Alright, brethren. Genesis chapter
12. I'll just read one verse here. Verse 4, it says, So Abram
departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. Now Abraham believed
God. We're told that in the Scriptures.
He walked by faith. all the way to the end, trusting
Christ alone. He persevered in faith until
the end. And all who are given faith to
believe on Christ will continue trusting Him, will believe on
Him to the end. And those who do believe Christ
and truly faith is trusting Christ is our only righteousness. That's
what faith is, is coming to Christ, trusting Him alone. for all our
acceptance with God to keep us, to save us, to save us, beginning
and end, to save us. And all who do, all who truly
rest in Christ are the children of Abraham. You're the true children
of Abraham. Abraham's called the father of
the faithful, and he's our father. The first one after the flood
that God called, made his promise to, and taught, revealed Christ
to, And the object of his faith was not his faith. It was not
his faith or his consistency or his obedience. It was not
anything of himself. The object of his faith was Christ,
his righteousness. That was the object of his faith.
My subject is faith's glory. Who does faith glory in? Faith's
glory, that's my subject. Now true faith, true faith that
God gives glories only in God our Father and His Son, Christ
Jesus our righteousness. He's the one we glory in. True
faith comes to Christ confessing that all our works are wrought
in God. We come to Christ confessing
all our works, all the works whereby we hope to be accepted
of God are worked in God our Savior. So Romans 3.27 says,
where is boasting then? It's excluded. Is it excluded
by the law of works, by the principle of works? No, it's excluded by
faith. It's excluded by believing on
Christ. So I want to see who faith glories
in. Now, first of all, faith excludes
boasting in our works, even in our faith, because true faith
believes we're righteous by Christ's faith alone. We believe we're
righteous by Christ alone, by his faithfulness. Now, verse
one, it says, now the Lord had said unto Abram, 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. Abraham's called to go, and the
Lord even says, I will show thee the land. He says, 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 curses thee, and in
thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. This was Christ's
word to Abraham. This was Christ speaking to Abraham.
Let me show you that Act 7, Act 7, and hold your place in Act 7.
I'm going to come back here. But Act 7, this is when Stephen
was speaking. He said, men and brethren, verse
two, I'm sorry, verse two. Men and brethren, fathers hearken. The God of glory appeared unto
our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, that is Ur, before
he dwelt in Haran. The God of glory appeared to
him. The God of glory did. Now go
to John 8. This is what got me looking at this, John 8. And I want you to see what Christ
said here in John 8 verse 39. He's speaking to the Pharisees.
And he said to them, they answered him, verse 39, it said unto him,
Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, if you
were Abraham's children, now they're natural children, but
he's saying if you were children of faith, if you were true children
of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. But now ye
seek to kill me. Now watch this. A man that hath
told you the truth, which I have heard of God, this did not Abraham. Now read that again. The Lord
said, he's saying here, I appeared to Abraham. And I came to Abraham
and preached to Abraham what the Father gave me to preach
to Abraham. See that? Here I'm a man that
has told you the truth which I've heard of God, and you're
seeking to kill me. This is not what Abraham did.
When Christ appeared to Abraham, that's not what Abraham did.
It was Christ, the God of glory, who appeared to Abraham. He came
to Abraham preaching the everlasting covenant that the Father gave
him to proclaim and to fulfill. He came to Abraham declaring
to him that in Christ, Abraham and all God's elect were going
to be blessed in all the nations of the earth. That's what he
said to him. You're going to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
Not Abraham himself, but the fact that Christ was coming through
Abraham. And so he'd be a blessing. You
remember when Paul was speaking to the Galatians, he said the
gospel was preached before to Abraham. And he said, he said,
saying, in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And
then he said, he said, in thy seed. And he said, in that seed's
Christ. And when our Lord appeared to
Abraham, he was preaching to Abraham It was Christ doing it,
a pre-incarnate appearance of Him. He's the God of glory. And
He's declaring to Abraham, I will, Abraham. I will bless you, Abraham. I will make you a blessing. I
will bless all nations through you. Because it was through Abraham
that Christ was coming. His name is Jesus, for He shall
save His people from our sins. And so it was only by this revelation,
by Christ speaking the word affectionately and revealing himself to Abraham,
that Abraham was given faith to believe. And that's the only
way any sinner is given faith to believe. Christ comes and
speaks the word in power. And he said there in John 8,
down in John 8, 56, Christ said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it and he was glad.
