Sermon Tone Analysis

What Does It Mean to Live By Faith?

Ron Dunn

Genesis 12:1-3

 

I read a story about a little boy who, on his first day in the first grade, desperately wanted to impress his parents.

So on his first day in the first grade, he had one of the upperclassmen teach him part of the multiplication tables.

After supper that night, the little boy stood up and said, "Two times two equals four."

And his mother and father were so amazed and surprised—here was their little darling on his first day in the first grade, and he was already multiplying.

What they had always suspected was now made true—their little darling was a budding genius.

While they were standing there, beaming with pride, thinking they have a genius on their hands, the little boy looked up at them and said, "What's a two?"

 

Have you ever been in that situation?

I have.

I've found out that you can sound like you know a lot more than you really do.

I think that's true especially in the church, especially for those of us who have grown up in the church.

We hear phrases and words and become familiar with them, and we naturally use them.

However, we're not always certain what those words and phrases mean.

One of those words, I think, is the word faith.

I don't know of any other thing in the Christian life that has such an air of mystery about it as does this concept of faith.

I can remember from the earliest days of my ministry when I was in awe of people who were men or women of great faith.

I remember reading biographies of men like Praying Hyde and George Mueller, those who were well-known for their faith.

There was some special aura about those people who lived by faith.

I learned those words and phrases just like you did.

I knew I was "saved by faith," and I knew I was supposed to "live by faith."

People would tell me, "You just need to trust God"—so I would trust God.

And people would say, "You're just going to have to believe God for this"—and so I would believe God for that.

But the truth of the matter is, many times I wanted to say, "What does it mean to believe God?

What does it mean to trust God?

I know the word and the phrase.

I know that I'm supposed to do it, but when you get right down to it, what is involved?"

What does it mean to walk with God?

What does it mean to live by faith?

What does it mean to step out and trust God in a situation?

I think many of us, like that little boy, would like to know what belief is.

What do you do when you're trusting God—do you dress differently, wear sackcloth and ashes, fast, pray?

When I was in school, I was never good at math, and I'm still not.

I find math, algebra, fractions, geometry and all that to be a foreign language.

I really had a hard time because it's always been hard for me to follow abstract directions.

I'm a concrete person, an image person, and I don't do well looking at abstract directions.

When it came to math, I had a hard time understanding.

But if the teacher would turn to the blackboard and work out a problem step-by-step so I could see it, then I could begin to understand it.

When she took the abstract and put it in a concrete form, then I began to understand it better.

I think that's one of the reasons Manley Beasley has been a blessing in my life over the years because he has been an image of what it means to live by faith.

It has been a blessing for me to watch him and see how he does it.

I think most of us are that way when it comes to these matters.

The Lord understands that, and He gave us a person in the Bible that demonstrates to us step-by-step what it really means to trust God and to walk by faith.

I'm talking about Abraham.

In Romans chapter four, Paul was talking about Abraham and that experience with Isaac and how Abraham believed God.

When he came to the end of that chapter, Paul summed it up by saying, "Now not for his [Abraham's] sake only was it written, that it was reckoned to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be reckoned, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead," (vv.

23, 24, NASB).

Paul was saying that God has recorded all the acts of Abraham in this manner of walking with Him, not just as a matter of historical record, but so you and I could look at it and observe it and believe as Abraham believed.

If you and I believe as Abraham believed, then you and I will receive as Abraham received.

I want us to look at the three crises in the life of Abraham, when God dealt with him in a decisive manner to bring him to the place where God wanted to him to be.

CRISIS #1—Let Go of the Land

Genesis 12:1-3

 

We'll begin with Genesis 12:1-3.

This is the first time where the name Abraham occurs in the Bible, except for a genealogy in the eleventh chapter.

But as far as we know, this is the first time God ever spoke to Abraham; this is where the whole business started.

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

(NASB)

 

Notice the words of separation ("go forth...") and the words of direction ("to the land...") in verse one.

The first words God spoke to Abraham were "Get out.

Leave.

Go somewhere else.

Turn your back on what you now have.

Separate yourself."

I believe that the real essence of faith is simply letting go of one thing so the Lord may give us something else.

In this matter of growing in grace and walking with God, there is always the element of letting go of one thing so you may take hold of something else.

God came to Abraham and said, "I want you to get out of the country in which you are now living.

I want you to separate yourself from your kindred and from your father's house."

In other words God was saying, "Abraham, I want you to let go of everything in your life that means security and identity to you.

I want you to let go of all that you have so that I can give you a special country."

God had a land He wanted to give Abraham, but He could not give him the Promise Land until Abraham let go of the land he had.

I'm convinced that the thing that keeps God from giving us all He wants us to have is the fact that our hand is tightly clenched around something we're not willing to let go of.

In growth, the matter of letting go is always involved.

The only way to grow up is by giving up.

That's true, not only physically, but also spiritually.

All the days of your life, you've grown by giving up certain things—you have to give up the bottle, the diapers, the toys eventually.

We call those people who are not willing to give up those things immature.

You have to give up in order to grow, and it's not always easy.

In fact, sometimes it's painfully hard.

Jesus said that "for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

You have to give up a home in order to make a home.

Unless we give up now, we can never grow up into what God wants us to be.

When God came to Abraham, it must have startled him because God had not laid any real foundation with him.

All of a sudden, it seems, out of the clear blue sky, God spoke to Abraham, and the word He said was so difficult—get up and leave your country; withdraw yourself from your family, from your kindred and from your father's house.

Now what was God doing here?

Basically, I think God was doing two things in the life of Abraham.

I think He does the same two things in your life and in my life.

 

1.

God is seeking to isolate us.

God wanted to make a new race out of Abraham.

He wanted to fashion Abraham according to His own image, but He could not do that where Abraham was.

God needed to draw him out and isolate him so that He alone could be the shaping influence in Abraham's life.

I have no doubt that what God is constantly trying to do in our lives, in a sense, is to isolate us so that we will not be conformed to this present evil world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Paul said to the Corinthians, "Come out from among them and touch not the unclean things."

I'm not saying that you and I should become isolationists or withdraw from the world and live in the mountains somewhere.

But there is a very real sense that God is wanting to draw us out of the world so He can be the shaping influence in our lives.

If God wants to start a new work in my heart, He has to start it in a situation where He has me all to Himself.

God knows that He cannot do all He wants to do with you and me as long as we are living under the powerful influence of this world.

I like the way Philips translates Romans 12:2—"Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its mold."

It brings out the power that is exerted on us by the world.