27th September 2025

Abraham, friend of God, father of faith 2 – 28/09/25 – Martin Mowat

Readings Genesis 12:1-7 & Isaiah 44: 6-11

Last week we started a new series of messages and this time they’re all about Abraham. The late Lord Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, wrote of him, “he performed no miracles, commanded no armies, ruled no kingdom, gathered no mass of disciples and made no spectacular prophecies. Yet there can be no serious doubt that he is THE MOST influential person who ever lived, counted today as the spiritual grandfather of more than half of the six billion people on the face of the earth.”

Let’s pray. 

Last week’s message was something of an introduction, in which we talked about Abraham’s family, his cultural, historical and his political background, among other things. We saw how he was described by James as being a friend of God, and by Paul as the father of faith. If you weren’t here last week, can I strongly encourage you to go to the church internet site and read it.

So today let’s get stuck in and start to find out why he was, or is, such an important figure, the most influential person who ever lived, as we’ve just been told.

Was it because he was a semi-nomadic shepherd, born into a family of moonies, who converted to being a worshipper of Yahweh? 

Was it because the promises that God made to him would ultimately find their fulfilment in Jesus the Messiah, and that all those who trust in Yahweh, the true God, would become his spiritual children? After all, when God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, he wasn’t just talking physically. 

Was it because he dared to lead a band of armed men to rescue his nephew Lot from the powerful kings who had captured him, or because he interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot had gone to live, or because he paid tithes to the Melchizedek, King of (Jeru)Salem, or was it because one day he entertained angels?

Was it perhaps because he was willing to sacrifice his only son Isaac, born to him and his supposedly barren wife Sarah, in their old age thanks to the supernatural intervention by God? 

Was it all of those things, or none of them? That’s what we aim to discover over the next few weeks. How many weeks? I can’t tell you yet. 

Abraham's ancestors were idolaters and polytheists, meaning that they worshipped multiple gods. We read on the book of Joshua "Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the river and worshiped other gods" And there’s archaeological evidence that shows this was common in that part of the world, at that time.  

There’s an amusing story about Abraham and his father, we don’t know how true it is, but according to various Jewish legends Abraham’s father, as well as being a shepherd, was an idol maker. One day, when he was away from his workshop, Abraham went into his workshop and smashed all the idols, leaving only the largest ones. 

When his father returned, Abraham told him that that there had been a terrible fight among the idols. But when his father replied that idols are lifeless, so can’t fight, Abraham replied “Then why do you worship them?”.

Seriously though, the worship of ‘other Gods’ rates in the Bible as the number one offence against the one true God. We see that very clearly in the very first of the 10 commandments that God later gave to Moses. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not have other gods beside me. 

Abraham seems to have known, even before God revealed himself to him, perhaps instinctively, that idol worship was a waste of time and energy. I don’t want to make a huge thing of this, this morning, but talking about wasting time and energy, let me ask us all a rhetorical question. One that we can think about when we get home. 

Where do we spend most of our time and energy?  Perhaps, like me, you don’t have much spare energy these days, but what about our time?  Seriously.  And what about our money too. Where does that all go? 

And there’s another side to the same question, what we allow to push us about, control our thoughts and activities, keep us in fear. It’s all about how we find our significance and identity. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like social networks, subtle talking snakes like the one in the garden of Eden, but that’s another matter. ….

Could it be that these things be our idols? Yes, we go to church on Sundays, we put money in the collection and it goes to missions, we say a few prayers here and there, but in terms of real time, energy and money, how does that compare with the things I’ve just highlighted?

Enough said – a sobering thought – and I’m not claiming to be any better than you are, far from it.

Let’s move on. 

Let’s go back to Haran and to the day when, after being there for five years with his family, Abraham was perhaps becoming frustrated. The worship of moon gods wasn’t hitting the spot, for him, anyway.

That reminds me of a time in my own Christian walk.  Charlotte and I were going to the local church in our Buckinghamshire village. But it was dead, so dead that I said to myself that whatever it was that had kept the church alive for 2000 years, it wasn’t succeeding in our Sunday services. My sister, on the other hand, was going to a church where the Sunday services were just as liturgic, but somehow totally different, alive, vibrant, meaningful, and whenever we could we would drive the 3 hours each way, just to go to her church. 

But let’s get back to Abraham. So, when one day, apparently out of the blue; the LORD said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your kindred, 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, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” That’s exactly what he did.

Did you hear the 7 things that God promised him? 

·      To show him a land

·      To make of him a great nation, 

·      To bless him and make his name great, 

·      To make him a blessing for others.

·      To bless those who bless him in return,

·      To curse those who dishonoured him,

·      And last, but by no means least, to bless, through him, ALL the families of the earth.

Interestingly, God promised to give Abraham essentially what the Babel builders were trying to acquire for themselves by their own ingenuity, only far more so and under different conditions. Abraham was called to trust God to give him significance, and not to trust himself. Nimrod and co. had tried to do that in their own strength, and failed. That never works. 

God revealing himself to Abraham and making those commitments changed his life for ever. He became a monotheist, a worshipper of one God. And whenever that God spoke to him, he rersponded in faith. 

He took his wife Sarai, Genesis tells us, 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. 

And the first thing he did when he got there was to build, not a house, but an alter.  ….  How often we fall into the trap of looking after our own needs before those of God’s church.

And how did God respond to Abraham? He appeared to him. It can be so easy to miss these things, and to miss their significance. He appeared to him.

God has revealed himself to both men and women throughout the Bible. God continues to reveal himself today.  We’ve talked about this. Sometimes it's no more than an impression, a sense of peace, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that he doesn’t. 

God is a God who hears and who speaks.  He has done from the first day of creation. 

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” 

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, 

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”

God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image,

My friends, we hear and speak precisely because we are made in God’s image.