And so when Paul, after he talked about us not glorying in our
faith or glorying in our works, he said this, What shall we say
then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has
found? If Abraham was justified by works, he had worth to glory,
but not before God. For what said the scripture,
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham, when the Lord called
him, he believed God, he believed the Lord, trusted all his salvation
into his hand. And through faith, the Lord imputed
the righteousness of Christ to him. Christ was Abraham's righteousness. So there was no other one to
glory in but Christ. Faith lays hold of Christ and
says He's my only righteousness. He's the only one I can glory
in. All my works are wrought in Him.
All my works are wrought by Him. He made me the righteousness
of God. Now go back to Genesis 12 and
look at this next thing. True faith boasts not even in
our faith Not our works, not in our faith, because even our
faith is the gift of God. It says there in verse 1, the
Lord had said to Abraham, now where was Abraham before this?
Abraham was a spiritually dead sinner in the land of Ur worshipping
idols. Listen to Joshua 24. Joshua 24.2 says, thus saith
the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other side
of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham
and the father of Nachor, and they served other gods. Abraham
didn't choose God, God chose Abraham. And it wasn't because
God saw some merit in Abraham or because he saw some foreseen
faith in Abraham. Had he not come to Abraham and
preached the gospel to Abraham, Abraham would have never had
faith to believe. He would have kept on worshiping his idols.
Abraham wasn't seeking God. God came seeking him. Remember
the Lord said, I'm found of them that seek me not. He came to
Abraham seeking Abraham. He chose Abraham by his free
and sovereign grace in Christ in eternity. He predestinated
him until this exact time, right here, that the Lord appeared
to him and declared the gospel and revealed himself to him.
God's call quickened Abraham. God's word quickened Abraham,
gave him life, and with that life, revealing Christ in him,
He gave them faith to believe on Christ. So we can't boast
in our faith. That's the gift of God. Listen
to Ephesians 2.4. But God, whose rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us, not because of anything
in His people, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. And then
He says, for by grace are you saved through faith, And that's
not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works lest any
man should boast. We would just glory and glory
in ourselves if even our faith was of us, we would glory in
it, we would trust in it. And you hear men preach faith
as if there is some intrinsic excellency in faith itself that
justifies the sinner. Faith, true faith, finds all
its justification in Christ. And true faith doesn't even boast
in its faith because it's the gift of God. We're made willing
in the day of His power. John 3.21 says, our Lord said,
he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may
be made manifest that they're wrought in God. That tells you
that if If somebody professes to believe, and yet they're putting
some confidence in their fact that they believe, or they made
a choice, or they made some decision, or there's something about their
works, or there's something about themselves that commends them,
that's not true faith. Because the Lord said, this is
what it is to do truth, is to come to Christ confessing all
our works are wrought in Him. They're wrought in Him, they're
wrought by Him. So this thing of faith doesn't boast because
Christ is all our righteousness. And then faith doesn't boast
in our faith because it's the gift of God to us. It's all by
grace. He gave us life. He gave us faith.
And then three, look at this, true faith boasts only in God
because He alone makes us obedient. He alone makes us obedient. He
alone grows us in faith. Now look, notice it said, the
Lord had said unto Abraham, Now Abraham believed Christ immediately
when the Lord called him. When he calls you, when he gives
you faith, you believe him. I heard somebody just recently
speaking of this and how they came into a church service and
they didn't believe the Lord and they had all these questions
and they really said they were just determined not to believe
him. And as they heard the gospel
preached, they began to believe him and they They could not not
believe him. They just found that they believed
him. And that's when he calls you, you believe him. And you
can't stop believing him. But now watch this. He obeyed,
but there was a lot of unbelief mixed with his faith. And he
didn't obey fully. Look here back at Genesis 11
in verse 31. Terah, that's Abraham's father,
He took Abraham, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's
son, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son, Abraham's wife, and
they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into
the land of Canaan, and they came to Haran, and they dwelt
there." So God had commanded Abraham to part from Ur, told
him to leave Ur, and Abraham believed God. And it says here,
but Terah, his father, took Abraham, and when they got to Haran, they
didn't go all the way to Canaan. When they got to Haran, they
stopped and they stayed in Haran. And they stayed there five years.
