Abraham's Faithfulness
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Something Something Intro
The Story of Abraham
The Story of Abraham
We have been going through this series on the life of Abraham
Focusing on faith
And how amazing has it been to walk through the life of Abraham and see his faith flourish and what the Lord has promised to do through him?
By far, my favorite story of Abraham’s is what PJ walked through last week, the sacrifice of Isaac
It can be such a difficult story because we don’t know where the Lord is taking us. Now, we know that story and knew how it ended, but Abraham didn’t.
What kind of a faith is this? What kind of faith would pull a man to take his son, his only son and sacrifice him to the Lord?
True faith, that’s what.
“Okay, that feels like a non-answer. What is true faith then and how can I have that?”
Now that, is a great question. I am so glad you asked.
The Essence of Faith
The Essence of Faith
About a month ago I was up here preaching to you. Before I jumped in I took you to a verse in Hebrews where faith is defined
If you have your Bible’s, open them up to Hebrews chapter 11, that’s where we are going to begin today
Read Hebrews 11:1-3
What does that mean?
It means that true faith is being certain that what the Lord has promised will come will actually come without any evidence.
True faith is not based on any evidence but on God’s assurance
Read Hebrews 11:2-3
By this true faith those that came way before us (even before Abraham) were approved by God
This is going to include Abraham. Remember,
And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
By this faith those who came long before us were approved
Then the author gives us an example of faith
By faith we understand, do you see the wording there? This is not even “believe” it’s understand that the Lord made the universe from His word.
And what a great example, because even today the atheists don’t have a definitive beginning in the universe. They have their ideas but eventually the closer that they lead you to their big bang the laws of physics break down and you know what they’re left with?
Faith
More faith than I have. Both the atheist and Christian believe the universe was made out of nothing, the big difference is that the Christian recognizes the author that spoke something into nothing.
By faith we understand that the universe came into being
It is by this faith, true faith, that the heroes of the Bible acted in the way that they did
Read Heb 11:4-19
It’s interesting, right, that Abraham gets the largest portion of this
We are walked through his story, the amazing adventure of his life and what is it defined by? His faith
His faith in the promise given to him, which the writer adds he did not even receive
He lived in the promised land, but he was a sojourner in it
He had Isaac, but Isaac was only one, the beginning of the promise where Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars
His faith carried him, without evidence, till the beginning of these promises began to take place, but they would not be fulfilled until later
The writer will continue on after Abraham through Moses and the entirety of the Old Testament and then through some of the New Testament, regarding of what had already taken place for the faithful
Our chapter ends with a synopsis of their faith
Heb 11:39-40
What is that something better?
It’s Jesus. Jesus is the “something better”
And through Jesus we step into this new identity where our hopes are grounded
Read Heb 12:1-3
How does the author describe Jesus here?
As the founder and perfector of our faith
Through Jesus we are made more and more like Him
How do I do that? How do I produce this true faith in my own life? I want to live a life of faith like Abraham, I want to live like Jesus
Are you ready for that? Are you sure? It’s going to be costly. But, I promise that it is absolutely worth it
BQ: How Can I Live With True Faith?
BQ: How Can I Live With True Faith?
Look to the beginning of chapter 12
The writer begins with noting the “great cloud of witnesses”
He is not saying that Abraham and Moses and the prophets are sitting in the clouds with harps, singing, and watching you and I as we go about our days
Abraham is not leaning over to Moses when I get free breakfast at CFA on a Wednesday morning saying “nice job”
The great cloud of witnesses are the great saints who came before us whose stories we are encouraged by
It is by their words and how they lived their lives that we are inspired to live godly lives
So, therefore, since we have such great inspiration around us
I. Lay Aside Every Weight
I. Lay Aside Every Weight
How can I live with true faith? I need to lay aside whatever it is that is weighing me down
This can be almost anything that causes you difficulty in running the race of faith that is set before you
It’s not sin, but it is slowing you down
Abraham experienced this
I prefaced Abraham’s weights to say that the weights themselves are not sin, now I am going to give you two examples where sin was involved. But we are not looking at the sin itself just yet, we are looking at what ended up causing the sin.
Abraham ends up lying about his wife to both Pharaoh and Abimelech
In this lie we see Abraham’s fear, his anxiety, his lack of trusting in the Lord
We also see a difficulty between Isaac and Ishmael. When Sarah tells him to send Ishmael away the distress troubled Abraham.
