[Use children’s sermon as introduction for this sermon.]
I have a reward for one of you this morning, but you’re going to have to trust me to get it. Here’s the challenge: Somewhere in this room I have hidden a candy bar and you have to find it while blindfolded. I will tell you that it is in the back of the room, so you’ll have to put on the blindfold, walk to the back, locate it, and then return to this spot. Who thinks that they’re up for this challenge?
What if told you that I’d give you directions on how to find the prize, could you do it then? What if I told you that I’d walk right beside you so that you wouldn’t hurt yourself and I wouldn’t allow you to bump into anything or fall in case you’re worried about being laughed at, would you take the challenge?
[Recruit a volunteer, child or adult, and lead them through the process.]
Congratulations you did it! You get the prize. You also learned you can do the impossible with a little help from someone who can see what’s really going on. Did you learn anything about me? Did I let you bump into anything? Did I let you get hurt? Did I lead you to the prize that I promised? Yes! You learned that you can trust me. Now let’s try driving a car while blindfolded …
This is a demonstration of faith. In our age faith has been distilled into a set of doctrines that you agree with. We often evaluate a person’s faith based on whether or not they believe in certain statements: Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe He died to save you from your sins?
While this is certainly a part of faith it’s not the whole story. There is a living aspect to it. Faith is the experience of a relationship with a God who still walks among us. As we live out His commands and calling on our lives we “see” more of who God really is. Why does He do this? God wants to reveal Himself to you so that He can reveal Himself through you. The more you know God, though His word and experience, the more you will make Him known to others.
We live in a nation where people seem to have lost knowledge of the true God. In modern America we tend to create God in our own image rather than bow before the real thing. I bet you have friends or family members who do not know the Lord either. Let me ask you, “Is Jesus Christ being revealed to them through you?” If you’re answer is an honest “no” or even a maybe, perhaps the reason is that you haven’t yet enrolled in His school of faith. Yes, you may know correct doctrine. You may be able to pass a theological multiple choice test with flying colors, but that’s only have the story. Are you walking with God? Is the Lord leading you to places where you can only manage with Him? Is your life more characterized by risk that comfort? That’s the school of faith. God send all of His children to be instructed there. Why? God wants to reveal Himself to you so that He can reveal Himself through you.
This morning we’re entering into a new phase in the book of Genesis. We begin our initial look into the ultimate man of faith, Abraham, or Abram as he was called at first. We’ll walk with him through 15 chapters of Genesis and learn from him as he walks with God. You’re going to be encouraged as you see Abraham stumble through these stories. Although he was enrolled in the school of faith, he was not what you’d consider a star performer. Abraham had just as many doubts, fears, and failures as we do yet he never gave up on God because God never gave up on him. In it all God had the same purpose as with us: God wanted to reveal Himself to Abram so that He could reveal Himself through Abram.
Let’s learn the same lessons from the Master Teacher.
Lessons from the Master Teacher
1. The Lord calls the class into session.
There was nothing about Abram or his family that gave him an advantage with God. Although they were descended from the blessed line of Noah’s son Shem, Abram and his family were most likely devotees of the moon-god, Sin. The world of Abram’s day had largely lost knowledge of the true God and settled for idols that they thought they could manipulate. Because of this the Lord God, who needs nothing from men, broke into Abram’s life and called him into relationship where he’d have to trust and follow.
What I want you to see here is that God initiates everything when it comes to faith. Abram had done no good deed to qualify him. He wasn’t even seeking an alternative to the moon-god. The Lord God entered into his very full life and offered to make this childless man into a great nation, presumably with its own land. He said He’d make Abram’s name great which is a promise of fame and a good reputation. God promised Abram protection by blessing those who bless him, and cursing the one who cursed Abram. In some mysterious way, God promised to bless all the families of the earth through Abram and his descendants. (The blessing was God’s re-introduction of Himself to the world through Israel and later His full revelation through Jesus Christ.)
There was only one little catch with this promise. The tuition into God’s school was steep. Abram would have to give up his land, his family security, and his inheritance to receive the promise of God. Imagine that at 75 years of age God tells you to pack up, sell everything, kiss your kids and grandkids goodbye, and go live in a foreign land. Would you trust Him enough to do it?
Somehow Abram did. Don’t be too blown away by it through. God initiated, so God knew that Abram wouldn’t resist this call. It was so appealing to him that he willingly left all to step into the unknown. That’s the way God works. He plays on our desires to draw us into a relationship based on faith.
You may think that you found God, but you didn’t. He found you. He orchestrated the events of your life to reach out for Him. That pain or fear or loss or unexpected event that you experienced which eventually led you to Jesus Christ was all a part of the plan. There was nothing coincidental or accidental about your salvation.
As I told those of you who were here last week, God sent me into a spiritual and emotional tail spin. He brought me to a place where I wanted to know the real God because I saw that my God-in-the-box just wasn’t working. God calls us to repentance. He calls us to salvation. The Lord calls the school of faith into session in His time and on His terms. We have only to respond with obedience.
A second lesson from the Master Teacher is …
2. The tests reveal your trust.
A lot of Christians live in fear of trials, tests, and temptations. We’re often afraid to read the latest book by the country’s leading atheist because it might cause us to question or give up our faith. We’re scared of discussions with people of other religions because we might not have all the answers or we might find that we agree with them. Some of us live in abject fear that God will take away someone or something that we dearly love, worrying that we might walk away from God if it happens. I am convinced that most Christians are afraid to hear from God because He might actually speak and call them to do something that will be difficult or in which they might fail and be embarrassed. If trials, tests, and temptation destroy your faith, you never had faith to begin with and maybe the healthiest thing could be having that false faith torn away.