He believed God. He believed God. In Ur, Hebrews
11 says, by faith he left Ur. He believed God. But he stopped
in Haran. He didn't go to Canaan. God said,
depart from your kindred and from your father's house. He
told him to leave his father and his father's house. He didn't
do that. He took his father. His father
went with him, and many more in the house went. God said,
go to Canaan, but he stopped in Haran. Now, how was Abraham
made obedient to go to Canaan? What made him go on to Canaan?
If God had left him, he would have stayed in Iran, just like
he'd have stayed in her. What made him go on to Canaan?
God took his father. His father died. God took his
father, and God moved him to Canaan. Go back to Acts 7. Back
to Acts 7. And look at verse 4. Let's read verse 3. He said to
him, get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, come into the
land which I will show thee. And then came he out of the land
of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. He came there and he stayed
there five years. And from thence, when his father
was dead, now look at this next word, he removed him into this
land. You know who removed him? God
removed him. God had told him. go to Canaan. And when God took his father,
God moved him and removed him into Canaan, Stephen said, where
you now dwell. I was thinking of this when I
saw that Abraham's father died. And I know we've got some believers
here whose father, whose brethren, family have died. And that's
always sad. It's always sad when somebody
you love dies. But just like God blessed that
to Abraham and grew him in faith, God's blessing every sorrow we
have in this world to grow us more dependent on him and less
dependent on the things of this world. He's doing that in everything. God blessed him by taking his
father. as sorrowful as it was. Now Genesis
12 and verse 4 says, so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken
unto him. You see that the Lord had said
to Abraham, get out. But it was only after his father
died and so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken had spoken,
and Abraham was 75 years old when he departed out of Iran.
And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and
all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that
they had gotten in Iran, and they went forth to go to the
land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. And
then he gets to Canaan, and the Lord continued to grow Abraham
in faith. He gets to Canaan, and it reveals
more of God's purpose in Christ to him. He's growing him in faith,
growing him in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how faith's grown. Verse
7, the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, now he had not said
this before. Now he says to him, unto thy
seed will I give this land. Now Galatians 3, 15, 16 tells
us that seed is Christ. He said, and to thy seed, not
seeds as plural, but to thy seed. That seed's Christ. You see,
all these promises God made to Abraham, God made these promises
to Christ, his son, in eternity before he made these promises
to anybody. And all these promises are worked out by Christ fulfilling
all righteousness, and he comes and gives us these promises,
and they're all in him. So when he said here, I'll give
this land to thy seed, he's speaking of, he'd given everything to
Christ. Christ is the heir of God and those that believe him
are joint heirs with him of everything that belongs to Christ. So when
he revealed this to him, there built he an altar unto the Lord
who appeared unto him. He built an altar unto the Lord
who appeared to him. And he were moved from thence
unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent,
having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. And there he
built an altar unto the Lord and called on the name of the
Lord. Now we know Christ is our altar. He built this altar. It's
a type of Christ. It's through faith in Christ's
precious blood, Christ's sacrifice. That's what the altar was for,
it was for sacrifice. Saying, I can only come to God
through blood. I can only come to God through
the blood of a lamb. This altar's a picture of Christ.
He's the only way we can come to God. And the more God reveals
Christ to us, he grows us in the grace of Christ, in the knowledge
of Christ, and that's how Abraham was grown in faith. Before, he
only went so far, and he stopped. Here, he's in Canaan now, and
he built an altar, and he began to worship the Lord. He went
a little further, built another altar, worshiped the Lord. You
see him growing in faith? He's growing him in faith. As
God reveals Christ to us more, He grows us to obey the Word
of the Lord more. He grows us to glory only in
the obedience of Christ Jesus the faithful by whom we're justified. You get that? The obedience of
faith is glorying in Christ's obedience by whom we're justified. It's glorying only in Christ,
trusting Christ. Now, fourthly, so we can't glory
because Christ is all our righteousness. Faith believes that, too. We
know that the life and the faith he's given us to trust Christ
came of him. Three, all our obedience to follow
him and walk by faith is of him, growing us in grace, growing
us to see Christ more, to follow Christ more. You don't come out,
you don't just speak the word and like Lazarus, he didn't just
come out of the tomb without some traces of the tomb on him.
