Introduction

Most of us have learned to navigate the world with maps. whether your preference is for big folded paper maps, or a navigation app. And We all have mental maps of the places we go every day— the way to work, or to grocery store. We probably know our homes well enough to get around in the dark with a minimum of stubbed toes. Knowing the lay of the land makes us feel safe and in control.

In the life of faith, we like our metaphorical maps. We’d like concrete, knowable directions to a righteous life. So we crave rules that give us these kinds of assurances. These behaviours are acceptable. Those are not. We might also want a personalized map to our life’s calling Here is the person you should marry. Here is the university or college you should attend. Here is the career you should pursue. We imagine that if we know the map and followed it closely, we’ll be happy and blessed. In my experience, God doesn’t work like this.

God isn’t so interested in telling us how to live a good life. Instead, he walks with us, leading us along the way of blessings. He doesn’t share in advance what the route will be, so we can have a look at the turn-by-turn directions. Instead, he just asks us to trust him. He chooses the destination. He chooses the route (which often includes detours and stops along the way we’d rather not make). But this uncertain journey comes with a promise: If we follow him, he will bless us and use us to bless others. So God asks us to trust him. To have faith. To go on a journey to somewhere we’ve never been before, and to do it without a map. To trust that he is willing and able to get us there.

I. The Journey Begins

A. Abraham Trusts God

When we think about God asking us to depart on a journey of faith, the obvious place to start in the Bible is the story of Abraham’s calling (back while he was still called Abram).

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” 

So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. (Genesis 12:1–4 NLT).

When God first appeared to him, Abraham wasn’t a God-follower. He was a pagan Aramean. He didn’t have a résumé of pious deeds. Nothing, really, that would set him apart. Even though there’s nothing he had done to earn God’s approval, God made him a promise.

At this point in his life, Abraham is seventy-five years old, and he has no children. When I hadn’t had kids by my mid-thirties I was concerned that it would never happen. But Abraham had moved past the time when it would be merely concerning. His youth is gone. His middle age is gone. Abraham is now an old man. God appears to him and tells him to Go, and then promises to make him into a great nation.

Now, I confess, I don’t know how you would go about becoming a great nation, but I’m pretty sure that among the first steps would be, “have some kids.” Preferably a lot of them. So being seventy-five without any kids makes what God is proposing a pretty heavy lift. It would be like God appearing to me and saying, “I’m going to turn you into a hockey legend.” My response might be, “I’m in my late 40s. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not in shape. Oh, and I’ve never played ice hockey before. Are you sure?” But, despite the long odds, Abraham trusts God.

B. Costly Trust

Abraham’s trust, though, isn’t the kind of academic exercise we might think about when we say that he had ‘faith.’ When we use the word ‘faith’ we often mean something like, “an intellectual belief that an idea is, in fact, true.” But for Abraham, leaving his clan and his family isn’t an academic exercise.

When Abraham goes, he leaves behind all the things that would have given him status, belonging, and safety. This is before there were well organized countries concerned with the rule of law and before there were professional police departments to keep the peace. Abraham would have relied on his extended family for protection. Now they were gone.

Also, travel back then wasn’t like today. Abraham wasn’t going to hop in the car to drive to the airport. He had to pack up everything he owned, and journey by foot (or camel maybe) through the bandit-ridden spaces between places, and he didn’t even know the destination. How do you even pack for that trip? “Honey, How many sets of long johns do you think I might need?”

Despite these challenges, Abraham makes the journey showing that his faith isn’t an abstract thing. It isn’t about the ideas you allow into your head. It’s a choice to trust and to act according to that trust. it means being willing to set out on a journey to an unknown destination, without any maps trusting the guide knows the way and that he’s leading us somewhere worth going. Faith means showing through action that we actually believe that God is faithful. Abraham goes because he trusts God to give him something greater than he is giving up.

II. A Template for the Journey

For Abraham, the life of faith meant giving up what was familiar. Over time, though, his descendents acclimated to the demands of a life of faith. Or they imagined that they had. But the thing about faith is that it needs to grow, and this involves being constantly called further from our comfort zone. 

The Jews had gotten used to the idea that they were God’s treasured possession, his chosen people who represented him to the world. But that relationship changed when when their long-awaited Messiah, Jesus, appeared on the scene. He offered forgiveness, not tied to sacrifices at the temple. He created a religious community that is open to people who aren’t descendents of Abraham. For over a millennium, the Jewish law had separated insiders from outsiders. The law set the ethical and cultural rules for God’s people. Now God was asking his people to make space for people who didn’t keep the law.