Now, he ends up sinning through these things, but before the sin he is weighed down by these emotions
I want to commend him on this point though. It was internal struggles which seemed to encumber him. We can be weighed down by many things, physical things too. While Abraham was very wealthy his possessions did not challenge his closeness to the Lord
We can be challenged by our possessions, our money, and our emotions. They are all difficult to deal with, but removing them, or laying them aside will ensure a faster run towards the Lord
How does Abraham overcome or lay these encumbrances aside?
By living in the presence of the Lord
I love that verse after Abraham returns from Egypt when we are told that he returned to the altar of God
Even when he is distressed over what to do with his two sons it is the Lord that speaks and he continues moving where God calls him to
We struggle to go where the Lord is calling us to, maybe because of fear or anxiety, but we cannot allow these things to erupt into disobedience, we need to continue running where God calls us to
I received my bachelors degree in Biblical and Theological studies at Indiana Wesleyan University. I did not start as a Bible major, mind you. Take a guess, how many majors I had declared before I graduated.
Story of the unknown and the gray. Didn’t want to move, I knew this, nobody had told me that I would be good in ministry, so I stayed for too long
Then I took a step
“I have found that a simple love of theology is calling enough”
The weight of fear had taken me, but leaning into the presence of the Lord I finally started walking, and have been ever since
I won’t tell you that there aren’t times when it’s not scary still, but with some ground behind me I have more reason to hold fast in my faith because I have seen where the Lord has stepped in before
Lay aside every weight
II. Lay Aside Every Sin
II. Lay Aside Every Sin
Lay aside every sin which clings so closely
This point should be a bit more self-explanatory
We understand that the more that we lean into our sins the more difficult that it will be to follow the Lord with the entirety of our hearts, right?
Abraham did struggle with sin too
He lied about his wife, he had sex with Hagar and these sins brought consequences
Pastor Jamey talked a few weeks ago about how his sin with Hagar is still affecting the world today!
Have you ever messed up that badly?
This is a serious offense that we need to deal with
Your sins are deeply affecting you and we treat them often so casually
In small groups or sitting down at a coffee table maybe you have heard the sharing of one’s sin struggle that they are wrestling with, but it’s shared so passively
Yeah, I got drunk on Thursday again, and Friday, and Saturday
or, I watched porn twice this week
“Hey, it’s okay. Let’s do better this week”
But it’s not okay, we need to get rid of these sins, yet they cling to us
Some of us aren’t even fully sure that we want to get rid of our sins because they make us feel comfortable or we use them as stress relief or as some kind of reward for a difficult week
But they are not a source of comfort, they will drag us down to death
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.
Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
This is deeply serious, and I know the difficulty especially when sin has so deeply ensnared us, but this is not casual. The sin which is clinging to you is effecting your race towards Jesus
This is not a casual laying off, no this is whatever it takes
Joseph ran out of the house without his robe to get away from Potiphar’s wife, that’s the kind of spirit that we need to foster in ridding ourselves of sin
Repentance!!!!
And why can we do it? Because Jesus went and died for those sins. We no longer need to be bound to them. yet we often return to them, like a dog returns to its vomit, Solomon writes
Pray, read, study your Bibles, write your prayers out, destroy the bottles burn it, throw it in the dumpster behind Meijer. Whatever you need to do to begin this process and then go to a brother or a sister and ask for their help in your walk towards holiness
Remove everything which will hinder you from running your race.
Then, our final point:
III. Run The Race
III. Run The Race
You want faith that is going to be true faith?
You need to run the race
We have used Abraham as our subject of study to emphasize the beauty of faith and so far I have mentioned his short comings
But he ran his race very well
The author of Hebrews notes this also
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
That’s faith
Abraham leaves his home at God’s word!
God promises Abraham a son, and Abraham believes Him, and it is counted to Abraham as righteousness!
Then Isaac is born later, God identifies him as the one through whom the promise would be fulfilled and later calls on Abraham to sacrifice his son and he leads Isaac to the mountain
That is faith
Yes, he messed up, but he ran his race well, so well that he is given the largest portion in Hebrews 11
That should be great news for you and I who also mess up!
So, how do we run our race well?
Well, how did Abraham run his race well?
He kept his eyes on something greater
For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Yes, Abraham was seeking the land of promise which was offered to him when he was in Ur
But moreso he was looking for a better country, a heavenly country, one that God has prepared for him
This country has been prepared for you and I also, we keep our eyes on that hope.
But specifically on Jesus
Read 12:1-3
We run the race, with endurance that is set before us, and where do we look?
