How many of you have ever invested money in the stock market? One of the first things the investment counselor wants to do is a risk assessment. He wants to find out how much of your money can you afford to lose and not be unhappy. But when you really look at a risk assessment, you are really assessing your level of fear. What he’s asking you is what level of fear of losing everything, on a scale of one to 10, can you handle?
For the fast past few weeks I've been studying about Abraham. I've started to see a connection between what the world calls "risk" and faith. Risk is the possibility of loss or injury. This is the way man sees risk. Then there is risk from a godly perspective. Look in Genesis chapter 12. We will read the first four versus.
Verse 1: "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee."
Stop right there. This is not the first conversation God has had with Abram. He just didn't show up in Haran and say “Abram, I want you to leave your father, your mother, your country and take everything that you own and follow me.”
How do I know that is not true? The Bible says in Romans and in Hebrews “by faith Abraham”. Faith means you know the one in whom you are placing your faith. So you don't come up to Abram on, say January 1st never having had a conversation with him, and say “I want you to give up everything you've ever known and follow me?”
How many of you met your wife for the first time when you knocked on her father's door and said “we're getting married, let's go”. You came by yourself and you would be leaving by yourself. So we know from verse one that God had a relationship with Abram long before He asked him to leave everything he has ever known.
Verses 2 and 3: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
Now verse 4: "So Abram departed." So Abram obeyed. God spoke, he obeyed. That's what he did. Now let me finish.
Let's read verse 1 again. "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee."
Abram risked everything in the natural based on the word he received from God. God said I want you to do this and Abram obeyed. For many of us today that would not work. We are risk averse. “God, if you want me to do this, then I'm putting out my fleece like Gideon. I want some confirmation.” Ladies and gentlemen, Gideon had a sin nature and he didn't know God like we should know God. We are so risk averse that we don't trust God.
Faith begins with the knowledge of God. Hebrews 11:6 says "But without faith (apart from faith), it is impossible to please God.” We know that Abram had faith because he's in Hebrews 11 as one that "pleases God." And Galatians 5:6 says "faith worketh (or is energized) by love."
If faith works by love in the New Testament, do you think faith worked differently in the Old Testament? Here's my point: Abram loved God as much as he could possibly love God and that's why Romans 4:17 and 18 says it was "counted to him for righteousness."
We know from Romans 10:17 that "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." I want you to think about it this way: faith comes from hearing but it is not enough just to hear what God says. There are a lot of folks who hear God every day but the key is going from hearing to receiving to doing.
Faith comes from hearing and receiving what is heard and then loving God enough to act. Most of us don't love God like we say we do. We don’t love Him enough to truly believe His Word and receive it to the point of living by it. James says show me your faith. Abram really didn't risk anything at all because he knew God. So when He said “Abram, I want you to leave everything,” Abram demonstrated his love for God by obeying Him. We have to get to the point that our love for God is all that matters. If we love God our faith will take care of itself.
Now go with me to Hebrews 11:1. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Jump to verse 8. "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whether he went." He left not knowing where he was going but he left anyway.
We have a beautiful verse in John 3:16 that we say over and over. God so loved and that is why He did the things that He did. If you are doing things for any other reason when it comes to seeking and saving the lost, if you're not doing it out of love, then you are not on the same page as your Father.
Look at Romans 4:19-21. "And being not weak in faith (remember love energizes faith), he considered not his own body now dead (what he saw in the natural did not matter), when he was about 100 years old, neither the deadness Sarah's womb: He staggered not (I just love the imagery!) at the promise of God through unbelief (Abram loved God enough to believe that when God spoke His word He was going to fulfill it.); but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what God had promised he was able to perform."
Abram only had God's word yet he was fully persuaded that what God said He would do. We have a whole book with God's promises. This book is not for the person who has not accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. You have to be born again to receive the things in this book. That's why we say it's a manual for how we are to live. This book cannot show the sinner how to live. You have to have God's life in you in order to live the way the Bible says you are supposed to live.
Abraham was fully persuaded that God would keep His word. Look at Hebrews 11 again. When you look at risk from God's point of view, there is no such thing because the Bible says that in him all his promises are yea and amen. So if this is true, how can there be a risk in trusting God?
A lot of Christians have a risk mentality. They are not willing to call sin, sin. That's a risk. The tragedy in Orlando does not negate the fact that those individuals were living in sin. Now just because I say they were living in sin does not mean I don't love them. I'm only saying what the Word of God says. This is not Barry's opinion. This is not Barry's take on the situation. Barry's responsibility, now that he knows what the word of God says about individuals living this way, is to try and help them see there is a better way.
