An Obedient Faith

Introduction

Well, good morning!

If you have your Bible and I hope that you do, open ‘em up with me to Genesis chapter 12. We’re gonna be in verses 4 through 9 this morning, looking at Abram’s response to God’s call in the first three verses.

If you were with us last week, we started the second part of our Genesis series with an introduction to Abram and specifically God’s call on Abram’s life. And as I mentioned, Abram wasn’t necessarily the prime candidate to receive God’s call or God’s blessing. He hadn’t done anything specifically righteous or overly extravagant. From what we can tell, Abram was a pretty broken man…a man that knew nothing but death and sorrow…a man, like every other man, under the curse of sin.

And yet, when we came to the first three verses, God comes to Abram…simply based on His own sovereign will…and listen, He gives Abram several promises. He tells Abram, He’s gonna give him a new land…a new people…a new purpose, right? And that’s kind of where we left off…God’s part of this interaction between the two. And listen, I stopped it there on purpose…because when God calls…especially when it concerns the redemption of His people, it ALWAYS starts with Him, and its all contingent on His power…not our works or our faith or our obedience or our will…it all starts with God and its all fulfilled by God. Our faith, its more of the evidence of what God did, right? Our faith, it’s proof that we’ve encountered God. I think that’s the biggest reason James says what he says in the New Testament that faith without works, its dead. Our faith and the works that stem from our faith, its a result of God’s call…not the means to God’s call.

Faith, its the result of hearing God’s Word and being called by God Himself. Now, with that, there’s some that’ll say if a person professes to believe in Christ as Savior, he’s saved…no matter what! There’s no need for any confirming evidence in that person’s life. If they simply profess Jesus, no matter what happens the rest of their life, they’re eternally saved.

But listen, that’s not what the Bible teaches…that’s also not what perseverance of the saints means (I know that’s been a sticking point for us in the past)…again, the Bible, it teaches, we’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, right? In that order. And so, when you’ve heard God’s Word and been called by God, a genuine believer, someone whose actually come to faith in God, that faith, it inevitably produces a life of growth in godliness. True saving faith, it produces works. Yes, the Bible teaches that to be saved all you have to do is repent and believe…but the result of genuine salvation, a genuine call by God Himself, its obedient faith. You understand?

And listen, I just love Abram’s life…especially his early life because it just models what this looks like for us today…its hard…its challenging…especially when we live amidst a culture that just constantly pushes back on everything the Bible teaches. We see Abram at his best, we see him at his weakest…but what I love as we continue to walk through this, its that no matter the level of faith Abram demonstrates, God’s faithfulness, its rock solid. We’ll see more of this next week, but what I want you notice, especially as we progress through Abram’s life, its his faith, his faith grows stronger and stronger as he continues to walk with the Lord. Now, that doesn’t mean he never falls…we’ll actually see him next week really mess up…but ultimately, his faith in the Lord’s promises, despite his own shortcomings, it grows.

And so, if you’re there with me in chapter 12…let’s stand together and continue reading the story of Abram, starting in verse 4. It says this:

Genesis 12:4–9 (ESV)

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Thank you, you can be seated.

[Prayer]

And so listen, as we dig into these next set of verses…looking at how Abram responds to God’s call…I really just wanna highlight Abram’s obedience…he had an obedient faith. Guys, his response to God’s call…it’s exactly what happens to us as believers when we hear God’s Word for the very first time. God’s call, as genuine believers, it should cause us to act on His Word and then it should cause us to model our trust in His promises through our relationships and with our testimony. That’s exactly what Abram does here in our text which is why its our three points this morning…Number 1, obedient faith hears and acts on God’s Word…number 2, obedient faith reorients the family toward God…and number 3, obedient faith models trust in God’s promises.

And so, if you’re following along with me, let’s look at this first point together.

I. Obedient Faith Hears and Acts on God’s Word (v. 4)

Obedient faith hears and acts on God’s Word.

Look at verse 4 with me again. It says, “4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.”