At Jesus!
Have you ever run a race before, or run in general where you are not looking where you need to go? How would that work out?
Our race is towards Jesus Who is the founder and perfector of our faith
Jesus is set before us, why?
Because he endured the cross, because He ran the race set before Him which contained the punishment that should have been the end of our race. Yet He was crucified and raised again from the dead!
We are supposed to run like Him because He is the founder of our faith, that is, He is the one Who put together the faith that you and I should be holding in our hearts
We are supposed to run like Him because He is the perfector of our faith
Where you and I struggle with the weights that we have picked up and need to lay aside, He did not
Yet He experienced everything that we do, hunger, thirst, tiredness, fear, anger, fear, sadness, persecution (and persecution to a far greater degree than you or I)
Yet every time the weight was laid aside and did not hinder Him
Where you and I struggle with sin which clings to us Jesus did not
When temptation was laid before Him He stood strong on the word of God. He did not sin, yet He died for yours
Where you and I struggle to run our race Jesus did not
No, look at the life that He lives and I say lives because He is still living! The cross was on the racetrack but even it did not hinder Him!
Can you imagine what that final week would have been like?
Today is Palm Sunday, the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Less than a week later the crowds would not be shouting “Hosanna” they would be shouting “Crucify Him!”
Hosanna means “save us” their words may have been different, yet the message was the same, for through what Jesus did on the cross we are saved.
The author of Hebrews emphasizes this
He begins this section by referring back to the saints that came before whose stories should encourage us foreward
Their lives and words are fuel in the tank behind us pushing us foreward. But Jesus is set before our eyes, we look to Him to run to
Jesus is then identified as the perfector of our faith and in verse three we are told to Consider Him Who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself
We are to consider that Christ endured such hate and persecution and despised the shame of the cross. Why?
So that you may not grow weary or fainthearted
This race is long, it is not a sprint, it is a marathon
For some of us it’s difficult to get out of bed, it’s really difficult to continue doing the right thing
Yet, it is what we are called to do
What is the other option? To live in your sin, that’s the other option
Mind you, this whole section of Scripture is prefaced in chapter 10 where the author will write
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
What is your hope in? You know Who Jesus is yet you continue to live in sin! Do you hold hope in Jesus, or do you fear the great day of judgment that is coming?
Where will you run? Where is your faith? Have you fallen so far that you are afraid of the fires that ravage the lake of Hell?
Some of you are here, this is your worry, you are afraid!
“but what can I do?”
My sin is so much!
I have fallen so far
I have dug so deep into the darkness
I have ran so far away
What can I do?!
REPENT!
You have not ran so far away that the Good Shepherd cannot find you
You have not dug so far into the darkness that the Light cannot shine upon you
You have not fallen so far that the blood of the Son cannot cover your sins
Repent and He is faithful to forgive!
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This should not be a verse of fear, rather it should be the shove that you need to repent and run to Christ
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Are you in Christ, then do not fear, continue running the race before you and continue considering what Jesus did for you
This week is a perfect time to do this. It’s holy week, this is the week that Jesus enters into Jerusalem knowing He was coming there to die
This is the week that Judas would betray Him
This is the week that Peter would deny Him
This is the week that He would be tried under lies and sentenced to death
This is the week that He would be crucified for your sins
Consider Him as you run
But I am tired—So was He
I am afraid—So was He
Others will hate me—They hated Him
I’ll lose my friends—So did He
BQ: How Can I Live With True Faith?
BQ: How Can I Live With True Faith?
You run your race well
How do you run your race well?
Start by removing the weights from your life
Remove the sin which clings to you and lean into the Lord
And run, as fast as you can towards Jesus, keeping Him in sight. If you keep Him at the center of your vision you will not move to the right or to the left
If you haven’t been running your race well it is not too late. Start removing these things from your life today and consider what He did as you run
And if you haven’t begun your race yet because you don’t know Jesus, then today is the day
Today is the day that we remember when Jesus entered Jerusalem intending to die for your soul too
The calling for your soul is here don’t miss it!
The adventure of your life begins here, and it will only begin with faith, with true faith
Through this faith you will continue to step where the Lord has called you and He will lead you to places that you wouldn’t believe even if He told you
It is truly amazing and it leads to eternal life, to knowing God as Jesus defines eternal life
If you want to live that life, if you want to live the adventure that is you life, if you want to live with true faith, if you want to know God, then pray this prayer with me, and step into the beginning of putting everything in what Jesus did for you
Pray