You still have grave clothing, you still are a child with a
sin nature, and so he's going to keep growing you in grace,
trust in Christ. And everything he's taken from
you, everything that he's taken away, he's teaching us more and
more to depend on Christ only. Well, here's another reason we
can't glory in any but the Lord our righteousness. It's because
by trials, the Lord teaches us that it's only by the Lord's
faithfulness that we're kept. Now that immediately, when God
gave him faith, immediately he had a trial, because he loved
his father, he loved his kindred, he probably loved the land where
he lived, and the Lord told him to leave it. So that immediately
was a trial to Abraham, immediately. And he brought him through that,
he brought him out, but as soon as he gets out and gets into
Canaan, here comes another trial. Look here at verse 10. and there
was a famine in the land. Where'd that come from? Global
warming, climate change. It came from God. God sovereignly
sent a famine. And Abraham went down into Egypt
to sojourn, therefore the famine was grievous in the land. God
sent this famine by his sovereign hand to try Abraham's faith. That's why he sinned. That's
why God sends every trouble, every trial that we encounter,
is to try his child's faith. That's why it is. And it's to
teach Abraham, and this is what he's teaching us every single
time, it was not Abraham holding on to Christ. It was Christ's
faithfulness holding on to Abraham. That's what we're going to learn.
Abraham had the Word of the Lord telling him to abide in Canaan.
That's what he had. He had the Word of the Lord.
We have the Word of the Lord telling us, look to Christ alone. Look to Christ alone. Don't look
from Christ. Look to Christ. Walk by faith,
not by sight. Look to Christ. Trust Christ.
Follow Christ. And what do we do? We do just
what Abraham did. Just what he did. Abraham discerned
what he ought to do by providence alone. Seeing the famine, he
headed for Egypt. Now, he had people to feed. You
and I would have done the same thing. I'd have done the same
thing. I don't went to Egypt. If you're in a land that's in
a grievous famine and you see a place that's got plenty, we're
going there. We're going there. And then again,
when he gets down there, he discerns by providence again, usual way
of the Egyptians. He's thinking about what the
Egyptians would do. He's judging by providence, not
judging by God's word, and I'll show you this. So Abraham said
to Sarah, verse 11, he said, behold now, I know that thou
art a fair woman to look upon. Sarah was pretty. And therefore
it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee, they
shall say, this is his wife, and they'll kill me, Abraham
said, but they'll save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my
sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul
shall live because of thee. Now, how is this judging providence
rather than judging by God's word, rather than discerning
by God's word? Abraham said, they're going to
see how beautiful you are, and they're going to know you're
my wife, and they're going to kill me. That's impossible. How do you know it's impossible?
Because God just got through speaking the word to Abraham
and said, unto thy seed will I give this land. Abraham can't
die. Sarah can't die. God's promise
is in Christ, that Christ is coming. Oh, it's gonna be well
with Abraham, and Abraham's life's gonna be spared, but it's not
gonna be because of Sarah, and it's not gonna be because of
Abraham scheming. It's gonna be because God's promise
is in Christ, and God's word can't fail, and Christ is coming
through Abraham, and for the sake of Christ, Abraham's life
is gonna be spared. That's our gospel. That's our
gospel. Why are we spared? Why are we
kept? Why are we kept believing Christ?
Because Christ is our righteousness. He's the one in whom all God's
promises are yes and amen, and nothing can separate His child
from the love of God in Christ. It's not the things that happen
to us outwardly. It's not the things that happen
to us, you know, when God says, no harm's coming to you. It don't
mean that we might not suffer some harm in his flesh, but that's
not harming us. Because through that, God is
enriching us in faith to depend more on Christ and less on us. Every time he's doing that. So
Abraham, He ends up in sin and unbelief because he's discerning
by providence rather than obeying the word of the Lord, rather
than just believing the word of the Lord. It looked bad. But it's always a mistake to
try to discern by providence alone rather than God's word.