If you remember, back in verse 1, last week…it started with, “Now the Lord said to Abram…” But listen, as we come to verse 4, we see that Abram, he went forth “as the Lord had told him.” Now, I wanna keep everything in context here…this whole chapter, its about faith…its about God’s faithfulness and its about Abram’s faith in God’s promises, right? But what I want you to see here, its that, without hearing God’s Word initially, its impossible to have any kind of faith in God or what it is He says. Before you can respond in obedient faith to God, you’ve gotta hear what He’s saying. In other words, faith, its not some vague leap in the dark…that’s a worldly kind of faith…like someone who says they believe in the Big Bang Theory…there’s really no evidence or proof but they “believe” that theory, its true, right? Biblical faith, its much different. Biblical faith, it’s an obedient response to God’s Word. You can’t obey, you can’t trust without hearing God’s Word first…Biblical faith, its not simply believing…it goes far beyond that…its certainty…its an assurance that what you’re hearing, its all true.

Which brings us back to what I said initially…Jesus says in John chapter 3 that a person can’t receive salvation until they’ve been reborn, right? But the question that many Christians try to answer here, its “Does faith precede that regeneration, or does regeneration precede faith?” In other words, do we believe as an act of our own free will, receiving the new birth as a result? Or are we born again as an act of God’s free and sovereign grace, the result of which is our faith?

I actually believe Abram settles this question for us here and I think it’s an important truth we have to grasp as Christians today, because without it, we’ll continue to lead people to Jesus but not actually see genuine salvations because we’re getting the cart before the horse here. Many struggle acting out God’s Word because they’ve not truly heard it and for that reason, not received God’s call…because God’s call can never be apart from God’s Word.

Listen, concerning Abram…we have to remember, his story, it didn’t start with him believing God and obeying his command, but rather it started with God’s sovereign call on his life…His Word coming to Abram. It was the outward call of God to Abram, which is the same thing that people receive today when the gospel’s preached, right?

That’s why Paul says in Romans chapter 10:

Romans 10:13–15 (ESV)

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

If you pay attention to that verse in Romans, without God’s Word going out, it’s impossible for people to believe. We have to hear first! That’s why when I’m training people how to evangelize…your testimony, its great…but you have to bring them to Scripture…because without that, without God’s Word…it doesn’t matter what your life has shown…only the Word of God can bring someone to faith.

But listen, it takes more than just hearing, right? To get to the point where Abram had the faith to do as the Lord said…it takes the inward call of God as well. It takes the drawing of the Holy Spirit. I mean that’s what Jesus says in John 6:44:

John 6:44 (ESV)

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. [And He draws them through the Holy Spirit].

In fact, Paul…he further confirms this idea in Romans… without that drawing, none of us…none seek God. That’s Romans 3:11.

Our faith, its the result of God’s outward call through His Word and His inward call through the Spirit. The combination of those two things, that’s what produces a saving faith in us…which is exactly what Paul mentions in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Grace and faith, its a gift. Our faith, it can only start with hearing the Word of God.

Now, in Abram’s day, there wasn’t a hand written word from the Lord. Mostly, throughout the Old Testament, especially the early parts of the Old Testament, God spoke audibly. Sometimes the Lord appeared to people in human form…sometimes He came in the form of other things, like a burning brush. But guys, you have to see, there’s not a difference in how God delivers His Word…meaning, it doesn’t matter how He delivers it, we’re to hear it and respond to it in the same way.

If we truly believe this book, its living, its active…if we believe God inspired it Himself…we treat it as if He were audibly speaking it to us.

And so, how does God speak to us today? The book of Hebrews begins, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” (Heb. 1:1, 2). All of God’s revelation to us, its summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. He is God’s Word to us (John 1:1). And so, how do we learn of Christ? Jesus said that the Scriptures, they testify of Him (John 5:39; Luke 24:27). The Bible, its God’s revelation of Himself and His Son. This is why our mission in taking it to the world’s so important…it’s God’s written Word to humanity about redemption…and we know based on Jesus’s own words, He didn’t just send us blindly…He sent us with power…He sent one that’s even greater than Him…the Holy Spirit. And so, we go with the Word of God…and we go with the Spirit of God…God’s means of an outward call…and God’s means of an inward call.

