so that I can watch Star Wars Attack of the Clones in full digital glory!). I plan my summer vacation away from the drudgery of day-to-day life in order to add even more excitement to my life. I set up 401ks and Roth IRAs to ensure a future of comfort and security. If I am single, I am looking for that certain someone that will make me happy. If I am married, I am disappointed that that didn’t happen (!), and yearn again to be single or to find someone else that will maybe make me happy.
Now, don’t get me wrong—there is nothing wrong with DVD players and vacations and retirement plans and marriage in and of themselves. But the question that our “oasis living” raises is this:
Have I placed my faith in THOSE THINGS more than I have trusted God for my every need, including my need for deep satisfaction and joy and happiness in life?
We are then faced with a choice. We can continue in our “oasis living,” or we can listen to God, who tells us, “Follow me. Let your heart leave the land that you’ve ‘known’ as your security and source of satisfaction and let your heart go where I want you to go and trust that I offer you something greater.”
Look at how the New Testament views Abraham:
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. 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. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
(Hebrews 11:8-10)
Abraham left one place for another, greater place. He left a life of comfort and safety and inheritance for a life of wandering and living in tents.
But it was not an aimless wandering. It was a migration from a past life to a new life with God.
“For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Even though it might have appeared that in his earthly life Abraham was nothing more than a nomad without ever settling in the promised land, the fact is this: he possessed a sure sense of direction; he would go wherever he felt God was leading him. He left one city that was somewhat satisfying, looking forward a greater city, that is, eternal life with God.
He did not look back toward the country in which he once lived. His sights were on the country that God had promised. And this is true for every one of us who decides to leave our lives of trusting our own self-interests for a life of trusting in God through his Son Jesus Christ.
“Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for
them.” (Hebrews 11:16)
You see, faith is placing your trust in the promises of God for your future. Abraham trusted God’s promise of land and children and blessing, blazing across the desert not knowing what lies ahead but trusting that God would carry through on his promises.
We must trust God as well. Place your faith in Jesus Christ as the way to another country, where God will provide and nurture and love you forever.
Crossing the desert from this life to the next is a step of faith. But we must ask ourselves, am I not placing my faith in something already? Am I not living a life of faith in that which I presume to know? I know I have a job, a family, a house, a vacation coming up. I trust that these things will always be there for my satisfaction and security in life.
But, wait a minute. What if? What if I lose my job, my family, my vacation?
And another thing—all these things are fleeting, aren’t they? If I live to be in my 80’s, and I’m in some Nursing Home, what will it all mean then? And then you die. As they say, “You can’t take it with you!”
Is there an eternal life that is more than what I am experiencing here and now?
And is what I’m living here and now really all that satisfying and secure?
So, I understand that if you hear God asking you today to leave your comfortable life and to cross over into a trusting life with him, that it is a scary and difficult decision. I made that decision myself at 23 years of age. I remember saying to God, “But this is all I know! I have over two decades of programming in my head and my heart that tells me to seek security and satisfaction in the things of this world—sex, money, materialism, power. It’s just difficult to decide to leave this place for a place sight unseen!”
I understand that it is hard. It took me a long time to finally leave the land in which I was living and enter into a new land with Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Its not an easy decision. But it is a decision that you must make—to not decide is actually to decide. To live life in the status quo is to decide against God.
And for us who confess to believe in and to follow Jesus Christ, the question this passage raises is this: We say we have made the choice between the oasis of what this culture offers for our security and satisfaction, but have we really?
How much are we actually trailblazing across the promised land, doing what God has called us to do (to be a blessing to everyone by sharing the love of Jesus in both actions and words)? Or have we actually said to God, “I will only go so far. Actually, God, I will do what you say, but I will not leave this land of comfort and security and satisfaction that I’ve been called to leave. I will call myself a Christian, but I will live as the non-Christian does: living in the oasis of satisfaction in what the world can give me.”
I think we are not convinced yet that there is a better life awaiting us in the promises of God.
Are you still in the oasis? Or have you begun to cross the desert toward God’s promised land?
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