Sermon - Persevering Faith
Persevering Faith
At the opening of Genesis 17 Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah, was 90. Abraham seems to have given up on the promise of God for his life ever being fulfilled. He seems like a man who feels that perhaps God has given up on him. Have we today, on some issue, given up on God? Do we think God has forgotten us? Does it seem as if a halt has been put on the plans we thought he had for our life? Let us see what God says to Abram and hopefully draw comfort and encouragement from it.
God comes to Abram, Abraham to be, with the encouraging words,
��the Lord appeared to him and said �I am the Almighty God. Obey me and always do what is right.� (Good News Bible) �I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless�. NIV �I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect�
Note that God appeared to Abraham! God made himself visible in some way, we do not know what form as God is invisible and Spirit. Later God would visit Abraham in the form of three men (Genesis 18) God visited Moses in the burning bush. He came to Joshua as the general of the Lord�s army. He has come to us in the form of man in Jesus Christ his Son, God in flesh and blood! Our way is faith, but there are tangible feelings and visitations on our faith journey! Jesus said he would reveal himself to us John 14:21.
This is our God who in the OT to reveals his personal name as �Yehweh� �The Lord�. To Moses at the burning bush, God explains its full meaning, �I am what I am� or perhaps most accurately �I will be what I will be�. This was a declaration of independent, self-determining existence. Later God would expound the name of the Lord Ex 34: 6-7. �The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children�s children, to the third and fourth generation.� �Yehweh� carries the thought of a marvellously kind and patient, though also awesomely stern God. He is righteous in all his ways, holy and pure.
�I am God Almighty��
Who is our God? The English word �God� is from the Hebrew �El�, �Eloah�, �Elohim�, the Hebrew words convey the thought of a transcendent, matchless, superior, pre-eminent, unequalled, unrivalled, being, superhumanly strong, and with inexhaustible life in himself, one on whom everything that is not himself, depends!
This is our God revealed and seen in Jesus Christ his Son! This is our God, felt in the awesome power of the Holy Spirit who is in us and working through us!
�The Bible does no attempt to prove the existence of God; it simply declares it! The writers of scripture accepted His existence as a settled fact. The opening line of our Bible simply states: �In the beginning God�� belief in the existence of God is absolutely foundational not only to an understanding of the Bible, but also to life itself. The bible says that he that comes to God must believe that he is, that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. In other words, belief in the existence of God is the prior condition to having faith in him personally.
If a person rejects the fact of the existence of God, he has no reference point for correctly understanding himself or the world around him.�
Nothing can be received or known of God unless we believe in his existence! Faith is the only connecting link between the creator and his creation, between God and man. God is Spirit, and as such is invisible to human eye, but it�s through faith in him and his existence that the reality of his existence is made known to us! We must have faith! We have no excuse for failure to have that faith, for the �The heavens proclaim his righteousness and all the nations see his glory!� Psalm 97:6. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!� Romans 1:20. King David said, �The fool says in his heart, there is no God.�
We hold to a Trinitarian view of God! Within the complex unity of his being, three personal centres of rational awareness eternally coexist, interpenetrate, relate in mutual love, and cooperate in all divine actions. God is not only he, but they � Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Coequal and coeternal in power and glory though functioning in set pattern whereby God the Son obeys God the Father and the God the Spirit serves both, that is he is instrumental in furthering or promoting God the Father and God the Son. This is our God! This is the God of the Jew and the God of the Christian! This is the God who loves us and gave his life for us and who has placed us in God the Son linking us into the eternal trinity of love!
This is our God, the God that appeared to Abraham at his lowest moment, in his old age, in his depression, at the point when faith was at its weakest. This is our God revealed in Jesus Christ. This is my God, this is your God!
It was the Lord Almighty God who came to see Abraham, �El shaddai�;
the God who can do all things, who is all powerful, who can fulfil his promises now and in the future. This was the first time �El Shaddai� had been used in God�s communication with his creation!
Abraham may have been a very low ebb, he was at an advanced age, as good as dead you might say, he had not seen a son born of Sarah, he had not seen descendants, not one who could lead on to be a blessing to the whole human race; He had taken matters into his own hands by taking Hagar as his concubine at having Ishmael through her, but he was not the promised child, although God in his mercy would bless him and make him the father of many nations. At this low moment when he had given up on himself, when he had forgotten all God had done for him and through him, God steps in!