But guys, pay attention to Abram’s faith here…how do we know that Abram’s life really was changed at God’s calling? It was because of his fruit…his obedience to what he heard. He listened to God…and the text says he went forth “just as the Lord told him.” He had an obedient faith that took God at His Word.

Listen, you really wanna evaluate your own salvation…your own walk with Christ?…What weight do you put in His Word? I mean, just like Abram, you’ve heard it…you know what it says, how you should live, what He expects of you…do you obediently follow His Word because you trust Him and you love Him? That’s what genuine converts do. They hear and they obey Him…now not always perfectly…but they begin to turn from the world and live a very different life. They don’t pick and choose what parts they’re gonna accept or believe and live those things out…they completely and wholly turn to God by devoting themselves obediently to His Word, right?

I mean if Abram were like the typical modern-day Christian…he would’ve heard God and been like, “Alright God, I hear you…but you know…my kids, they got this thing this weekend…can we do this next week? Or I don’t really like that direction toward Egypt…can we maybe go to like China? I hear its pretty cool over there, right?”

No, he hears God…and he doesn’t say anything…he just goes. That’s what saving, obedient faith looks like when God sovereignly delivers His Word and when His Spirit draws you.

II. Obedient Faith Reorients the Family toward God (v. 5)

Point number two…obedient faith reorients the family toward God.

Look at verse 5 with me again. It says, “5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.”

Listen, oftentimes…when we talk about the story of Abram, we see him as merely an individual believer and we miss that he’s actually the covenant head of a believing family. If you pay attention to our text here, it highlights something very important about Abram’s faith, it tells us that he departed from Haran…but that he did so with “Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son,…and the people that they had acquired in Haran.”

When we look at the grand narrative of Scripture, more so than not, salvation, it involves not just believing individuals but faithful families…families committed to God’s Word. It’s why marriage is so important. I believe Christian marriage, its an institution that’s essential to the faith and blessing of God’s people. It’s why its used so much to describe our relationship with Jesus in the New Testament. I mean, it’s easy to talk about Abram’s faith and all the things he did but what a difference it made to have his wife, Sarai, sojourning with him, in faith. Christian marriage, that’s what its all about, right? It provides this very kind of spiritual companionship and help that we each so desperately need in this life.

Young people, this is why it matters who you marry. This is why its so important that they love Jesus more than you…because whether you realize it or not, your closest loved ones…they’re gonna impact your faith one way or another.

But listen, I think the point here goes even deeper than this. For someone that’s come to know Jesus, their faith, it’ll drive them to obediently lead their families toward God.

In the next couple verses, which we’ll talk about in just a moment…God reaffirms His promise and tells Abram, “To your offsprings I’ll give this land.” And then Abram builds an altar to honor and worship the Lord, right? Abram, he’s modeling, for his family, what worship of the Lord looks like. Again, read the verses here…he’s with his family, in a foreign land…they’re all together doing this with him. Abram’s giving his loved ones a pattern for family worship.

Dads…moms…the most important thing you can do for your children, it’s to model what worship of God looks like. It’s to worship together…its to pray together…its to read God’s Word together. Your Christian faith, you have to understand that its meant to become a family faith. God’s structured the family unit deliberately for this reason. You’ve come to faith, to first and foremost reach your nuclear family unit. And together, you’re meant to reach the world.

When God elaborates on this promise about his offspring…you have to see that its touching Abram’s heart strings here. It’s what he desired the very most. And God knew this…its why He chose Abram to be the head of His people…God knew that Abram’s desire for a son, it was so great that he would point that son toward God…and as a result, Abram’s descendants, they would know God and follow God.

As Christian parents, our chief desire, it should be to see our children come to faith in Christ. We should be fervently praying for that aim. But also, as children who are raised in Christian homes, with Christian parents…understand God’s mercies on your life, even now. His aim in your family’s redemption, it was you. I mean what an amazing testimony. And I can say that because God reaches individuals with the purposes of reaching families. That’s why I believe its so important for dads to know Christ and model what it means to follow Christ…their example, it’s so crucial in shaping the faith of everyone else in the home. I’ve seen it over and over again…when dad gets right with Jesus, the family gets right with Jesus!