God sends times of testing for two reasons: 1) They reveal our trust in Him; and 2) actually make real faith stronger.
From the very beginning, Abram was tested. The first big obstacle to God’s promise was the barrenness of his wife Sarai. She was 65 when they headed for Canaan. You know if a baby hasn’t come along by then, reality tells you it’s not going to happen. The second big obstacle: God promised to make Abram into a great nation in the land He showed him, but the land He showed him was full of Canaanites. Amazingly, those facts weren’t the toughest part of the test.
After Abram and his caravan made their first tour of the promised land a famine hit. Many scholars think this was caused by a 300 hundred year drought cycle that hit Canaan during the age of Abram. Did Abram stay put and trust God to take care of him in the promised land? No. He continued south, right on into Egypt which never had problems with drought because the Nile River never ran dry. Rather than stay put in the place where he’d been sent and wait for further instructions, Abram took matters into his own hands and bailed out.
He thought he knew best, but then another test hit him. He had an exceedingly beautiful wife and the Egyptians might kill him to take her away. Subtly, it was a question of God’s faithfulness to His original promise. Would God protect Abram and Sarai? He had, after all, promised descendants through her. Abram concocted a little half lie telling the Egyptians that she was his sister, but remaining silent about the fact that she was his wife. Maybe he was hoping he could keep prospective husbands at bay until the famine was over and they could leave. Instead, Pharaoh himself snatched Sarai away to his harem. Abram’s little lie completely backfired … or so it seemed.
From beginning to end it was all a test. The circumstances and Abram’s response to them revealed that his trust in God was quite small. Here’s my take on it: Abram still lived under the illusion that the God who called him was a little, local deity. Maybe this God who originally spoke in Ur had no power in Canaan or Egypt. Just imagine Abram sitting in his tent alone and in a foreign land. He did everything humanly possible to say alive and keep his family intact. Where’s this God and His promises now? This takes us to the 3rd lesson of the Master Teacher:
3. When you’re finished God’s just getting started.
The longer I live the more I’m convinced that God wants us to come to the end of our rope. When we get there, He’s the only thing we have to hold onto. This is why we should not avoid the crisis. This is why we should take the risk. The safest thing to do is jump into the dark and dangerous place where God has called you because He’s waiting to catch you and show just how He can come through.
Abram’s faith was small. He disobeyed. He lied. He displayed no courage and little trust in God. Abram was backed into a corner from which there was no escape. So what did God do? He blessed him and made a way out. Pharaoh lavished him with gifts in return for marriage to his sister. But before the Egyptian king could consummate the marriage, a plague stuck his household. Somehow he put two and two together and linked the disease to his acquisition of Sarai. She must have confessed her marriage to Abram. Rather take back all his stuff and run Abram through, Pharaoh let him keep it and ran him out of town.
Abram was finished, but God was just getting started. He let Abram make a mess of his life, so that He could reveal His faithfulness. God demonstrated His power and protection right there in Egypt, the land of many gods.
Don’t fear times of testing. Problems are opportunities for God’s goodness to be displayed. When you think you’re through, that’s when God will come through. Prayerfully embrace the tests, trials, and crises. They are for your good. They reveal your trust in Him and actually make real faith stronger.
When we think of testing, we typically think in terms of our educational methods: pass/fail. Biblical testing is more like the testing of a precious metal such as gold. Three things happen when gold is placed in the refiner’s fire. First, all the impurities rise to the top where they can be viewed and scooped away. Gold is purified in the testing. Second, after it’s cooled the gold hardens. It becomes stronger than before the testing. Finally, you can tell when gold has been tested because it reflects more clearly. That’s what the testing of our faith does too. The impurities are detected and taken out, we become stronger in our devotion to Christ, and we more clearly reflect the image of God.
The biggest lesson I see so far is unspoken, but one that many of us need to learn. I think that many of us won’t take a risk for God because we’re afraid of failure. We won’t commit or get involved because we might fall short. Learn this lesson from Abram:
4. Failure doesn’t flunk you out.
Some of you may think of God like some of my former students viewed me (and the rest of their teachers). In the midst of one of my ultra easy tests they’d motion me over and point out a question and say, “That’s a trick isn’t it? You’re trying to get us Mr. Smith aren’t you?” Some students had the idea that it was my purpose to make them fail or get a bad grade. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was ecstatic when they made 100s on tests and As on their report card. I was on their side, but they viewed me, some of them, as an adversary.
Let’s be honest with the text. Abram utterly failed his first several tests. Think what kind of mess he’d have been in if God had not intervened. Abram failed this time. He’ll fail again as we’ll see in the coming weeks. But Abram did not flunk out. God did not expel him from the school of faith. Neither will He flunk you. Why? He’s on your side, despite your best efforts to view Him and treat Him as an adversary.
God doesn’t get disillusioned with you because He never had any illusions about you. Remember, He’s the one who called you in the first place. He orchestrated the tests you face. They’re meant to refine you, not defeat you. He’s waiting for you to invite Him into it, so that you can see how He comes through. So don’t worry. If you fail this one you won’t flunk out. God will start the process over again. God wants to reveal Himself to you so that He can reveal Himself through you.
