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In the Faith, Hope, Love series, Pastor Mark Medley turns to Abraham and Sarah to ask one of the most basic and unsettling questions of human life: how do we face an unknown future? We can plan, calculate, save, strategize, and try to live wisely, but none of us actually knows what tomorrow will bring. That uncertainty often becomes a source of deep anxiety. Hebrews 11 does not answer that anxiety by giving us a clean map. Instead, it gives us a story. Mark reminds us that Scripture does not merely tell us what faith is; it shows us people who lived by faith, with all their courage, weakness, obedience, confusion, and failure on display.

Abraham receives an extraordinary amount of attention in the Bible. The first eleven chapters of Genesis cover roughly two thousand years, but then Genesis slows down and spends the rest of the book tracing the life of one man and his family line. Abraham appears prominently in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. He is called the father of those who believe and, uniquely, the friend of God. When Hebrews 11 lists the heroes of faith, Abraham receives more attention than anyone else. Yet Mark is careful to say that the hero of Abraham’s story is not Abraham. The true hero is God. Abraham’s life is inconsistent. At times he trusts God with astonishing courage; at other times he acts as if everything depends on him. But God remains faithful, patient, merciful, and steady. That is the real hope of the story.

Hebrews says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.” Then comes the line that exposes the weight of faith: “And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” In Genesis 12, God says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” God gives him a call, a promise, and a direction, but not a detailed itinerary. Mark lingers there because it is so unlike what most of us want. We want God to say, “Go,” and then immediately answer, “Where, how long, how much will it cost, who is going with me, what will happen when I arrive, and how will I know it was worth it?” But Abraham is not given all of that. He has something better than an explanation: he has the God who spoke.

That is why faith is not mainly a feeling we possess or a force we generate. Faith is relationship. God reveals Himself, and the revelation of God becomes strong enough to move our feet. Mark points out that Abraham was likely a pagan man from a family and culture shaped by idol worship, yet the one true God graciously revealed Himself and called him. That revelation was a gift. Abraham did not discover God by his own brilliance or moral superiority. God came to him. And whatever Abraham saw and heard was powerful enough to make him leave what was familiar, comfortable, and secure.

Mark draws attention to the old King James phrasing of God’s call: “Get thee out.” It is memorable because it is sharp and personal. Abraham had to get out from his country, from his kindred, and from his father’s house. Those were not small things. Ur was not some insignificant village; it was a center of commerce, learning, and security. Land in Abraham’s day was tied to provision, identity, and survival. Family ties carried emotional weight and cultural responsibility. His father’s house represented the past that had defined him. God’s call was not just geographical. It was spiritual, relational, and identity-forming. Abraham had to leave the old stories, old securities, and old loyalties that could no longer define the man God was making him to be.

That question comes close to home. Mark asks whether there is a “get thee out” in our own lives. It may be a call away from sin, impurity, fear, compromise, or a relationship that is pulling us away from God. It may be a call out of a family identity that has spoken limitation over us for years. Some people live under the echo of voices that told them they were too weak, too small, too damaged, too ordinary, or too unlikely to be used by God. Mark compares that to Gideon, who could only see himself as the least person in the least family in the least tribe. But the question is not whether we feel qualified. The question is whether God knows what He is doing when He calls. If God calls the least, it may be because He intends to show His glory through the least.

Faith, then, is simple, but not easy. “By faith Abraham obeyed God.” That is the shape of it. Abraham stepped out with no destination in hand, only a promise: “I will bless you…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” His obedience was never meant to terminate on himself. God blessed Abraham so that Abraham would become a blessing. Ultimately that promise reaches its fulfillment in Jesus, the true offspring of Abraham, through whom all nations are blessed. This keeps faith from becoming self-absorbed. Biblical faith is not merely about getting our breakthrough, our blessing, our outcome, or our preferred future. It is about knowing God and becoming a conduit of His blessing to others.