But guys, pay attention to Abram’s life here…he was never alone…and his call to faith, it was a call first to his family…and it was through his family that God worked. Obedient faith, it takes your family with you, wherever it might be that God leads you!

III. Obediently Faith Models Trust in God’s Promises (vv. 6-9)

And then finally, point number three…obediently faith models trust in God’s promises.

Look at the last several verses with me again. It says, “6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh (More-ray). At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb (Na-geb).”

Listen, pay attention to the details in this passage…there’s two main images we see…Abram’s tent…and the Lord’s altar, right? When Abram finally got to the land of promise, his home, it would always be a tent. He was a sojourner in a foreign land…in a land God promised to give him. The tent, it’s the dwelling of someone who doesn’t have a settled home on earth…whose life is spent as a sojourner. That’s why, as I mentioned last week, the Hebrews author says in Hebrews 11:9:

Hebrews 11:9 (ESV)

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

Every major character of the Bible, they’re meant to be pictures that point to Jesus, right? Joseph, he’s a picture of Jesus as the Savior of his people…he would be humbled and then lifted up, given all authority and all power. Aaron, in Exodus, he’s a type of Christ through his priestly role. David, through his kingship over Israel. These men, while they’re real men…they’re all meant to point to the person and work of Christ. With Abram…the picture he shows us, especially with this image of a tent…its a man of faith. His life, its an example for all of us who follow Christ…we’re strangers in this world and we’re sojourners as we wait on the world to come. Hebrews 11, it ends its account of Abram by noting that he “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar,…desir[ing] a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:13, 16).

But listen, this second image here…the Lord’s altar. I think it testifies even more to Abram’s faith and our responsibly as believers today. The reason Abram lived the rest of his life in a tent, the faith that resulted from God’s call…it demonstrated his confidence in God’s promise.

I mean just look at these last several verses. God comes to encourage Abram in the midst of his troubles…he’s in a foreign land with nothing to call his own…he’s far from the place God last spoke to him…he’s surrounded by all kinds of ungodliness…he’s in this hostile culture (I mean the Canaanite culture was sick). And yet, nothing could keep God from finding Abram…and nothing could keep God from coming to him…nothing could keep Him from giving Abram the assurance he needed.

Matthew Henry writes, “No place nor condition of life can shut us out from the comfort of God’s gracious visits. Abram is a sojourner, unsettled among Canaanites; and yet here also he meets with him that lives and sees him.” In the midst of Abram’s struggles, God reaches out to aid him…and pay attention to this…he does it with His Word and with a reminder about His promise.

I can’t tell you how many times people text me through the week, looking for some kind of encouragement…asking what kinds of books I can recommend or sermons to listen to, right? And I can’t tell you how discouraged they each get when I just recommend the Word of God…when I recommend reading His promises to us.

You see, God’s Word…God’s promises…they should, as believers, they should comfort us…they should motivate us and encourage us. As people, who’ve come to faith through the inward and outward calling of God, we should be impacted by the Word of the Lord.

The problem for many so-called Christians in the church today…and listen, Billy Graham actually addressed this problem during his ministry many years ago…its that many of us, we’ve had the outward calling of God, but we’ve pushed back on the inward calling…and while we know the truths of the gospel…we might believe the gospel…there’s been no inward impact through the Spirit and some of us are just as spiritually dead today as we were before we heard of Jesus…we’re just more knowledgable…like James says the demons are.

Guys, a saving faith in Jesus Christ…one that’s been developed through both the outward and inward call of God…through His Word and through His Spirit…its one that models a trust in God’s promises despite where God’s led them.

I mean just look here….what’s Abram do once he’s reminded of God’s promise? He built an altar, right? He worshiped God.

