Fickle Faith

Recap Last Week

It is great to be back in person with you. I appreciate you all putting up with virtual Andy for a couple of Sundays. Dania and I had a blast, but it is good to be back home.

We continue in our series on the early church. Last week we looked at the faith of Abraham and of David. Abraham and David were called by God. Abraham was a pagan whose father most likely made idols for a living. Abraham had no faith at first, it was God’s calling on his life that led to him becoming the father of many nations.

Meanwhile, David was a ruddy little fellow whose father didn’t think he was even worthy of being presented as a possible candidate for king. We just went over that at the Wednesday night Bible study. Samuel goes to Jesse, Jesse presents his sons, but none of them are anointed by God to be king. So Samuel asks if there is anyone else. Jesse says that David is busy tending sheep. Nevertheless, Samuel insists that David be brought to where they are at. When he arrives, David is anointed as the next king. He has been identified as being a man after God’s own heart.

God had not only anointed David, but He had prepared David for the battles that he would one day face. David is known for slaying the giant Goliath. David was prepared to fight the uncircumcised Philistine because he had spent his time in the field protecting sheep from lions and bears.

In both instances of David and of Abraham, God seeks them before they seek Him. David was not out in the field tending sheep expecting that God would make him king.

We might wonder why Paul is spending so much time talking about the faith of Abraham and of David. One reason is that Abraham was one of the big Old Testament heroes. Since the majority of the Roman Christians were all Jewish folks that converted over to Christianity, they would relate to the stories Paul is giving them. One big problem at this point in the early church is the merging of two very different people groups. There were the Jews that came over to Christ. To a degree, they felt they had a bigger claim than the others coming to Jesus. The other people coming to Jesus were pagans. They followed the pantheon of false gods. Some Jewish converts did not necessarily like the idea that these other folks that were not descendants of Abraham could come to Christ.

They were very proud of their lineage leading them to Abraham. When Christ was walking the earth, there were plenty that figured they were okay because they were from Abraham’s line. When John the Baptist was baptizing people getting them ready for the coming Messiah, the Pharisees and Sadducees come to him. He admonishes them, asking who told them to flee from the coming wrath. Then in Matthew 3:9 he says to them, “And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones.”

It is not Abraham’s blood that makes a person a believer. It is God that calls them to Him. God called Abraham and He called David. All of us here this morning have most likely been called by God. I would at least hope that we have all been called by God and come here willingly to worship Him. What Paul is really addressing here is the problem of people thinking that they had anything to do with their calling. That’s not the case. God is the One that does the work. He is the One that does the calling.

Today, we are going to continue looking at Abraham and his faith some more. If you have your Bibles, please turn them to Romans 4:13-25

Romans 4:13–25 CSB

For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. If those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made empty and the promise nullified, because the law produces wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression. This is why the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace, to guarantee it to all the descendants—not only to the one who is of the law but also to the one who is of Abraham’s faith. He is the father of us all. As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations— in the presence of the God in whom he believed, the one who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist. He believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: So will your descendants be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body to be already dead (since he was about a hundred years old) and also the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, because he was fully convinced that what God had promised, he was also able to do. Therefore, it was credited to him for righteousness. Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

God made the promise for Abraham to be the father of many before the Law was even established. Abraham did no work to receive that promise and blessing. God gave it to Him. It did not come through the Law. This was one of those unconditional covenants we have talked about before. There are covenants that are conditional and covenants that are unconditional. The conditional covenants require both parties to do something. God throughout the Old Testament sets up conditional covenants. “If you will do this, then I will bless you and be your God.” It’s a this for that kind of situation. Not so with this covenant with Abraham. Abraham’s works don’t make this happen, Abraham’s faith does.

Abraham is considered a great hero of the faith. Certainly he is, we went over his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac because God had told him to. However, there were times when Abraham wound up not having a whole lot of faith. I bring these instances up, not because I want to vilify Abraham. Instead, I wanted to bring this stuff up because I don’t want us to think that there is something wrong with us. I have said before that one reason I know the Bible was written by God and not by man is because of how the people are portrayed. No one is portrayed as all the way good and perfect except for Jesus. The reason for that is pretty obvious. Everyone else seems to be a mess.

