The God-Glorifying Obedience of Faith
Genesis 12:1-9
Preached by L. Going at WACC March 19, 2000
The title I give to this series of sermons on the life of Abraham is “Living in the Power of the Promise.” The Promise of God is what the Bible’s account of Abraham is all about. It is by believing the Promise that Abraham taps into the grace of God in such a way as to live his earthly life with eternity in view. Faith makes him a junior partner working in humble relationship with God for God’s glory and purposes. Abraham discovered that the “better life” was pursued by faith in the Promise of God and not in the power of his works or performance. So we turn our attention to the text and discover some important truths about the nature of true, genuine, saving faith.
The first truth we learn from the text is that God’s grace is sovereign. Abram was an idolater. Let me distinguish between being a worshiper and an idolater. Every idolater is a worshiper but not every worshiper is an idolater. In other words another part of who and what God made us concerns worship. We are made us to worship. We are worshipers. We can not help but worship. The question is who or what do we worship. If we say we worship the true and living God but we do not live in the strength of His promise then we are deceived. If we do not worship the true and living God then we by nature are worshiping false gods. The particular false gods may differ from person to person. The false gods are not simply made of stone or wood. The prophet Jeremiah described false gods in terms of our coveting or longing and pursuit of what will promote our interests. “Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:23-24
Abraham was a worshiper of the gods of his father Terah. (Joshua 24:3). Now the particular details as to the sequence of events surrounding Abram’s move from Ur to Canaan do not seem to be that clear. In Genesis 11 Abraham’s father Terah is said to leave Ur for Haran with his son Abram, Abram’s wife Sarai and Abram’s nephew Lot. Some have suggested that it was Terah who first heard God’s call and made the move. Yet there are other texts which clearly state that Abram was called of God to leave Ur. It could be that Terah went with him and that Abram sought to convince his father to continue the journey but Terah died before he could. (See Nehemiah 9:7 and Acts 7:2-3).
What is clear is that it was God’s call to Abram that enabled Abram to respond. God’s grace not only precedes faith. God’s grace produces or creates faith. Faith is a gift of God. Abram was chosen by grace, which means that it was not due to his works or performance or nature. Abram has a major place in the list of the people of faith given in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. So we know that his faith was not a work but a God-enabled response to God’s saving grace.
The second truth we learn is that God’s grace was given to Abram through God’s Word. God’s spoke His Word to Abram. God revealed himself to Abram and His word to Abram was both a command and a promise. This Word that produces faith in our lives is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was essentially the same word that was revealed to Abram. The Gospel is the good news of God’s grace and it comes to us in a promise as well as a command to receive that promise. The command of the Gospel is a command to respond in faith by believing the good news concerning Jesus Christ. And for those who truly hear, the Word of God produces a response that is faith. When the Gospel is shared or proclaimed it sets before those who hear it a command to respond. We see this in the life and ministry of Jesus who proclaimed, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel" Mark 1:15. The grace of God is set before you in the message of Christ and you are commanded to repent and to believe that message.
The third truth is that the Gospel that was proclaimed to Abram and to us is a Word from God that essentially calls us to repent of our trust in our performance and cast our whole lives upon the Promise. The Promise that God will bless you is essentially the promise that He will remove the curse from you and be your God and you will be his child.
The promise God made to Abram contained particular personal benefits to him but also was universal in scope. The promise was aimed and Abram but it ricochets to you.
What were the particular promises made to Abram?
- That the Lord would make him into a great nation.
- That the Lord would bless him.
- That the Lord would exalt Abram’s name
- That Abram would be both the possessor and dispenser of God’s blessing to all the families of the earth.
Now the Lord further clarifies these particulars to Abraham. The Lord packs a lot into the suitcase of this Promise that he gives to Abram. So the particulars of this Promise are uniquely given to Abram the man. But even in these particulars there are the realities of a far greater, deeper, broader and future promise for all the families of the earth. That last particular “and you will be a blessing” is further unpacked in verse three.