When we come to the end of ourselves, God can begin to work through us! When Abraham had given up on himself he finds that God has not given up on him, or forgotten him! God has not forgotten you!
It was God�s claim to be powerful where man was weakest, and here, to this tiny seemingly unimportant people, he promises one day they would possess the land they now were strangers in. God was still in control of the nations and nature! God was still able to give Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age, but the path to blessing lay in a certain way of living! That way was faith and rightness.
Perhaps we can hear the voice of Abraham, saying, �Is it worth while? Is it worth going on?� God challenges Abraham by saying �I am God Almighty, walk before me�, in other words �don�t lose faith in me, obey me, do what is right!� Echoes picked up by the writer to Hebrews in the N/T 12:12 when he writes, �Lift up your tired hands, then, and strengthen your trembling knees! Keep walking on the straight paths, so that the lame foot may not be disabled, but instead be healed!�
We can hear in God�s voice a sense of correcting and challenge as well as love. He is saying to Abraham �Because I am God almighty and I can do all things and nothing is impossible for me, do you firmly believe all my words? You can depend on me for you well-doing and well-being! Be sincere and constant in your faith in me and obedient to my commands, I will not let you down!� �Walk before me� in other words, �Have faith, keep pressing on!�
The words �Walk before me� in the NIV translation of the Bible remind us that all life is an ongoing pilgrimage; there is no lasting home for us in this world! It reminds us that God�s desire is that we please him by walking faithfully in his ways. There are no instant formulas for holiness, because life�s circumstances and demands keep changing, like different phases of a journey. God speaking through Isaiah describes holiness as a �highway�, the joy of the redeemed. �The highway shall be called the way of holiness.� Isa 35:9 Abraham is called to wholeheartedness in his service for God wholly dedicated to his God, not free to live as those in the nations around him lived, he is called back to firmness of faith! This is a theme James picks up in the beginning of his letter in the N/T. ��the testing of our faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.� That is we reach wholeness in the Lord. (James 1: 3-4)
It is as we walk by faith and live the right kind of life by faith, this highway of holiness, that we there begin to see the answers to our prayers and moments of special visitation and blessing. Without faith we achieve nothing! We are like the restless sea James 1: 6-7.
I feel that my message today from God, from Jesus our Saviour, through the power of the Spirit of God in me, is this, �remember you journey is a journey of faith and faith must be exercised or lost! By faith you came to Jesus and you were accepted as righteous, you were accepted because of faith as Abraham was Gen 15:6. (Gal 3:6) Whatever our situation today, whether we are searching for an answer to a prayer, depressed, without any feelings of God�s love or presence, the call of God is to have faith!�
The story we have read is the story of God beginning to work out his plans for the world through Abraham, it�s the story of God�s investment in an elderly man. This story should encourage us to keep on trusting God, even when it seems as if God has put his plans on hold for us. This was not the first time God had revealed himself to Abraham to encourage him on his spiritual journey, and it would not be the last.
God put up with a lot from an often doubting Abraham, yet God loved his and came to him again and again in his pilgrimages through life, and he will do the same for us, have you so soon forgotten those visitations of the past? Something in this talk may be a means of Jesus revealing himself to you again to encourage you, if you will allow yourself to be encouraged. Something this week will set your heart on fire, but maintaining your faith is the key to the release of that visitation!
Whatever our circumstances, we can rest assured God is working his purposes out for us. Nothing is impossible for God! Mark
For a second time within minutes, Abraham bows down before God. That is what we should be doing right now, certainly a heart bow if not an actual bowing down. As we bow before our God in renewed determination to honour him in our lives through faith and right living, he will restored our discouraged souls and open the doors of blessing!
Are you still trusting Jesus our God? No matter how you feel, can you give a shout of faith? A shout can sort you out! �I believe, help me with my unbelief!� God is good, all the time! Amen!
We are going to sing �Nothing shall separate us from the love of God� as an expression of faith and trust. The last verse says �We shall deny, all that destroys, our union with him (Jesus).� Unbelief separates us from God, so as we sing may faith rise up! �Faith is to be sure of things we hope for, to be certain of things we cannot see. It was by their faith that people of ancient times won God�s approval.� Heb 11:2. �No one can please God without faith�� Heb 11:6. Confess our doubts, receive forgiveness and in this song give a shout of faith!
1/5/05
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