Sometimes, holding on to that faith can be a little more difficult than others. Faith is not knowing that God can do something. It is knowing that He will do something. In Mark we read the story of a father bringing his son to Jesus to be healed from a demon. The father looks at Jesus and says, “if You can do anything”. Then Jesus responds in Mark 9:23–24 “Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!””

Jesus reminds this guy that everything is possible. God can do anything, but still this guy responds with one of my favorite lines in the Bible, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” This guy believed, but he had a period of doubt. Abraham, as strong as his faith was, still had periods of doubt.

For instance, even though Abraham had been delivered into the land that his ancestors would one day possessed, he picks up and leaves with his wife to go to Egypt. God didn’t tell him to go to Egypt, he decides to go and to take Sarah with him because there is a famine in the land. The one place nearby that had any level of resources was Egypt, so it was natural that they would go there. Abraham did not look to God to protect him from the famine, he looked to the Egyptians to protect him. Abraham had a level of fear over the Egyptians too. The big reason for that was that his wife was super beautiful and he was worried that he would be killed so the Pharaoh could marry Sarah. Believe it or not, back in those days, adultery was a capital offense, even in the pagan societies. They took marriage seriously. It was a logical conclusion that if Pharaoh took a liking to Sarah, he would kill Abraham so he could marry her since murder was not that big of a deal. I know! It sounds crazy, but that is how it worked back then. We look at how he handled it when they get to Egypt.

Genesis 12:11–13 “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, “Look, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ They will kill me but let you live. Please say you’re my sister so it will go well for me because of you, and my life will be spared on your account.”” Here we have him putting more faith in a lie for protection than putting his faith in God for protection from the Pharaoh. Eventually, his ruse is discovered, he is brought before Pharaoh because plagues have broken out. Pharaoh kicks them both out of Egypt. God’s protection was all over that, but Abraham does not give any indication that he knew it at the time.

So Abraham and Sarah go to the Negev. From there Abraham and his nephew Lot separate. Things are going great for Abraham. He has a great wife, he has a lot of wealth. Then God appears to Abraham and tells him that He is going to give Abraham a great reward. But Abraham is not happy to hear this news. Instead, he asks God in Genesis 15:2–3 “But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.””

God responds that in fact his wealth will not go to his servant. Instead, it is going to go to a child from his body. So he takes this news to Sarah and since she is so old, she figures there is no way, so here take my concubine Hagar and have a kid with her. Abraham is not smart and goes along with Sarah’s plan and now there is family tension in the house of Abraham. Who would have thought, right? Things get really bad between Sarah and Hagar, understandably so, but Hagar is told to remain with Abraham and Sarah by the Angel of the LORD. At least Abraham has his way now and has a kid to give his inheritance to.

The issue is that no where did God say that Abraham should take Hagar. Instead, Abraham once again put faith in a worldly system and did not put it in God. We see these logical propositions throughout Abraham’s life. Famine is coming, so let’s avoid famine by going here. It is not a matter of praying to God for help, but instead it is a matter of moving on out to Egypt. God is telling me I am going to have a child at my wife’s advanced age, well then let’s go along with the social norm thing and gets his wife’s concubine pregnant. It is evident that Abraham has faith, it is just not in the right things.

Again from the human and worldly standpoint, his decisions made complete sense. A motivated and self starting individual would take the initiative to solve these problems right? After all, what does the Bible say, “God helps those who help themselves”. That’s in the Bible, right? Can anyone tell me what book, chapter, and verse? Of course not, because it’s not in the Bible. It is a saying that eventually gained so much traction that people just assumed it was in the Bible. The point of those promises that God was giving to Abraham was not so that Abraham could figure a way out, but so that God could show His power. God already had a plan for Abraham’s life and no matter what Abraham did to mess that plan up, God still delivered.