“I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
How do we come to either bless Abram or curse Abram? What does this mean? What it means is that the Promise of God’s blessing flows to others through Abram. What is the exact nature of the Promise of God? It is God’s promise to bless you. What is the exact nature of this blessing? That he will remove the curse from you and restore you in a right relationship with Him. That he will be your God and you will be his child. It is the blessing of grace. By grace Abram was blessed to know and be in relationship with the Lord. By grace Abram began to live by faith in the power and strength of God’s saving grace. The Promise was given to Abram, preserved in Abram’s covenant worship of the Lord, grew as Abram’s line grew and finally reached its ultimate fulfillment in Abram’s seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact we will see that the pre-incarnate Son of God is actually involved in Abram’s journey of faith.
You bless Abram or honor Abram as you come to imitate his faith. The promise of God given to Abram, preserved in Abram’s natural descendants the Jews and ultimately fulfilled in their promised Messiah is now offered to you. You bless the memory and honor of Abram the man of faith if you come to trust in the Promise of God and then live by the strength of that promise and stop living out of the power or strength of your performance and works. Thus you curse Abram when you do not receive the Promise he trusted. In fact you do not have to do anything specific to curse Abram. Apart from the promise you are under the curse of the Fall. If you hear the message of the Gospel and do nothing with it then you only seal your life under that curse. Your judgment increases. You can not be neutral here. Jesus underscores this fact when in Matthew 12:30 he states "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.”
But just as the Lord sovereignly called Abram out of sin and false worship, so today God is fulfilling his work started in Abram’s life by calling out of all the families of the earth a people who are by faith children of Abram. So the great nation that God promised to make from Abram’s seed is a great spiritual nation made up of all who believe the promise, called out of every people-group on the face of the earth.
Faith in God’s Word of Promise leads to obedience to God.
So what is this Promise to Abram? It is the promise that as Abram follows the Lord in faith that the Lord will be with him to give his grace and blessing. So faith in the Word of God’s grace produces obedience. In verse 4 we read “So Abram left, as the Lord had told him.” It is not Abram’s obedience that earns the promise. It is Abram’s obedience that demonstrates his faith in the Promise. The saving grace of God comes to you through the Word of God. The Gospel is the declaration of the promise that God will bless you because in the Lord Jesus Christ, He has removed the curse of deserved judgment. He has in Jesus Christ accomplished all that was necessary to secure your right relationship with Him. In the Lord Jesus Christ you will come to be in an eternal relationship with God. He will be your God and you will be his child. This is what is promised and you are not simply encouraged to receive the promise. You are commanded to repent of all reliance upon your works and performance and to believe the promise.
Abraham’s faith in God’s Word of Promise produced obedience in his life. Abram’s Faith was in God’s Word. Faith enables you to respond to God’s Word in trust and obedience. So here we learn another important truth about the nature of faith. True, genuine faith is reliance upon the Word of God’s promise and obedience to the Word of God’s command. God’s command to go was really God’s call upon his life to leave the security of his earthly life and begin to live by faith in the Promise of God. True, genuine faith looks to the Word of God and draws strength from that Word. Abraham’s life was now cut off from reliance upon his earthly resources to reliance upon God’s Word.
Abraham’s faith led to obedience. He went forth. He took his wife, household servants, his nephew Lot and all his possession and headed in the direction of a new land. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way. “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” (11:8) All Abraham had was the Word of God. That Word contained both a command and a promise. Faith that is real, genuine and saving is faith in the Word of God. Yet Abraham also had faith that the God of the Word was the true and living God who in grace was calling him, commanding him to go and promising to bless Him. Faith gives us strength and power to journey on without having all the answers in advance. Faith in God’s word enabled Abram to forsake the familiar, the comfortable, the certain for the unfamiliar, uncertain. Leave your country leave your family. One commentator wrote, “Faith which laid hold of the word of promise and on the strength of the word gave up the visible and the present for the invisible and the future was the fundamental character of the Patriarchs.”
