Series--Abraham: Faith in God Message: Abraham: Faith in an Amazing God I am the proud father of four children, the youngest of whom is 16 years of age, so I am beyond those years when my kids were little. Those were great years. Like so many other fathers, I have stood in a swimming pool, looking up at one of my children in a swimsuit and a floaty, and asking that child to jump into the water and my waiting arms. I have seen the tension in their eyes between fear and trust. Sometimes, I have seen my kids jump and sometimes, I have seen them back away. Dads, when your child backs away, it hurts doesn’t it? Yes, it hurts that they didn’t feel they could trust you, but isn’t the greater hurt that they are missing out on something wonderful by failing to jump, by failing to trust. As a dad, I want my child to trust me because I want him/her to have a full life. It reminds me of God. God is a Father Who wants us to trust Him. The Bible says that without faith, it is impossible for us to please God. Faith pleases God, because it is the key to the rich and full life we want and God wants for us. This is why God so desperately wants us to trust Him. In the earliest pages of the Bible, God records scenes from the life of a man named Abram, a man who became known as “the man who trusts God.” God wanted to grow Abram’s faith and God recorded his story in the Bible to help expand our faith. We began looking at Abram’s story last week. Here is the quick review. Abram grows up with his Dad and Mom and two brothers in Ur of the Chaldeas. He marries a beautiful gal named Sarai, but they soon discover that she is infertile and thus cannot have children. God speaks to Abram and asks him to pack up and move from his homeland in Ur of the Chaldeas to a new land He would show them. God promises Abram that he will be great, that he will found a great nation, and that he will bless many people. Trusting the wisdom and promise of God, Abram and his family move out, ultimately directed by God to the land of Canaan. When they first pitch their tents in Canaan, Abram is just over 75 years of age, and Sarai is about ten years younger. They trust the wisdom of God. God wants us, like Abram and Sarai, to trust His wisdom. We do that by obeying His commands and following His directions as they did. There is, however, another layer of trust that God wants us to place in Him. He wants us to trust His power. Once again, Abram and Sarai, provide a unique and encouraging picture of what that kind of trust looks like. I want to take you to a series of conversations God has with Abram and Sarai sometime after they had moved to Canaan. The first conversation is found in the Bible in the book of Genesis, chapter 15: 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, “O 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.” (The Bible, Genesis 15:1-3, NIV)

It is obvious that Abram and Sarai desperately want to have children. There are many parents who want to have children, but a percentage of those parents, including a couple of dear friend of mine, are unable to make that happen. Every year just increases the sense of loss. For some parents, it is almost all they can think about. Even in his 70’s, it is on Abram’s heart. God says that He is the source of Abram’s blessing, and Abram’s first response is basically “how can you say I am blessed since I am childless?” He goes on to remind God that his estate will end up being passed on to a selected servant in his household. God disagrees: Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens 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. 7 He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” (The Bible, Genesis 15:4-7, NIV) At this point, God adds another layer to His earlier promise. He had told Abram that he would be the source of a great nation. That promise had come years earlier. Abraham couldn’t be entirely sure exactly what God meant. Perhaps God meant that He would raise up a great nation through some member of Abram’s household or maybe through his nephew, Lot. We can’t be sure what Abram had assumed, but God clarifies His promise with these words: “a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He promises that Abram will have a son. More than that, He promises that the son will have kids, and his kids will have kids, so much so that Abram’s children and grand children and great-grandkids will exceed the stars that Abram can attempt to count in the sky. How Abram’s heart must have jumped! Once again, Abram trusted God, and God rewarded that faith with righteousness. God, however, wanted to stretch Abram’s faith even more. Let me take you to another conversation God has with Abram, a conversation recorded in Genesis, chapter 17. By the way, earlier in this conversation, God renames Abram, giving him the name “Abraham,” which means “Father of many nations.” God now addresses Abraham by his new name. God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” (The Bible, Genesis 17:15-17, NIV) So, why does Abraham laugh here? After all, hasn’t God already promised Abraham He would give him a son? Abraham didn’t laugh before. Why now? Well, God just added one additional piece of information. He says: “I will…give you a son by Sarah.” This is preposterous. Abraham and Sarah have been trying to have a child for decades, but Sarah is infertile. And now, well now, Sarah is 90 years old.

Abraham could still produce the necessary seed. (In fact, after Sarah dies, he gives birth to more children through a new wife.) A son through Abraham is believable. A son through Sarah would be “impossible.” God has upped the ante. You see, with each conversation, God has been increasing the degree to which Abraham and Sarah must trust His power. First, Abraham is promised that he will be the father of a great nation. This seems to suggest he will give birth to a son, but the promise does not demand that. When God talks to Abraham in Genesis 15, He promises that the nation will not come through a servant’s son but through a son from Abraham’s body. Abraham can believe that easily enough, but he obviously assumes that the mother of the child will not be Sarah. It is in this latest conversation, however, that God blows up that assumption. The son will come through Sarah. All that Abraham can do is laugh. By the way, he is not the only one laughing. A little while later, the Lord speaks to Abraham at his home tent. The topic of conversation is, once again, the birth of a baby boy. I just love this account: Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?” 13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.” 15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:10-15, NIV) You gotta love Sarah. Like any one of us might do, she listens in on God’s conversation with Abraham. Don’t kid yourself. If your spouse was talking to God in the room next door, you’d have your ear to the door as well! When God says that she will have a boy, she must have thought: “Has God forgotten my birthdate? Doesn’t he have access to my medical records?” She chuckles to herself at the very thought of it all. This laugh catches God’s attention, and He asks why Sarah is laughing. Sarah is busted. Not only has she been eavesdropping, but her laugh wasn’t as quiet as she thought it was. If I’m in Sarah’s shoes, I expect I’d do the same thing she did. I’d say I just sneezed or coughed. I certainly did not laugh. Of course, it’s tough to win an argument with God. Consider the key question God poses to Abraham, to Sarah, and to us, reading this account thousands of years later: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” For the God Who created the universe simply with His word, is it too hard for Him to restore the womb of a 90 year old woman? For the One Who created human life, is it too hard for Him to raise someone from the dead with a word? Is anything beyond God’s power?

