Stories: Abramham: Growing Faith
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What do I believe God wants us to know? Faith takes time to growing and it requires a call and our yes
Why? We all want to have strong faith
What do I believe God wants us to do? Give God our yes
Why? It grows our faith
What do I believe God wants us to feel? Encouraged and inspired to grow
Today we are in new series called stories. Where we will here the testimony of different Biblical characters and in doing so this stories will give us hope, direction, motivation, faith builiding and meaning other things and we are going to learn as we go on this series we have a story and our story will encourage us (we are further along than we think) and build each other up.
ME/WE
Today on Fathers Day we are going to look at an overview of a man named of Abram, Abrahams life who is called the father of the faith.
He is not THEE Father as in God
But He is Spiritual Father of all who believe what Abram is the GREAT, GREAT, GREAT 100 times over grandfather as Romans 4:11
And it is through Abraham seed, family line that Jesus comes.
BUT what is ironic is we are calling Abraham the “father of the faith” some several thousand years late BUT IT would not have been the name you would have thought of we you saw Abraham FOR TWO reasons
When God calls Abram is a faithful devoted follower of God? NO….he worshipped the gods of Ur not YHWH…one being the moon god
And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.
Was Abram a father? No and he wasn’t young in Genesis 12 he was 75 years old and Sarah was 65….well past child bearing years.
Not only that Abram name means “exalted father” that is like calling someone Tall Tim when they are short.
Now before we dive into the story where we will stop at 2 points along the journey I want us to have a couple things in our minds.
GOD DOESN’T CALL THE PERFECT, HE PREFECTS THE CALLED.
Abrahams’s story. He doesn’t follow Jesus and yet God calls him.
2 cor 3:18
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
This is vital to know. Many heroes of the faith were not heroes or even believers before God called them.
2. The big thing God wants from us is OUR YES. Our allegiance, not just our obedience, and better than obedience.
We can be obedience to try to get the things of God and not God.
I am going to continue to follow you after I mess up
You are going to see TWO things happen.
God transform Abraham from one degree of glory to the next and also see Abraham grow in obedience
And Abraham continue to say YES, GOOD DAYS, BAD DAYS, FALLEN DAYS.
SPOT 1 in Abram joureny
Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.
The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.
Now 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.
And 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.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
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.
UR = FIRE
UR = CITY IN BABBLYON
Now the HAD….God gave Abram the promise in UR, not HARAN…we will see this in a minute and it is written in the beiginning of Acts 7
God comes to Abraham while he is UR, BABBLYON and gives this AMAZING PROMISE.
You are going to have a child!
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
At 75 years old and Sarah is 65 years old.
FULL OF HOPE
IN A DAY WHEN HAVNG A CHLD GIVE YOU STATUS AND RECONGITION AND NOT HAVING A
HOW DOES ABRAHAM RESPOND?
Many times like us
How does Abraham respond? Like many of us - halfway.
Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Instead of going directly to Canaan as God commanded, Abraham stops in Haran. IT MAKES SENSE ON THE HUMAN LEVEL BECAUSE Haran was fertile, on a major trade route, comfortable... and they still worshipped the moon god there just like in Ur.
ABRAM…IT IS NOT HARAN…IT IS CANAAN.
SHOW PICTURE
Is this not how we Sometimes respond to God's call by moving just far enough to feel like we're obeying, but not far enough to actually trust Him completely.
I want you to minister, I want you to give your mornings to God, I want you to leave this hobby or habit
And here is the AMAZING THING ABOUT GOD
DOES GOD GIVE UP AND SAY THAT IS IT
NO, HE CONTINUES ON
1. PONDER TO PRAISE
GOD DOESN’T GIVE UP ON US
God takes our halfway to grow into all that God has for us.
2. PONDER ARE THERE THINGS HOLDING US BACK FROM WHAT GOD HAS FOR US?
FEARS? WHAT IFS? WHAT IF I DIDN’T HEAR OR UNDERSTAND GOD CORRECTLY AND I GO AND IT IS NOT ‘THE PROMISE LAND”
HABITS THAT NEED TO DIE…
HABITS OF COURSE JOKING, LUSTS,
PRIDE and selfisness…I KNOW BETTER AND HARAN IS BETTER ….FERTILE CITY AND STILL WORSHPPED
God is fine with halfway obedience
2. SPOT TWO
ABRAHAM STARTS MOVING
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.
HERE IS THE LAND.
THEE PLACE
Bethel is close by, 10 miles away
What does Beth mean?
HOUSE OF GOD
But then Abram leaves the land.
Why does he leave the land?
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
Does God call him to leave? No,
He meets this trial like many of us hit and said maybe I didn’t hear this right…maybe I need to take things into my own hands.
I don’t know if I can trust God
He leaves the HOUSE of GOD to go to Egypt
Why would he go to Egypt? It is considered the “breadbasket of the world” at that time.
I KNOW THIS IS CALLED THE PLACE FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY BUT I DON’T SEE IT COMING FROM THE LAND
THE MILK AND HONEY DOESN’T COME FROM THE LAND BUT GOD’S HAND
“You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess,
and that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.
For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables.
But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven,
a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS TO ISSAC
And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him,
and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.
Not only does he go to Egypt we see Abram SEEK to devise a plan to protect himself.
NOT TRUSTING YHWH
When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,
and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.
Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”
And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.
WHY DOES ABRAM LIE ABOUT SARA BEING SISTER?
Murder
And also for money
How so?
In that day and age their was bride price paid to the family of the bride to marry the woman.
And who would receive the bride price? the father, but since the father is not around it goes to the brother who Abram is pretending to be.
This ill gotten gain is going to cause a family rift between Abram and Lot
What dos God do?
give up? He’s done with Abram
No
GOD PERFECTS THE CALLED
What does Abram do?
he continues to say YES
What I share with us today is many of us might come to think God cannot do anything with me.
I felt called to do ____ but you have stopped in Haran or gone to Egypt
God says he is not done
God is wanting your yes.
