Abraham Week 3

Interlocked Lesson 9

Marvelous Light

Give me Faith

Last week, we learned about how God chose to communicate Himself to the world.

He used the family of Abraham to share the truth.

He promised Abraham

Land

Great nation (people, descendants)

Blessing to others

And as a result, God promised to be faithful.

We also discussed Abraham’s response.

Genesis 15:6 “6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

This is where we closed last week.

What does it mean that Abraham believed?

What does it mean that God counted him as righteous?

*Show Chart on page 2 (kingdom of man versus kingdom of grace)

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Faith: Abraham chose to believe God.

God invited Abraham to something.

He invited Abraham to step out into the unknown (# frozen reference)

Abraham responded by going.

Abraham’s faith was a response to God’s gracious invitation.

Did God approach Abraham first or did Abraham approach God first?

God approached first!

God always approaches first.

In the garden, God came to Adam and Eve first after they had sinned.

God comes to Abraham first.

God sends Jesus to us without us asking in the gospels.

God comes to Paul on the road while Paul is behaving like a terrorist killing Christians.

God approaches first… always.

God is always inviting.

He’s inviting you. He’s inviting those around you.

What are we doing with His invitation?

God is also giving opportunities to respond.

Abraham on his own free will, responded to God.

Without seeing the results of the promise, Abraham trusted God and went.

That’s what it means that Abraham chose to believe God.

Dude, God is inviting all of us to his grace.

Are we responding?

Like we talked about Wednesday night, Are we seeing God’s grace in our lives every day?

I got up today, life is temporary. But God graciously gave me life today.

I can be happy in the hope of Christ. Psalm 146:5 “5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”

and I can trust God is faithful.

Abraham believed for those same reasons too.

Because of Abraham’s belief, He was justified.

2. Justification: God considered Abraham righteous.

What does that mean? Why do I need God to proclaim me righteous? Why did Abraham need that?

Isaiah 59:2 “2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”

Romans 3:23 “23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 6:23 “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is the debt of sin we all have and all owe God.

I’ve told this story before, but I got pulled over on Old Georgia road the first year I started working here.

It was a big ticket, I think it was like $400 and 4 points on my license.

I went to court just to tell the judge I’m not going to argue the money, but I’d like the points reduced.

Instead of doing that, the judge took that opportunity to address the court room and tell everyone there that I was the kind of driver that he warned his daughters about.

Thankfully, he dismissed me quickly after that and I exited the court room, paid my fine, and left.

Justification is this.

It would be like someone stepping up in that moment, and accepting the consequences for my actions.

Even worse, what if I had done something so horrible that I were getting life in prison or the death penalty.

Then someone in the court room comes forward and takes the full weight of debt I owe and I go free in his place.

That’s what this means.

Abraham went from unrighteous to innocent.

For all of us, if God has justified us, we are righteous before Him.

To go from unrighteous to innocent, sin needs to be eliminated in our lives. Because death is the penalty, that would mean, we need to die and then our sin would be paid.

But even that isn’t enough, because our death isn’t a perfect death.

Second, to go from innocent to righteous, we would have to live that perfect life.

If there is one thing that the old testament teaches us it is this verse found in the new testament.

Romans 3:20 “20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.”

The law, is a mirror.

Its a reflection of our imperfection.

It’s a diagnosis that we cannot live up to its standards.

We will fail its requirements.

But Jesus…

2 Corinthians 5:21 “21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Colossians 2:14 “14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

Romans 5:18 “18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”

Abraham was undeserving, but so are we.

We haven’t done anything deserving either.

But in the Old Testament before Jesus and after Jesus the same salvation was available.

And the only path to Salvation is to trust God.

To trust His ways above our ways.

To follow his call.

To belief in His faithfulness.

That He declaration of justification over us is enough.

Can you imagine being in that courtroom, hearing your sentence knowing your life is over, hearing someone willing to take your place, but then REJECTING THEIR OFFERING TO YOU?

That would be insane!

It’s 10x more insane to reject God.

which brings us today to Abraham’s mistakes.

Even though Abraham was righteous before God, it doesn’t mean he acted perfectly.

3. Abraham and Sarah thought they could help God’s plans.

Genesis 16:2 “2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.”

To us, this sounds insane, but to them culturally this was fairly normal.

If you were unable to have kids with your wife, you would try with your wife’s slave.

Abraham is nearing 100 years old at this time and he’s no doubt concerned about God’s promise.

but choosing to take the matter into their own hands, proved to be problematic.

4. Abraham laughs when God tells him that now He will have a child.

When you go to Genesis 17:15-18 “15 God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!””

God rejected Abraham’s man made plan.

God reminds Abraham that His plans are superior.

Many problems arose from Ishmael (Son with Hagar) and Isaac, God’s son for Abraham and Sarah.

But through it all, God proved himself faithful to both parties.

APPLICATION:

Through Abraham, we see an imperfect guy who God works through.

God loves to take broken people and do his complete work through them.

I heard someone say, God likes to take crooked men to make straight paths.

God would give Abraham and Sarah Isaac and there is still more to Abraham’s story that we are going to discuss,

But isn’t it amazing that even when he took his life into his own hands.

When he lost track of God’s faithfulness and trusted in His instead, that God still showed him the way?

Even in failure, God still worked through Abraham.

That tells me this morning that for any of us who are still breathing, which is everyone in this room.

God’s not done with you.

There are things God wants to do through us every day.

Abraham was way past the age where it made sense for God to give him kids…

Yet God chose to give him kids at an older age.

Not only that, but after Abraham and Sarah had made a huge mistake by trying to take this process into their own hands by using Hagar.

But God…

God remembered his covenant with Abraham.

Abraham sinned badly, but God showed more grace than Abraham could ever imagine.

I’m just not sure we believe the same thing today.

God wants to show you that same grace.

To give you that same gift of seeing God work.

Maybe we are just to comfortable.

Maybe we are too self-sufficient.

Maybe we just need to trust Him.

Follow Him.

And believe that if I’m in Christ, God is looking to use my life.

He wants to do incredible things through you.

Are you letting him?