The Faith Of Abraham
God Called Abraham In Genesis 12
Genesis 12:1-5 1The Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people and your father s household to the land I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, and 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; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
a. Called to Separation (verse 1) b. Called to Service (verse 2-3) c. Called to Security (verse 3)
Matthew 22:14 (KJV) For many are called, but few are chosen. Revelation 17:14 (NIV) They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.
The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in. R C Sproul
3 Things That made Abraham The Great Man of Faith
1. Abraham Was A Man That Acted On His Faith
Hebrews 11:8-19(NIV) 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 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. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is
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 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice
James 2:17 (ESV) So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Faith and works are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God trusts God; and he that trusts God obeys God. He that is without faith is without works; and he that is without works is without faith. Charles Spurgeon
2. Abraham was Concerned with God's Will.
Genesis 13:10-14 (NIV) 10 Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 12 Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.
13 Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. 14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west.
Hebrews 11:9-10 (NIV) 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.
James 2:23 (NLT) And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith." He was even called the friend of God.
Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading. Oswald
3. Abraham Was Faithful Till The End!
Mistakes Abraham made: a. Trying to help God's promise by sleeping with Hagar but only to produce an Ishmael... b. Lied twice to Pharaoh & Abimelech to save his own skin... c. Stayed in Egypt when he was supposed to be in tents in the desert...
Matthew 24:13 (NLT) But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Romans 4:17-18 (MSG) We call Abraham father not because he got God s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn t that what we ve always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, I set you up as father of many peoples? Abraham was first named father and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, You re going to have a big family, Abraham!
Faith upholds a Christian under all trials, by assuring him that every painful dispensation is under the direction of his Lord. John Newton