God wants us to trust His remarkable power. He asks Abraham and Sarah to believe that He can do what is humanly impossible. When their laughter subsided, they did just that. They trusted Him to keep His preposterous promise. And just a few months later, Sarah felt the movement of a little tiny baby inside her. The story is recorded in Genesis 21 Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” 7 And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21:1-7, NIV) Much later in the Bible, in Hebrews chapter 11, we read this note: By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren— was enabled to become a father because he 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. (The Bible, Hebrews 11:11-12, NIV) Abraham and Sarah were able to have a son…by faith. They trusted the promise and the power of God, and God did just as He had promised. He did the impossible. A ninety-year old woman gave birth to a son. God was teaching them an invaluable lesson about Himself. He is not limited by the things that limit us. In that way, He is not like us. There is no point where God thinks: “I can’t possibly pull that off.” There is no request we bring to God where He says: “Wow! That is just too hard for me to do.” God invites us to bring any concern or request to Him, trusting that He is a Father who can do the impossible. He wants us to trust His power. He can do the impossible. This does not mean, however, that He always WILL do the impossible. God can enable an infertile woman to become pregnant, but it does not mean that He always will. God wants us to trust Him to do the impossible, but there will be times when He won’t give us what we ask for. Why? Why would a loving Father not give us a good thing when He has the power to do so? When another good or valuable thing is at stake. Why would God not answer the cry of a mother to have a baby? Perhaps, there is a child that desperately needs adoption. Why would God not miraculously heal a paralyzed 17-year old girl? Perhaps because that paralyzed girl will be able to bring hope and comfort to paralyzed children and advocate for them in ways she could never do fully functional. Why would God not answer the cry of an addict to remove the oppressive pull of alcohol? Perhaps because the humility the addiction creates will save his life or a vital relationship.

When it comes to trusting God, we live in a kind of tension. A tension is the “gray area” between two truths or realities. Here are two realities that create a tension: God is powerful and God is wise. He can do anything, and He also knows what is best for us in the big picture. God wants us to trust His power, but when He does not do what we know He can do, He wants us to trust His wisdom. He wants us to trust that there is a good reason why He is not answering our request for a good thing. For decades, I have asked God to take away a struggle I battle with almost every day. For decades, He has not answered that, even though I know He could. But He has given me grace, and He has, through my deep struggle, forged qualities in me that would never have come otherwise. Without my struggle and what it has shaped in me, I’m not even sure you would like me (assuming you do anyway!) I know you would not listen to my teaching in the same way. So many people have told me that God has spoken to them through me as a fellow-struggler. My words have brought them hope because I struggle in ways that they deeply relate to. Would I rather not have my struggle? Sure, but God has ultimately done something more important by not intervening with miraculous power. God wants us to trust His power. What does that look like? We should ask God for things, no matter how impossible they seem. Don’t make the mistake of not asking. God loves big faith. God wants us to trust His power, but He also wants us to trust His wisdom. What does that look like? When you read an instruction from God that you don’t understand, trust His wisdom and do what He says. When you ask God to do a good thing and He doesn’t do it, keep following Him. Don’t stop obeying. Don’t stop praying. Don’t give up. Through the story of Abraham and Sarah, God teaches us to trust both His power and His wisdom. There is one other beautiful truth about trusting God I see in their story. God does not demand perfect faith. He responds to faith even when it wavers at points. Abraham is commended for his faith, and Sarah is praised for her faith, but both of them had moments of skepticism and doubt that God would give them a son through Sarah. Both Abraham and Sarah laughed when God first told them that Sarah would give birth to a son. The idea was comical. At one point, they devise a plan to have Abraham impregnate a surrogate mother, which he does. They feel the need to “help God out.” This was not a moment of unwavering faith. And still… God gives them a son by Sarah. God does not demand flawless faith. He blessed the faith of Abraham and Sarah even though they laughed, even though they questioned His promise, and even though they took matters into their own hands at one point. That is enormously encouraging to me. Sometimes my faith in God is very strong and at other times, it is on life support! I relate to one man in the Bible who said to Jesus: “I believe. Help my unbelief.” God does just that; He graciously blesses our roller-coaster faith. When you ask God for something, don’t assume that you have to have perfect faith for God to respond. Just bring the faith you have. Your very prayer is an expression of trust that pleases God.

I want to give you some time right now to speak to God and express your trust in Him with today’s burdens. Take some time now to quietly pray. In a few moments, we’ll turn our words into music and sing to God.