Guys, just imagine being Abram…he just left everything he knew…he’s in a place he’s never been to…no family…no friends…only the call of God and those closest to him. He’s looking around and all he sees is an idolatrous people…a people that’s enjoying all the present benefits of a land he’s been promised. He’s old at this point…with no light at the end of tunnel as to when he’ll have that offspring God’s promised. He has to be discouraged…And listen, all it took was a reminder of God’s promise…and he worshiped. He modeled his trust in God’s promises to his family…and listen, he modeled his trust in God’s promises to an idolatrous people. With these altars, its signs of private worship with his family…but listen, its also signs of public worship to a watching world. They might’ve believed Abram to be a quack at the end of the day, but they couldn’t deny his belief in God’s promises. Everywhere he went, he built an altar to the Lord and left remnants of his trust in God promises. Abram responded, over and over again, to God’s promises with evidence of his belief.

Guys, I’ll end with this…what signs in your life, right now, demonstrates that you hold God to His Word? That you believe in His promises? Can your family see that? Like do they see the altars you build for the Lord (metaphorically)? Can the outside world see these altar’s you’ve built? What about your faith, what about it has shown obedience to God’s Word?

Closing

Listen, as you think about some of those things this morning…I just want you to bow your head and close your eyes with me.

If you’re here…and you profess in Jesus…you call yourself a Christian…what’s the evidence of that in your life? Have you heard truth and submitted to the Spirit’s drawing? Maybe you have…but what are you doing to help others grow in their own walk…or what are you doing to separate yourself from what you know is foreign to God? We gather as a church to build each other up…to encourage each other in this walk…to help each other move closer and closer into the presence of Jesus. Are you a part of that? In doing that?

Dear Christian…my encouragement for you this morning…cling to the Word of God…be reminded of His promises…and let the power of the Spirit move you to obedience.

But listen, if you’re here…and as you think to yourself, even now…you realize, you might believe in Jesus, but you don’t know Jesus. You’ve not motivated by the things of the Bible. Maybe you realize, you’ve not been empowered by the Spirit and so there’s really not been any life change in you. Guys, as I remind us every week…we have to start with understanding that we’re all sinners. Every one of us, we do what’s wrong in the eyes of a good and gracious God. We’ve all rebelled against Him, the One who’s created us and given us life. And because of that, we deserve nothing but death. We deserve to experience the consequences of sin. All the pain and suffering and sickness and death around us, its the result of sin. It was never God’s design for all this to happen…its our fault…our giving into sin. And we deserve it because its what we chose.

But guys, you have to see this…God could’ve just allowed these things to play out. He could’ve sat back and just watch man die and be eliminated from His creation…but He didn’t. He sent His Son, Jesus…being God Himself to become like us…to become man. Jesus lived a perfect life as man…the only man to ever live without sin…all so that He could go to the cross and pay for man’s sin…but you see because Jesus was fully God and fully man…it wasn’t just man on the cross. It was God too…and so Jesus, as man, was able to fully pay for man’s sins…and Jesus, as God, was able to fully satisfy God’s justice on man’s sin. Jesus took on the consequences of our sin and died there as man and God for us. And He rose again, to give us the confidence we have today as believers…that our God, He’s victorious over sin and death, and that He alone has the power to save.

Listen, if you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, “I want that! I wanna follow this Jesus…I wanna be changed by this Jesus!” It’s simple. The Bible says all you have to do is repent and believe…All you have to do is turn to Jesus and confess with your mouth, believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and that He raised from the dead. It’s that simple. And even now, through me, God’s delivering His outward call to you through His gospel truth…that’s His grace. You don’t deserve it…but He desires you to know it and hear it…and that feeling you feel in your chest right now…its real! That’s the inward call of God, calling you to respond to that truth.

And so listen, that’s what I want you to do this morning. Take some time and respond to whatever the Spirit’s placing on your heart right now. Maybe it means you need to ask Him for the power to strengthen you as a believer here this morning…or maybe it means you need to turn to Him for salvation. Whatever it is, you take this time and we’ll close in just a moment. And if you need me, I’ll be down front.

[Prayer]