Sarah’s place in the story matters deeply. Hebrews 11 says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” Mark emphasizes the phrase “Sarah herself.” She was not merely carried along by Abraham’s faith. She had to believe God personally. She had her own history with doubt; she laughed when she heard the promise that she would bear a son in old age. God was patient with her, though He did call her out. The promise was laughable because, humanly speaking, it was impossible. But Sarah came to consider Him faithful who had promised. That is the heart of faith: not confidence in our ability to believe hard enough, but confidence in the character of the God who has revealed Himself.

Mark brings this into the present through his own story of stepping into uncertainty after the death of his wife, Melissa. Before her passing, they had been discerning a call toward more ministry in the nations. Afterward, the future became painfully unclear, as it often does after deep loss. Yet Mark sensed there was still a call, still a “get thee out.” Pursuing that call meant spending months of the year outside the country and reducing his full-time role at the church, which also meant a reduction in salary. Like most of us would, he started calculating what he needed and tried to stretch his faith just a little beyond what felt manageable. But when he obeyed and took the step, God provided far beyond what Mark had imagined, much of it through anonymous givers he could not have orchestrated. His point is not that his faith manifested the provision. His faith obeyed. God’s faithfulness provided.

That distinction is essential. Mark warns against distortions of faith that turn the focus back onto ourselves. He speaks honestly about growing up spiritually around the faith movement, which in some ways encouraged people to trust God for more but also often drifted into destructive teaching. Faith became a matter of conjuring up enough belief, saying the right formulas, avoiding the wrong words, and attempting to command outcomes. In its worst forms, it became a new legalism disguised as faith, even reaching the point where people imagined they could command God rather than obey Him. But real faith does not look inward to measure its own intensity. Real faith looks to God. It trusts His character, obeys His call, and seeks to bless others.

Abraham’s story also shows that faith and unbelief both ripple outward. Everyone connected to Abraham’s journey was affected by his obedience. His family, servants, descendants, surrounding peoples, and ultimately the nations were touched by the blessing God placed on his life. But his failures affected others too. When Abraham went down to Egypt during famine and lied about Sarah being his sister, his fear opened a door for others to stumble. Later, the attempt to bring about God’s promise through Hagar created pain that flowed from compromise and self-reliance. Mark handles this with sobriety: our choices matter. Faith is never merely private. Disobedience can entangle others, and obedience can become shelter and blessing for others.

This is especially true in families. When Lot made foolish decisions and ended up in danger, Abraham did not shrug and say Lot deserved the consequences. He fought for him. Mark names that some of the greatest faith battles people face are battles for their families. Parents, children, spouses, siblings, and extended relatives may be caught in confusion, sin, suffering, or unbelief. Abraham did not fight alone, and neither should we. We need the body of Christ to stand with us, pray with us, and believe with us for God to open eyes and show mercy.

By the end, Mark brings the whole message back to relationship. The central lesson is not simply “have more faith” or “try harder to obey,” though faith and obedience matter. The deeper invitation is to walk with God. Abraham and Sarah learned God’s character along the way. They learned He was kind when they failed, powerful when the promise seemed impossible, generous in His blessing, and faithful in every unknown place. Faith is the life of surrendering control of the future to the One who holds the future. If we want a life whose designer and builder is God, we have to stop insisting on being our own contractor.

The walk of faith never really ends. Later, Abraham would hear another call to take Isaac, the son he loved, and offer him on the mountain God would show him. Again, the details would come as he walked. That is often how God leads His people. He does not always give us the whole road in advance, but He gives us Himself. We are justified by faith, commune with God by faith, parent by faith, serve by faith, work by faith, receive provision by faith, and one day die in faith. Like Abraham, we look for the city whose builder and maker is God.

So if there is a “get thee out” in your life, the invitation is not to master every variable before you move. It is to consider the One who calls you faithful. The hands that hold your future are the hands that made heaven and earth, touched lepers, blessed children, healed the broken, and were nailed to the cross for you. Faith obeys because those hands are trustworthy.