Our job is not to be judgmental. Our job is to shed light so that the sinner can see it. The homosexual community believes that Christians don't love them because of the way many of us have treated them. Jesus came to seek and save the lost – those who are not going to heaven. Jesus says the father sent him so He’s sending us.
According to the thinking of many in the Church, Jesus is sending us to be prosperity. They think He’s sending us to big houses and large bank accounts. It saddens me so much that this is what most Christians think the gospel. This gospel is about us being servants – to move in the lives of folks who don't know Jesus. The gospel has never been about us – and it never will be.
Let’s continue to look at risk and faith. Hebrews 11:7 says “By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet.” “Being warned” means God sat Noah down and explained what was going to happen. God said “I want you to build an ark or you, your family and animals because judgment is coming. Man’s imaginations are leading him to do all sorts of things, horrible things.”
That’s why the Bible says in I Peter and Jude that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He had to know the righteous judgment that was coming in order to warn the people. He was another example of a person “not seeing” but believing God that what He was being told was true.
The Bible tells us, for example, that by Jesus’ stripes we were healed and that the words Jesus spoke are spirit and life. God’s Word, ladies and gentlemen, trumps everything in this world – every single thing.
Back to Hebrews 11, verses 24, 25 and 26. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.”
What does this tell me about Moses? Somewhere in his life had an encounter with Jesus. Otherwise how could you “esteem the reproach of Christ” to be greater than the riches of Egypt? Look at verses 27, 28 and 29: “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.”
A similar record is found in Joshua 3 – one my favorites. It’s another example of having faith – loving God enough to believe what He said and then act on it. Remember, these are people who have a sin nature and don’t know God like we should know God.
Let’s begin reading in verse 9. “And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. “
Stop right there. If God is going to drive all of these people out, what does Israel have to do? Look at verses 12 and 13. “Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.”
The Jordan was at flood stage. Do you go near water at flood stage? No, if you want to live. But God had spoken to Joshua. He said the moment that the priests’ feet touch the water, it would stop flowing. I want you to imagine this scene. The priests are walking toward the Jordan, looking at each other. They see a huge tree in the water pass before them. And they think: “God said walk into the Jordan.” If they had not taken the step, the water would not have stopped.
Ladies and gentlemen, how many steps have you not taken that would allow God to figuratively dry up the water and release His promises into your life?
Now here’s something I want you to think about. We read these records and think that crossing the Jordan was something that was done in a matter of hours. There were more than two million people, not counting their animals and their belongings! It may have taken them two or three days to cross the Jordan and the whole time the priests had to stand there with the Ark. Each person who passed by the priests knew that God was keeping His Word. Every single one of them.
If you don't learn anything else today, learn this: the way God kept his word in the Old Testament – He’s going to keep it in the New Testament. Make up your minds to trust Him. Trust Him.
Jesus challenges us to trust Him above everything in this life. Look at Matthew 10:34-39. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
Everything that we have and value in this life, if it is keeping us from following Jesus, we need to cast it aside.
We’ve looked at Hebrews 11:6 several times this morning: “But without faith (apart from faith) it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
When we come to God, we must believe that He is God in all of the magnificence of what that means because our faith is dependent on knowing Him and that every word comes out of His mouth is to be believed. If we don’t, then we won’t believe the next part of the verse – “that he is a rewarder of him who diligently seek him.”
We must believe that God is everything that He says He is. Abraham did. Moses did. Now it’s our turn to believe that everything He said is true and because we believe that, we will be rewarded.
Abraham's faith and his willingness to risk everything on nothing more than God's word, the promise seed, Jesus Christ, the person the Bible calls our hope and our life was born.
Love your father enough that your faith will increase and you will act on your faith more and more and more. It doesn’t matter if people like what you are doing. It doesn't matter if people agree with what you doing. It doesn't matter if they approve of it. Why? Because it’s about you and your relationship with your father that's all that matters.
You see, God needs us to be a place in our lives that when he says “Barry, I want you to go to this Muslim country because there are folks who need to hear the gospel.” Barry will have to ask himself, how much do you love your life here, because the there is a possibility that if God tells me to go I may never come back home.
Ladies and gentlemen, faith is always going to push you to do what your mind does not want to do. So we have to get to a point that our minds play second fiddle to our spirits. Don’t let fear, risk, talk you out of trusting God.