During the Old Testament, God’s promises had been available to (most) non-Jewish people via conversion to Judaism. This involved a baptism of conversion and circumcision (for the men). Followed by cultural assimilation (by observing the Sabbath and eating kosher). But now Paul insists that even that isn’t necessary. He’s saying that Gentiles can come to the Jewish God without become Jewish. Paul explains, though, that this was a part of the plan that since the time of Abraham. He writes:

Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” 

When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners….

Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!) 

So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing (Romans 4:1–5, 13-17, NLT).

Paul notes that Abraham is described as righteous long before there was any law for him to obey Abraham was considered righteous not by his law keeping, but by his trust. In other words, Abraham was righteous because of his faith.

The promise God gave to Abraham about his family, always pointed past his family: God had promised to bless Abraham’s family so that his family might be a blessing to everyone. God was willing to justify Gentiles by faith as he had justified Abraham by faith before there ever was a law for him to keep. Further, In a metaphorical way, we’re all children of Abraham. God accepted Abraham as his partner, even though he had no ancestral claim to that position. He just trusted. God does for us what he did for Abraham. Through him God shows that everyone is welcome into the family. No one is an afterthought. God is creating a new kingdom. defined not by who your earthly parents were or by where you live. Rather it’s a kingdom defined by a new kind of birth.

III. The Journey’s Unexpected Turn

So Abraham gave up the familiar to follow God on a journey of faith. And Paul explained to his opponents that God was once again calling his people to step out of their comfort zone, by making space for outsiders, but also in recognizing that God had the right to take away the things that gave some of them security (just as he had for Abraham).

For the Jewish elites, the law was what gave them privilege. The law’s sacrificial system set up priests as middlemen between God and repentant sinners. The importance of understanding the nuances of the law gave legal experts high standing. But now Jesus comes along and says people can be forgiven without sacrifices, and they don’t need to master all the complex rules of the law. This makes obsolete the things that gave the Jewish elites wealth and status. So the Jewish religious authorities were not dispassionate observers of what God was doing. They had a dog in this fight. They were deeply invested in preserving the system that benefited them. But God had other plans.

The confusion among the Jewish ruling class is obvious in the secret meeting between Jesus and one of the Jewish leaders—a Pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling council named Nicodemus. Nicodemus doesn’t know what to make of Jesus. He’s seen the miracles, and realizes they can’t be explained unless Jesus is doing God’s work. But Jesus’ ministry is also unlike anything he expected, He’s not sure how to reconcile the apparent contradiction:

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” 

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” 

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” 

Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” 

“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked. 

Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. 

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:1–17 NLT).

This is the only passage in scripture that mentions being ‘born again,’ what does Jesus mean by this? People who were Jews were Jews because of their natural birth: they were descendents of Abraham. But God’s end goal was to bless all the nations of the world, not just Abraham’s descendents. Israel as the exclusive people of God was always intended to be a temporary reality. This is a tough pill to swallow for people like Nicodemus, because they were invested in what God was doing in the past. It made them feel like privileged insiders.

But Jesus confronted how all of that was getting in the way of Nicodemus seeing and understanding what God was up to in the world. Until we humble ourselves, acknowledging that God doesn’t save us by our merit, our pride completely blinds us to what God is doing. That’s why you have to be born again to see the kingdom. You must humble yourself to be born again, but pride blinds you. Jesus is signalling to Nicodemus that he needs to start over again, with a new life given by God but that new beginning means that all of the status and power he’s accumulated to this point will go to zero because we don’t stand by our accomplishments, but rather by God’s grace.

If our salvation were based on our accomplishments, then those who set at the top of the heap could boast. They would, after all, be the most assured of being saved. They could look down with smug satisfaction on all the little people, whose standing before God was less assured. But if salvation comes entirely because of what God has done, then they have no grounds for pride.

So Jesus is try to tell Nicodemus, While you’ve built up a store of accomplishments that make you feel pretty good about yourself. a truly blessed life is one that is lived in radical dependence on God.” He must recognize that he stands by God’s mercy, not by his accomplishments, That he stands on the same level ground as everyone else, saints and sinners alike. Being born again, means coming to terms with our fundamental equality before God.

Now this isn’t just a problem for Nicodemus or for Jews. It’s a danger for all religious people. There is often an insider/outsider dynamic in the church. Some people were basically born to faith. I’m one of them. I’ve always been a regular church attender. I went to Sunday School, VBS, and after-school Bible club. When I hit my teenage years, my ‘rebellion’ merely consisted if long hair and loud music. If that is your experience, that’s great. BUT that’s not why you’re saved. Imagine someone who grew up never stepping foot in a church. they’re addicted to drugs and alcohol. They had kids with a bunch of different people. They’ve got tattoos and piercings. They’ve done time in prison. But if they hear the message of Jesus, and respond in faith, they are every bit as saved as the people like me who grew up in church.