Let me give you this too from Ecclesiastes 8. This is Solomon. He said, when I applied my heart
to know wisdom, and to see the business that's done upon the
earth. For also there is that neither day nor night see asleep
with his eyes." He said, I'd applied my heart, but I want
to try to figure out what God's doing in providence. And then
I beheld all the work of God that a man cannot find out the
work that's done under the sun. Because though a man labor to
seek it out, yet he shall not find it. Yet further, though
a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find
it." He's saying, I just can't, I don't know what God's going
to do in Providence. And I don't know what he's doing
in Providence. And listen to this now, for all this I considered
in my heart, even to declare all this, that the righteous
and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. No man
knoweth either love or hatred by all that's before him in providence. All things come alike to all.
There's one event to the righteous and to the wicked. Remember the
psalmist, how he began to be envious of the wicked. He said,
they're prospering better than I am. And here I am suffering. And then you'll look another
time and you may see God's child prospering and someone else suffering.
And sometimes you find God's child prospering and it's not
a blessing. It's not. It's going to be harm
to him. But then you find him suffering
and it is a blessing. So we judge by the Word of God,
His promises in Christ that His people He's going to save His
people, and whatever He's doing for His people, He's going to
bring glory to His name, and it's for the good of His people.
We can rest in that word. We can rest in that promise,
and we know whatever He's doing, it's going in good for His people.
But now listen, is this Abraham? Is this the father of the faithful? Is this the one who had faith
so strong that he was able to take his only son Isaac up there
and lay him on an altar and in his heart he killed that boy? Was this the same man that had
that faith that's doing this right here? This is so instructive
for us to see this. Because it shows us that the
strength of faith depends not on the man, but on the Lord who
upholds him. If we're really glory in the
Lord, we have to say the only difference between Abraham right
here, in sin and unbelief, and Abraham in faith doing what God
gave him to do, was the difference God made then. This was just
Abraham in sin and unbelief. And God uses this so that, you
know, if we're honest with the scriptures, I've heard preachers,
when I grew up, we had country cable. We only got three channels,
maybe four if everything was just right. But you could find
a preacher anytime. At some point during the day,
you could find some preaching on TV. It just was very common
when I was growing up in the South, preaching. And on Sundays,
it was all day. And I can't tell you how many
times I've heard preachers say, when bad things are happening
to you, it's because you don't have enough faith. And those
people that are having good things happen to them, it's because
they got a lot of faith. That's exactly the opposite of
what Solomon's saying. He said, you can't tell by what
God's doing. Believe God. Believe God. He's going to work
good for his people. For the sake of his son, for
the sake of Christ in whom Abraham and Sarah were righteous, God
did what he always does. He brought Abraham to the end
of himself. Pharoah took Sarah into his house,
thinking that this is Abraham's sister, to be a part of his heir. And you know that had to have
just broke Abraham's heart and brought him to the end of himself. I have messed up royally. But God overruled Abraham and
Sarah's sin for their good. God plagued Pharaoh and plagued
his house, and Sarah was the only one that wasn't plagued
out of everybody. And Pharaoh put two and two together, and
he realized this thing has to do with Sarah. And so he figured
out what Abraham had done, and God moved it into Pharaoh's heart,
to where Pharaoh commanded his men to take Abraham and give
him a guided escort all the way out of Egypt to make sure he
got out of Egypt. So God safely delivered Abraham
out of Egypt using Pharaoh and his men. And not only that, Pharaoh
gave Abraham a bunch of stuff. It gave him sheep and oxen and
asses and menservants and maidservants and she-asses and camels. This
is probably where Hagar entered the picture right here. But you
know what? God even overruled that for Sarah
and Abraham's good and for our good to see and learn that those
things, how to look at the Old Testament scriptures as an allegory
and see pictures and types of Christ through what he did with
Hagar. But then he delivered Abraham out of Egypt and he brought
him back to the altar to worship God. He says there in Genesis
13.1, Abraham went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all
that he had and locked with him into the south and Abraham was
very rich in cattle and silver and gold and truthfully more
rich in grace because he held God's faithfulness to him in
spite of him. And he went on his journey from
the south to Bethel unto the place where his tent had been
