Daring To Move Forward Series

Daring to Move Forward

Series: Daring Faith

Brad Bailey - October 21, 2018

Today we are continuing our venture into DARING FAITH.

As notes in our first week…

Faith is the connection to the bigger world…. the intersection between the finite and infinite.

When the word faith is used… it can refer to a set a set of propositions which one agrees with…as when we speaks of “the Christian faith.”

But this is where we have lost the dynamic truth about faith. We have created a culture that pours out lots of knowledge… and focuses on whether we simply agree… and refer to such agreement as belief.

But real belief is what you actually trust in.

Illus CHAIR – Agree that that is a chair with secure structure…and sitting down on it.

As the Biblical writer James says…

My brothers and sisters, if people say they have faith, but do nothing, their faith is worth nothing. - - James 2:14 (NCV)

The faith we are talking about could be described as…

Faith is trust expressed in response.

And today we continue to engage this dynamic faith… as captured by the life that has long been called the father of faith…. Referring to the man Abraham. [1]

When God began to rescue the world … it began with a call to a particular life. God said that He would rescue the world through a people that would be formed from Abraham.

The Bible places Abraham in very historic terms.

He is rooted in the most exact of ancestry…noting his exact ancestry… year of father’s birth and death.

And the most exact of places. Told how he his family “Ur of the Chaldeans”.

For so long… many deemed that such figures must be projections of more local and later tribal figures… until the excavation began throughout the areas…and discovered that the biblical book of Genesis, narratives fit perfectly with what, from other sources, is known today of the early 2nd millennium BCE.

Most scholars now agree that Ur Kasdim was the Sumerian city about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad in modern day Iraq.

The city of Harran has been found on the site of the modern Harran in Turkey. [2]

And from his historic position he is known as the father of all of the major monotheistic religions. From his son Isaac comes the Jewish people. From his son Ishmael comes the Arab people often associated with the Muslim religion. And in terms of genealogy… it is through his lineage… that leads to Christ’s earthly father.

But God is very clear that genealogy s not what makes Abraham our father. It may root him in history…but it is the fact that he trusted God…and was responsive to God…that makes him the spiritual father of all who then follow.

People had begun to forget God…and worship pagan false powers…and God speaks to him…about calling him to leave…and to leave and God will be forming a people to help bless the whole world.

Hebrews 11:8-10 (NLT) ?It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. 9 And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. 10 Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

When God called… he went.

Romans 4:16 (GNT)

to those who believe as Abraham did… Abraham is the spiritual father of us all;

Today… bring together some of the key aspects of what is involved with the process of faith… the process of moving forward in faith.

Moving forward in faith…

1. Begins with a calling.

Genesis 12:1-3 (GW) ?The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your land, your relatives, and your father's home. Go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation, I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse. Through you every family on earth will be blessed.” ?

The first thing we should recognize…is that faith is about how we respond to a call…and that it is…

A call from beyond ourselves

I think there is an idea that faith is about positive thinking. Realists find it hard…because they don’t always see that everything is so ideal.

But the Bible doesn’t suggest that everything is ideal. It calls us to trust what God says.

That begins with what He has said (Scriptures)…as well as the calling we hear from Him.