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The Journey of Faith, To Be Led and To Learn, Part 2

I shared part 1 on Monday (sorry, got busy yesterday) and here's the next part of this teaching.  You might want to read part 1 first if you haven't...Remember the point on "Settling".  Well, that all begins to change as Terah dies and Abram hears God and moves his family to the land of promise.


Terah Settled, but Abraham didn’t.
Faith Means - We Learn to Trust in God’s Leading

Genesis 12:1-3
1  The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go 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."

God is not leading Abraham to good enough…God is telling Abraham that he “WILL” do a number of things.
The Key words to Abraham with the leading word from God each time, "I will..." give Abraham, LAND< NATION< BLESSING…  
God is leading Abraham to see that His plans for His life is much bigger than he could ever dream.

The BIG idea is that God wants to “Bless him”, so that He, Abraham, will be a blessing to who?  ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH.

To “Bless” meant that God was going to LEAD Abraham, and WORK through Abraham to show others who God was, and that it was going to be done by giving Abram the land, and then making a Nation out of his descendants.

Abram, not Abraham yet, is now 75 years old.  God reveals his purpose to him…how?  In the book of Acts, Stephen the church's first martyr, delivers a speech before the Jewish council before they kill him, and he begins it by saying:  
Acts 7:2 
2  And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

Abraham heard God’s call to leave UR, and travel with his Father, Terah,  to Canaan, and then Terah settled in Haran…but when he died, Abraham heard God say, “It’s time to move on to where you were meant to go.”

God wanted Abraham to OBEY, to be LED by His Spirit, to believe that God was going to show him the way.

Genesis 12:4
4  So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

The key is that Abraham (Abram) has Faith to trust in God’s leading… AND, He didn’t succumb to disbelief.  He could have said, “well I missed that a long time ago”…, but he didn’t.  Instead, Abram, at age 75 says, “Yes, Lord”.

You see?  God created us in His Image… He created us to have a relationship with us…  Relationships involve communication.
But this creates for a lot of people a problem:  We’ve all heard it said,
·        If you speak to God it is Prayer
·        If God speaks to you, it is Called Schizophrenia
If you tell someone you pray, they’ll probably relate to you.
If you tell them you were praying to God, they might think it's OK.
If you tell them you were having a conversation with God and listening to God…they might look at like you told them you know there are UFO’s … 
We avoid saying those things because people will think we’re strange, or “one of those” people.
BUT, think about it.
A lot of people don’t believe that God cares enough about them to speak to them, to lead them…but don’t you realize how much the enemy wants you to believe that?

Proverbs 3:5-6
5  Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.
6  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

But nothing is more convincing to me than Jesus:

John 15:15
15  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

This is the issue, isn’t it?  We have to believe that we are “friends” of Jesus…that God really wants to Lead Us.  That God wants to communicate with Us.

Faith means we don’t settle – Don’t settle for less than what God has for us…
Faith means we believe God wants to have a relationship with us and communicate to us in order to lead us in the way we live.

Genesis 12:5-7
5  And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,
6  Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
7  Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”

Did you notice, God did not say to Abram that he was going to give HIM the land…He said, to your descendants I’m going to give this land.

Faith isn’t about the NOW YOU’LL GET WHAT YOU WANT…  Faith is about God’s Reward in our life, that if we walk by faith and trust Him - He will do something in our lives that will go way beyond our lifetime.

Abraham demonstrated his commitment and his faith by obedience, and also by Worship. 

Genesis 12:7-8
7  Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8  From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.

When Abraham arrived at his destination, he worshiped
Because Worship is the best way to deny our pride, and stop us from thinking we have made it by our own devices.  Instead worship is declaring that God and He alone has made it possible for any of us to be where we are in life.
We can know that God will lead us if only we will trust Him.
Now, lastly,

Faith Means - We Must LEARN From Our Failures While We Walk Out Living

Immediately after Abraham arrives in the land of Promise, he faces a couple of tests, and he fails at first, but then learns.

The First Test:
Genesis 12:10-13
10  Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
11  When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,
12  and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.
13  Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

What did he do?
He lied in order to gain an advantage…and it backfired on him.

Genesis 12:18-19
18  So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
19  Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”

There’s a couple of things that hit me about this:
     1.   This shows that Abraham was all too human, even while he was trying to walk out his life by Faith. 
We must remember that, because I’ve seen too many people who claim to be people of Faith and they hear God and then do something that shows just how human - and sinful - they are.  When we come to God by Faith, we don’t lose our human side, and the nature of Sin in us is to deceive us and we must learn to deal with that "flesh" side of who we are.

     2.   Abraham’s lie is duplicated by his Son, Isaac; and also his grandson, Jacob.
They also lie in tough situations in order to get their way, and the lies are discovered.  
Abraham was a man of faith, but he failed in this, and he passed that failure down to his son and his grandson…and that’s always the danger of allowing sinful things in our life…our kids see us rationalize, ignore, excuse, and it becomes all too easy to duplicate the "sins of the fathers".

     3.   Lastly, His Lie was a witness against His Faith to those who don’t believe.  All to often others excuse their lack of believing on those who say they believe, but do not live that out with integrity.

     Simply put, he failed and yet;  Our Failures don’t mean Forfeiture…but we can get stuck until we LEARN. 

The Second Test:
Genesis 13:1
1  So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him.

Lot was Abram’s nephew…and he had come along on the journey…BUT

Genesis 13:6-7
6  But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. 
7  And quarreling arose between Abram's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot...

Tensions developed between their herdsmen over the land…

Genesis 13:8-9
8  So Abram said to Lot, "Let's not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers.
9  Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left."

Abraham had flunked the first test by going to Egypt and lying about Sarah as his wife; but here he passes the test.  Why?
I believe Abram trusted in God enough to know that he was going to be alright no matter what Lot chose.
But - and here’s the key, one side had much better land than the other side…and the lure of better life was what drew Lot to make his choice.

Genesis 13:10-11
10  Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD...
11  So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:

Lot chose the material gain to be made…he looked at the wealth and made that the basis for his choice, and Abraham didn’t…So, what follows is important:

Genesis 13:14-17
14  The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west.
15  All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.
16  I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.
17  Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you."

Lot had a tent, but put his family in danger; and Abraham had God, and God’s Blessing…
At the end of this, let's think a bit:
Which do we want the most?  God's blessings, or the world's values?

Faith involves our believing – trusting – that God wants to LEAD us, and if we’re willing to allow that, we can LEARN about God, and we can LEARN about OURSELVES.

It's good to stop and Pray about this.  
“GOD I WANT YOU TO LEAD ME…I WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU…TO LIVE BY FAITH IN YOU.”

Peace

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