Video to come.
Morning Message Text: Genesis 15: 1-6 & Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16
The LORD’s Covenant With Abram
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,your very great reward. ”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”
5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Faith in Action
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.
12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Morning Message:
Every one of us has fear. Anyone disagree with that statement? Fear comes mostly from being unsure or uncertain about something. In our scripture from Genesis today we see the very first time in the Bible where God says do not fear. You will find these words from God many places throughout his Word. There is a good reason for this. Fear comes when God’s people take their eyes off the One who promises and begin to worry about the promise itself. In other words, we think too much about the gift of salvation and all that we will receive from God, and we lose focus on God himself. I did a study once that encouraged everyone to focus on the promises of God because this would be encouraging, but we must stay focused on the source of these promises. Worship is where we adjust our focus.
As we read this account of Abram whom God would rename Abraham, we hear Abram questioning how God can keep his promise based on the current conditions of his life. Have you ever done that? Lord, how can you possibly help me now? I know you promised good for me, but how can any good come from my circumstances? I know you promised to take care of my needs, but where will that come from based on how little I have? Abram’s fear seems very reasonable, doesn’t it? I mean, think about it, he and his wife Sarah are well passed the age of having children so how can God possibly bless him after he is gone? His eyes are on the promise; not the One who promised.
God doesn’t mind when we question him. He welcomes our questions. He simply shows Abraham what He is capable of and brings Abraham’s focus back where it belongs. He didn’t really want Abraham to count the stars, but what happens when you take a moment and look at the magnitude of God’s creation? When you see and appreciate what God has done you stop questioning what He can do. If I could read Abraham’s mind, he must have thought to himself, if God can create the stars in the sky why am I concerned about what He has promised me. Maybe that’s a question we should ask ourselves?
Verse 6 is very important for us to understand. “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” What had changed? Abraham’s focus. His circumstances were still the same, but now he was looking at God and he had faith. This verse sets the clear pattern traced throughout the scriptures: a person is saved only and always by grace through faith, nothing more. In other words, God applied the results of the atonement, righteousness, to those who believed the Lord in Old Testament times. Now listen! Because here is an answer to a question that I know I have asked. Those people were, in essence, saved on credit. You know how credit works, right? You buy something, you receive it, and the payment is made later. They were waiting for that payment for sin to be made. Now that Jesus has made the payment, citizens on this side of Calvary need only look back and trust what He did on the cross. Let me give you three aspects of saving faith for you to consider and think about.
1. Perception (the mind). A person cannot have saving faith unless the mind embraces the content of the gospel. People must accept the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as fact and then understand the personal implications of those events in their lives. Faith is not blind, but it is only as valid as the truth fullness of its object. I found this question in my readings:
If you were going ice fishing this year on a frozen lake in the mountains, would you rather have a little bit of faith in a section of ice four-feet thick, or a huge amount of faith in a section of ice one-inch thick? To my amazement, many people chose to have a huge amount of faith in the thinner ice. Besides making a note never to go ice fishing with them, I love to point out that the object of faith must be worthy of your faith, or the amount of faith will not matter.
2. Next is persuasion (the emotions). Although people may be under persuasion at the same time that they receive knowledge, many know the gospel, but do not accept the gospel! Faith is a real conviction based upon the revelation of God: “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (Romans 10: 17). Just knowing the gospel is not enough. Having feelings, getting emotional about the gospel is not enough. There must be conviction.
3. Volition (the will). In this aspect, a person’s will responds with a personal commitment to, and complete acceptance of Christ as the only hope for eternal salvation. Saving faith, then, consists of someone embracing all of Christ with their whole being. Real faith does not bypass the mind and emotions. In a similar vein, intellectual understanding or warm feelings do not qualify as biblical faith if they do not lead to trust and action. Faith is an action word: Faith does. Faith works.
I know that there is a lot to digest in this message, but faith is not complicated. The book of Hebrews talks about heroes of the faith, and they all have one thing in common. They truly believed. No matter their circumstances, no matter how impossible the promises of God may have seemed, they looked to God their Savior. They focused on the Promise Giver, not on the promise, because they could see that in their God all things were possible.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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