This is because, for the purposes of salvation, nothing that any of us brings to God, has value. We’ve been born again by faith. Salvation happens because of what God has done for us, not because of what we have done for God. Our part is to accept what God is birthing in us: the new creation that reshapes who we are and how we live. And that new creation is brought about by the Spirit – That’s what it means to be born of the Spirit. This was always the plan, but it wasn’t necessarily something we anticipated. To be born again means we must live with an understanding of our total dependence on God for salvation. That shapes how we conduct ourselves as a community of God’s people.

First, it means our focus shouldn’t be on ministering only to people who are like us, other religious insiders. Do we set up church to be a comfortable place for people in the know, or do we make it a comfortable place for people who are normally on the outside looking in? I remember how the first time I attended an Anglican chapel service, I was totally flummoxed by the protocol. Wait! when do I stand, sit and kneel? What am I supposed to say when they finish reading the scripture? Even as a lifelong Christian, I found it mysterious. How much more might people who don’t have a faith background find our expectations in worship a complete mystery?

Do we spend time trying to attract the people who might enhance our standing in the community—the reputable, wealthy, and accomplished—people who can help us meeting our annual budget? Or do we spread the invitation indiscriminately, even to those who not bring resources, but who might bring brokenness and drama with them?

Second, it means we need a change in perspective on the things that we have that give us status. If you grew up with a strong spiritual heritage, that’s a good gift from God. You’re life likely doesn’t bear the same scars as someone who grew up far from God. But when we look at the spiritual outsider who has come to faith, we need to see the potentially amazing testimony of God’s grace in their lives. If Jesus healed my hangnail, that would be nice. If Jesus restored the sight of a person born blind, that is amazing. In the same way, those who come from a background that required greater healing may have a greater testimony of God’s saving power at work in their lives. As Jesus says, “The one who is forgiven much, will love much.” Think of the Apostle Paul. Because he persecuted the church, he came to a more profound understanding of the depth of God’s mercy for sinners. So whether you’re the ultimate insider or the ultimate outsider, you have an equal share in this journey of faith.

Conclusion

On this journey, we’d probably prefer a map to give us peace, comfort, and certainty. But God doesn’t work that way. He wants us to trust and follow him, not the map. But the story of Abraham, the argument of Paul and the late-night confusion of Nicodemus all confront us with an unsettling truth: God doesn’t hand out maps, rather he hands out promises. To Abraham, it sounded impossible. To Paul’s critics it seemed dangerous. To Nicodemus, it sounded incomprehensible. God calls us to leave, to trust and to be born again. That’s not map following, it’s faith.

And as we follow in trust, we discover that God’s goal was never to create a tidy tribe of former-sinners who could boast about their navigation skills. It was about forming a new family that trusts the guide. Abraham trusted before the promised decedents ever materialized. Paul trusted when the system he had cherished his whole life broke open, even though he had to consign everything that had once been so valuable to him to the dung heap. Nicodemus had to decide whether he would trust enough to step out of the shadows and into the light.

We stand in the same place. Some of us have the résumé. We have church-attendance pins, spotless records and decades of Christian respectability. These are wonderful, but they’re not the reason you belong. Others of us come in with the wreckage of our old lives still sticking to our shoes, our lives full of stories, perhaps we’d rather not tell. But the scars we bear aren’t disqualifying. They’re places where grace can bloom, like how flowers can grow in the cracks in a paved parking lot.

No one arrives in God’s kingdom by accomplishment. No one can earn a spot by moral performance. At the door, no one is checking your ancestry, your achievement or your spiritual polish. The only credential that gets you in is simple trust in the one who invited you.

Trusting means going when you don’t know the destination. It means following the lead of the Spirit, whose ways sometimes seem as mysterious to us as the wind. So don’t spend your life wondering how you can get a map. Instead wonder whether you’ll be willing to make the unexpected turn when the guide takes you in a direction you could never have anticipated.

Are we willing to be a church that looks less like an exclusive club, and more like an open table? To measure our success not by polish, but by transformation? Are we willing to journey with other, with whom we have very little in common, except that we’re all committed to following the same guide? Because the promise God gave to Abraham was never meant to end with religious insiders, it was always meant to spill over to outsiders as well. So it is with us. The blessings from following the guide are not for us alone. They’re meant to be shared, with anyone who will trust, who will accept the invitation to be born again.