Before God goes to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He visits with Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah play gracious host the way they are supposed to. As Abraham is talking with the three visitors, The LORD explains that in one year, Sarah will have a son. We read Sarah’s reaction as she overhears this in Genesis 18:11–15 “Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. So she laughed to herself: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I have delight?” But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.” Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid. But he replied, “No, you did laugh.”” God allows for Sarah to become pregnant at a very old age. It is a miracle. Sarah had dismissed the possibility of a miracle. Abraham had dismissed the possibility of a miracle. But God delivered on that miracle and gave them a son.

Miracles are miracles. They defy logic. I have a buddy that has a PhD in chemistry. You can imagine that he thinks on a completely different level. We would think that since he has a PhD in chemistry, he would dismiss the idea of miracles. I have seen plenty of Christians with a science background try to explain miracles with some kind of natural phenomenon. Not this guy, though. Instead, his take is that it’s not really a miracle unless something out of the ordinary took place.

Too often, we try to solve problems with ordinary measures. Mary is planning to go to Liberty next year. We got hit with the whole “hey, you need to financially check in” the other day and man oh man is it expensive. Later on, my lovely wife looks at me and says, “hey, do you want to hear the bad news?” Well of course I don’t want to hear the bad news. Do any of us want to? The bad news was that what we thought was a year was actually only one semester. So what do I do? I do like any normal human being does and begin to worry about where that money is going to come from. I start looking at the budget and trying to see what we can cut out to make it happen. To Dania’s credit, she called me right out on it. Something about how I’m always preaching about what God can do. At times I am glad to know that people are paying attention to the words that are coming out of my face from the pulpit. Then there are times when others will use my words to counsel me. All that to say, there seems to be a difficult, but not impossible task. There are two ways we can approach it. We can try to solve it the worldly way, or we can seek God and His counsel, having faith that He is going to make that road smooth. After all, we should not doubt God’s ability. He has delivered us before and He will deliver us again.

Yet we see with Abraham that in fact even after all of this, he still continued trying to maintain control and solve problems. Even when they are advanced in age, David fears Abimelech, so he goes along with the same thing as he did with Pharaoh. Just tell him you are my sister. When I look at the follies in Abraham’s life, I am reminded of Proverbs 26:11 “As a dog returns to its vomit, so also a fool repeats his foolishness.” Of course, I am just as guilty to returning to my same folly.

We put our faith into a lot of things. When I walk out of the door and get in the truck, I have faith that it is going to start the first time I turn the key. When I get on the road, I have faith that everyone else is going to obey the rules of the road. I have faith in the postal system. I take a package down to the post office. I pay the postage fee. I give them the address of where I want it to go. I may even take insurance out on the package. However, once the package is out of my hands, I no longer have control over it. It is up to the courier to make sure that the package gets to its final destination. Of course, we know whether it worked out or not because eventually the person on the other end will receive the package and all is well. We see a result of that faith in the system.

Salvation is kind of like that. There is only so much we can do. We are very limited to what we can do. We can put our faith in God and follow the Law, but it is not the Law that fulfills the promise, it is God. He is the One that fulfills that promise of salvation to us. The only thing we can do is to put our faith in God and let Him save us. We don’t just need to believe He can, but believe He will. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus gives that message of faith and why it is needed.

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.”

When we believe in Jesus, when we confess Him as Lord, we are saved. We will live after we die. We will not live to see that moment happen because we have to be dead unless of course Jesus comes back to establish His kingdom on earth before we die. That is a completely different sermon topic, though.

As believers, we can have faith in God. As believers we can know that God is making everything right, just as He said He would. When we falter, we can take comfort in knowing that even the heroes of the faith had their moments when they tried to do God’s job. God is in the business of doing miracles, when He says He is going to do something, we can rest in His truth, knowing that He is going to deliver. We can also have hope that when we deviate and do something wrong, God will still deliver on His promises. Abraham had several missteps in his walk with God, but God still delivered on His promise to Abraham. We will have missteps in our walk with Him too, but guess what? Just like Abraham, God will deliver on the promises He has given to us.