Sojourning: The Call of Abram
Do You Have the Faith of Abram?
Genesis 12:1-9
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. June 7th, 2026
Abram was seventy-five years old when he first heard the call of the Lord. He had already lived a lifetime in the land of Ur. His family hearth would have been full of stories from the past. Stories of sibling rivalry, of neighborhood intrigue, of adolescent exploits, and the stubborn personalities of different bulls. Stories of the trouble his sheep got into, or harsh winter nights. But we do not know any of those stories. We are not told about Abram’s life in Ur. We are not told why the Lord chooses to speak into his life. But we do know that, for us, Abram’s story begins when he is seventy-five years old.
The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Sometimes when the Lord speaks he really sticks the knife in you. Each phrase is more intimate, making clearer the sacrifice God is asking Abram to make.
First, go from your country. Leave the nation that you know and love. Leave this place where you are familiar with every rock and valley, every creek and hill. Go instead to a land that I will show you.
Second, leave your kindred. Leave everyone behind, save Sarai your wife and Lot your nephew. Have no more to do with a lifetime of friends and relations. You will now live among strangers in the land that I will show you.
And third, most painfully, leave your father’s house. Leave your inheritance. Give up on your obligations to you father and mother. Never see them again. But go, instead, to the land that I will show you.
The Lord does not sugar coat his request. He does not pretend that he is asking Abram to do anything other than what he is asking him to do. Leave everything you knew. Leave everything you know. Leave every bit of identity you have. Leave all the security you have. Give up on your whole life, all seventy-five years of it, and go to the land that I will show you. Go to a place that I have set for you.
I’m getting ahead of myself here but I also want to point out what the Lord says about the land of Canaan, the land of the promise, to Abram. “To your offspring I will give this land.” He does not even promise the Land to Abram. Abram will from here on out live as a nomad, an alien, a migrant. He will have no land to call his own save the grave he purchases for Sarai. He will live in a land populated by others, owned by others. And he will live among them at their mercy. He will get by on the kindness of strangers. This is the life the Lord is calling Abram to lead.
But the command of the Lord is not all hardship. The command comes with a promise — however vague. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” In other words, give up all you have, all you once were, and I promise you a future far greater than the future this land holds in store for you. You will be the father of a great nation. Your name will be great. You will be blessed. And more than that, “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
There is hardship in what the Lord asks, but also great promise.
We are not told how long Abram deliberated, or if he had to deliberate at all. We only know that he followed the command of God. He left his country, his kindred, his father’s house, and went to Canaan. So his story began.
I, myself, marvel at the faith of Abram. I am not so sure I would do the same. I’m a bit of a homebody. Part of the joy of traveling, after all, is coming home again. But more to the point, Abram is being asked to sacrifice a lot that I hold dear. Family. Stability. Security. Identity. And he’s having to sacrifice these things for a future that is left somewhat vague. He’s giving up the life he knows, for a life he does not know.
Why does he do this? I don’t think it is because of the nature of the promise. It is because of who makes the promise. He doesn’t so much hold faith in the promise, as much as he has faith in the promiser.
Paul, this morning, commends to us the faith of Abram. A faith that is not founded on Law, or ideology, or confessions, or money, or power, or wealth, or nostalgia, but a faith that is grounded purely and solely in the one who makes the promise.
We may not be called out of our country, our kindred, our father’s house, but we are all called to have faith in the one who promises eternal life. And such faith casts aside all other supports, all other security, all other marks of identity, and fully, entirely, puts its hope in the one who calls us.
Abram’s life is not made easy because he has this faith. If anything, his faith makes his life a whole lot harder. In human terms he may have been better off in Ur. But if he stayed in Ur he’d never have a son. If he stayed in Ur he’d never be the father of a great nation. If he stayed in Ur he’d be totally forgotten. But he has faith in the God who makes something out of nothing. The God who can raise the dead. And on account of that faith perseveres and is richly rewarded.