at the beginning. This is where God brought him
back to, right where he had been, between Bethel and Hai, unto
the place of the altar which he had made there at the first,
and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. God made him
see his own sin, his own weakness, his own fear, his own disobedience,
his own insufficiency. God made him see, left to himself,
Abraham forsook God and went to Egypt. He looked to his own
wisdom, his own will, and his own works. And God let Abraham
get a real good, sad, bad introduction to himself, now that he's a believer,
to see exactly what he yet still is. But God also made Abraham
see that God abides faithful. And that enriched Abraham more
than the things Pharaoh gave him. Now here's something to
remember. Faith's never perfect. Faith's
never perfect in us. Believers are sinners. But for
the sake of Christ Jesus, our righteousness, God will not forsake
the children of his grace. He will not. Listen to 2 Timothy
2.13. If we believe not, that's what
we see in Abraham right here. If we believe not, yet he about
a faithful, he cannot deny himself. Do you see the faithfulness by
which Abraham was saved? Just in this one instance right
here, we see that it wasn't Abraham's faithfulness by which he was
saved. It was God's faithfulness. God gave him the faith, God grew
him in the faith, God made him obedient in faith, and God saved
him by his faithfulness even when Abraham didn't believe him
and ended up down in Egypt. He said, I'm the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Now let me
show you one more thing, and this is a blessing right here.
Go with me to Hebrews 11. We see all this sin and unbelief
in Abraham. From the time God called him,
he didn't fully obey. He didn't do what God told him
to. Took his family with him, only went to Iran. Then when
he got to Canaan, God sent the famine, he ends up down in Egypt.
See, all this sin in Abraham, but under the everlasting covenant
of grace, that's what we read in the New Testament. We see
what a believer is under the everlasting covenant of grace.
And let's see how God saw Abraham in Christ. How does God describe
Abraham and what Abraham did? We just saw what Abraham did,
what he really did. We saw old Abraham and new Abraham
in everything we just looked at. But what did God say? This
is what he said, Hebrews 11.8, 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
where he went. By faith he sojourned in the
land of promises in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which had foundations, whose builder
and maker is God." God makes no mention of Abraham's sin and
unbelief. Only the works of faith that
God brought in Abraham. Why? Because it's only due to
the faithful obedience of Christ who was his righteousness, who
purged all that sin from Abraham. He purged all that sin from God's
sight that we just saw in Abraham. And God only saw him in the righteousness
of Christ and only regarded the works of faith that God wrought
in him. Another time, Abraham and Sarah
turned to their works and they produced that son through Hagar.
God's promised, I'm giving you a son, Isaac, and they got tired
of waiting and they went to Hagar, and you know how that turned
out. And we see all that sin for years. That was a relation of fornication
is all that was. He took a second wife. And Ishmael
was an illegitimate son before God. That whole relationship
was sin beginning to end. Total unbelief. This is how God
records it in Romans 4. Verse 19, being not weak in faith,
Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief,
but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully
persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform,
and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. No
mention of any of that. Sarah, if you're still there
in Hebrews 11, remember when God said, Sarah, you're gonna
have a son. Sarah laughed. I can't have a child, she laughed
about that. I'm barren, I can't have a child. Look how God records it under
the everlasting covenant of grace. Hebrews 11, 11, through faith
also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered
of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful
who had promised. By God's gift we believe on Christ,
We obey and we walk by faith until the end by God, by God's
gift. That's what believers are going
to do. That's what we're going to do. But we dare not boast in
our faith or our works or our strength. Faith glories that
Christ is our righteousness alone. God grows us in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord so that we hate our sin more, we walk
more by faith and less by sight, we put less confidence in our
flesh and rejoice more in Christ alone. But faith's glory is not
our faith, it's not anything of ourselves. It's Christ the
shield of faith. He's the shield of faith, Christ. ever so small and even when it
don't even appear to exist. What's the shield that's going
to protect you? Christ. He's the shield of faith. He's
the reward, the rewarder, and He is the reward of faith. Christ
is. And faith glories only in the
Lord. Only in the Lord. I pray the Lord will bless that.