21st September 2025

Abraham, friend of God, father of faith, 1 – 21/09/25 – Martin Mowat

Readings Psalm 47, Hebrews 11:8-12 

Have you ever felt that you didn’t really know where life was taking you? 

Well, if it’s any consolation, that’s exactly how Abraham felt, too, as we’ve just been told in those wonderful verses in Hebrews 11. 

"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." (Hebrews 11:8)

Last year, when we talked about Old Testament heroes, people like Adam, Eve, Enoch, Noah, Isaac, Moses, Rahab, Boaz and Ruth, we didn’t really talk about Abraham, who was perhaps the biggest hero of them all.  In fact, that was deliberate on my part because I felt that he really warranted a whole series just about him, so that’s what we’re starting today. 

As we will see, Abraham wasn’t perfect by any means, and his marriage wasn’t perfect either, but he was nevertheless the only biblical figure ever to be described as “the friend of God” That was by the apostle James.  

He was also the only biblical figure ever to be referred to as “the father of faith”. That was by the apostle Paul. And even today, Prof. John Lennox describes him as “one of the most outstanding and influential figures in world history, from whom billions of people trace their spiritual decent” So you can see that there is no shortage of things that you and I can learn from his story, things that will enrich our own lives and ministries - learning to better trust God being perhaps the most important. 

One of the problems that we have when we read the Bible, the early books of the Old Testament particularly, is knowing whether they are literally true or not.  I don’t want to get sidetracked by what is a huge question, one that had been discussed over and over and over again by people far more qualified than I am, but I do want to quote something Paul said to Timothy.

All scripture, he said, ALL scripture, is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

All Scripture is God-breathed.  I love that expression. And all Scripture … is useful.  So, whether it be the potentially mythical accounts of creation, or historically proven accounts of the crucifiction, they are God-breathed, and therefore they are useful to us. They are there, in the Bible, so that we can learn something from them.

In the case of the account of Abraham’s life, there are three important signs of both the historical accuracy and of the importance of his story. The first is the fact that it occupies nearly one third of the book of Genesis. The second is that he is so frequently mentioned in the New Testament, believe it or not, some 76 times.   

And the third, for me, is that I don’t think that a whole nation would claim to be descended from someone who was purely mythical. The “begats” as they’re called, are very specific. So let’s move forward on the basis that what we’re about to study really happened. 

Let’s start by looking at his family background?  He lived with his family, his father and his two brothers in Ur of the Chaldeans which was, at the time, a coastal city near the mouth of the river Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, in modern-day Iraq, some 1200 miles east of Canaan, the land that God would promise to give him for his family. 

When he was about 70, his aged father decided to move the family and their flocks all that way to Canaan. We’re not told why that was, perhaps for better pastures for their sheep, and therefore a better standard of living for the family.  But having trekked about 650 miles north west, via Babel, that I’ll mention in a minute, the got to a place called Harran, and decided that was far enough, so they settled there. 

And that’s where Abraham is when we first meet him.  It’s 5 years later, he’s then my age. His wife Sarah, also his half-sister, is 65 and barren.  They’re DINKYs. Do you remember that expression? “Double Income, No Kids Yet”. Although in their case, at their age, it was “No Kids Full Stop” which wasn’t good as we’ll see in a later message.

So I ask myself, would I, in his situation, walk yet another 400 or more miles, in the blazing sunshine, which is what God is about to ask him to do, just in order to try for a baby with a barren wife? Quite frankly, I don’t think so.  

But he did.  Why? That’s one of the things we’re going to try to find out.

Another thing that’s worth mentioning, before we get into the nitty gritty, is the political backdrop or context.  We know, only too well today, that nothing happens in isolation, everything has history behind it and everything has consequences.

So let’s go back in time a bit.

After the flood, God said to Noah “be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” So he did, or rather his three sons did, and you can read, in Genesis chapter 10, that over the next 700 odd years there was a veritable population explosion. But during that time, not surprisingly, man fell into the same old trap, the one that Adam and Eve had fallen into, that of wanting to determine his own future.

So they decided to build a huge city in the shape of a tower that would reach all the way to heaven.  There were several reasons for doing this, one was so as not to drown in the event that God sent a second flood, the second was so that they didn’t have to obey God’s command to disperse, which they didn’t want to do, and the last, but not least was that the big boss of the time, a man called Nimrod, wanted to make a name for himself by pushing out the boundaries, flaunting his wealth and power, reaching for the skies and grasping at immortality - by building a tower. Ring any bells?  

Again, let’s not get side-tracked.  As the story goes, whether literally true or somewhat mythical, God put a stop to it by confusing their languages so that they couldn’t coordinate the project, and according to Genesis 11:9, he scattered them over all the whole earth. 

“Why is that relevant to Abraham or to us?” Because Babel, which God didn’t destroy by the way, was otherwise called Babylon and despite all that God did to put an end to their tower building ambitions, it’s God-less political and military influence was very far reaching. Its name crops up again and again throughout the Bible, over 280 times. 

Abrahams forbears were undoubtedly part of that dispersion in which people lost contact with each-other, and with God. But this is the point, it meant that they found themselves seeking for identity, significance, and most importantly, meaning for themselves, as well as for life in general. This is the history of religion everywhere.

It was therefore in this context that God spoke to Abraham, the son of a moon worshipper, revealing himself and promising him both a son, offspring, and a land for that offspring to live in despite his wife being barren and too old for child bearing. Two things that were more than he could possibly have dreamed for. 

As God began to speak, therfore, Abraham listened. He left his home and his family to obey God's call to "go to the land I will show you." 

In complete contrast to Nimrod, he chose to believe the Lord and to take him at his word.  “Abraham believed the Lord and He credited it to him as righteousness" James tells us in his epistle. And that is when he described Abraham as "the friend of God." (James 3:23)

But that didn’t make Abraham perfect.  Just like you and I, he was a flawed man who followed a perfect God. What changed him was a constant belief that this God, who spoke to him, would keep his amazing promises. And God did.

Abraham blazed the trail for us, a trail of faith that you and I walk today, so we have vital lessons to learn from Abraham’s example.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be going back nearly 4,000 years. With Abraham we’re going to cross deserts, ride camels, dwell in tents, acquire wealth, suffer childlessness, make lots of sacrifices, receive promises, and catch a glimpse of the glory of God. 

We, too, can grow as we better understand how God taught and formed Abraham to be both“the friend of God” and “the father of faith”.