Discover The Word

Monday, May 1, 2006, Part 1

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).

IDEA: Faith is the confidence that God can provide for us now and in the life to come.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that the things that make us feel most comfortable may be what we have to give up if we take our faith in Christ seriously.

Do you think it’s important for parents to make their children feel secure? Why?

Do you function best in a secure environment?

I. When you read about the life of Abraham in Hebrews 11, you see that God calls him to abandon his securities.

He left a secure environment in which he grew up.

At 75 years of age, he was called to turn his back on a comfortable home and pleasant circumstances.

What do we know about the place he had to leave?

We know much about Ur of the Chaldees because of more than 100,000 clay tablets in both Sumerian and Semitic Babylonian dialects, telling us about the city. It had a population of about 250,000 with heavy commerce and manufacturing—with copperworkers, carpenters, shipbuilders, potters, leatherworkers, etc.

Life in Ur was culturally rich and comfortable, offering good reasons to stay there.

A second security he left was the comfort of a settled environment for his later years.

The Bible makes the point that at 75 years of age he was called to go to a place he didn’t know.

Generally speaking, does change come easily for older people?

II. God called him to a place that must have shaken his securities.

What do you know about the place God called him to go?

Abraham knew nothing about it except that God called him to leave his home and family.

He grew up in the city and God called him to live as a nomad in tents for the rest of his life.

He spent his life as an alien in a foreign land, which always produces insecurity.

III. Why would God do that to a man that the Bible calls “a friend of God”?

Why would God do that to us?