Now Abraham traveled a long distance into the land before the Lord appeared to Him and confirmed by His word that this was the land, which he would give Abraham’s descendents. The text is subtle at this point. Here is Abraham a stranger in a strange land. As he travels deep into the heart of Canaan he notes that it is inhabited. The Canaanites were in the land. It was not until he gets to the heart of the land when he is surrounded by these Canaanites that the Lord appears to him and says, “To your descendants I will give this land.” Well the present realities certainly contradicted the Word of God. The Word of God is on one side and the tangible and contrary realities are on the other side. Now Abraham is not in some little isolated spot in Canaan. He certainly would be noticeable. He is at Shecehem the heart of the Canaanite religion and culture. He has come to the Tree of Moreh, which may have been a religious or sacred shrine of the Canaanites. So here is Abraham a stranger in the very heart of Canaanite power and culture and now the Lord appears to Him with the further revelation that this is the land he will give to Abraham’s descendents. Unbelief would say “but Lord, you don’t understand it can’t be this land. It is inhabited. I thought you were leading me to a land that was uninhabited.”
But what does Abraham do with this further Word from God? He drove the first stake of faith into the Promised Land and he did it publicly. He built and altar at Shechem. The altar was his visible and vocal testimony of faith in the true and living God. The altar would have provided the right place in which to sacrifice to the Lord and to publicly call upon the name of the Lord in worship. Abraham’s faith enabled him to hold to God’s word, despite the fact that the present realties seemed to contradict that Word. His faith in God’s Word gave him the strength to publicly testify to the glory of the Lord before the pagan Canaanites.
Moses tells us that from Shechem Abraham traveled to a area between Bethel and Ai and once again he erected and altar. After a while he moved further south to the Negeb. We can rightly assume the here he built an altar too. What does this mean? It means that Abraham is conquering the land by faith. The same three centers of Canaan are highlighted in Joshua’s actual conquest of the land. Abraham is claiming the land of promise by faith. He was bearing witness to his faith in the one true God. He was making absolute claims in a pluralistic age of many gods. He was doing it without relying upon any visible confirmation of the Word of God’s promise. Abraham was navigating between the “maybes” and the “maybe nots” not in the power of his performance but in the power of the Promise. He held fast to the Word of God and interpreted his circumstances in light of that Word. Genuine faith interprets our circumstances in light of God’s Word. Unbelief interprets God’s Word in light of circumstances. When you in faith hold fast to God’s Word (both in terms of God’s commands, instructions and promises) and interpret your circumstances in light of God’s Word, you will inevitably both honor and please God. You will also inevitably bear a credible witness to God’s glory among unbelievers. There can be no credible Christian living without faith in the Word of God. By faith in the Word of God you are depending upon the God of the Word and you honor Him.
The initial movement of faith in the Promise, where you for the first time receive Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord, leads to a life of faith that is made evident by your obedience. So Abram heard God’s gracious call, he believed and he obeyed. In the course of our examination of the Biblical narrative of Abram’s life we will be focusing first upon the reality of God’s Promise of Grace and secondly on the nature of Abram’s faith. As we come to study his life my prayer is that we will discover more clearly the wonder of the Promise he knew and that we will better “walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had” Romans 4:12.
By believing in the Promise Abraham discovered the power to make a “better life” in a fallen world. Yes the idea that life can be better is indeed woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains. How does the Promise of God make this life better? By opening your heart to the grace and love of God. What becomes better is what happens on the inside of your life. You find God’s grace to give you more than the strength to cope. You find God’s grace giving you a whole new prospect and hope. You will live with the power of eternity in view. You will be captured by a purpose that is bigger than the cosmos. You will come to know not simply a better life but the best life of all – for at the center of your life you will see the Glory and Grace of the True and Living God. You will find a whole new set of values that help you to live for God’s glory. You will seek the better life but now in a restored relationship with the True and Living God. You will discover the joy that comes from humbleGod-glorifying and God exalting worship.
1
Sermon Series
Living in the Power of the Promise
(A study of the Life of Abraham)