Given the words that we just
heard, I would tell you. I'm sure you would, and I know
I do as well. This faith is that faith that
God gave Abraham. It's the same faith, the same
tiny faith, that you give all of his children, some more than
the rest. It's never the amount of faith.
It's never the amount. It's the fact of faith. And it
says here in more than one place that Abraham is the father. He's our father. the Father of
us all, the Father of faith. And there's not different kinds
of faith, and there's not different kinds of religions and their
faith and that faith. What faith are you? Are you the
faith of Islam, the faith of Buddha, or whatever? There's
only one faith. There's one faith, one Lord, one baptism, the Scripture
says. May the Lord give us this morning
a word today to help you and I and cause us to look to Christ
for faith, because without question, faith is a free gift of God's
grace. We heard this morning in Bible
class in chapter 11, without faith, It is impossible to please
God. So I'm interested. I'm interested
in getting what Abraham had. I'm interested in, in being part
of that number. And I desire the same for you
this morning. What is the foundation of faith? What is the foundation of faith? Well, We're not there yet in
Bible class, but in Hebrews chapter 12, and you can write this down,
you don't have to look at it, what is faith's foundation? Well, it's Christ. He's the object. And Paul tells us, looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. So before we can
get even into, very far into Romans 4, that issue is settled. People say, well, I have to do
this and I have to do that. Well, the foundation of faith,
do you have faith? Yes. How did you get it? Well, I made
a decision for Jesus. That's not the faith of the scriptures.
That's not the faith of Abraham. And Paul, the way he dresses
these situations and these issues as he's writing to the Romans
is that he says, what do we say about Abraham, our father, as
pertaining to the flesh? What did he find? They were interested
in what Abraham found. They knew that Abraham walked
with God. They wanted to walk with God. I want to walk with
God. And I want you to walk with God. So what did Abraham find? Abraham, he found this thing
called faith. And then Paul goes on to say,
faith is not works. It's not by works. And so the
first five verses, he establishes the fact that now to him that
works is the reward not reckoned of grace. It wouldn't matter
if we had sovereign grace in the title of this church or if
we just had the Church of Jackson. What's preached and what needs
to be preached is that which Abraham preached. Is that what
Abraham believed? And that is the grace of God
versus works. However you slice it or dice
it, you've got grace or you've got works. If it's grace, it's
no more works. If it's works, it's no more grace
is what Paul said. But I'm interested in what Abraham found. I'm interested in getting what
Abraham got. I want to know Abraham's God
if he's the father of the faithful. So he establishes faith foundation. It's grace not works and you
must keep this in mind or everything that I say here after is going
to be confusing. And people will read Romans,
and they'll say, OK, I understand that. And then they get right
into the trials of his faith and the examples of his faith.
And they glorify Abraham, as it were. And Abraham is what
I've got is a gift. For him that works is reward,
is not reckoning of grace, but of debt. But to him that works
not. but believes on him that justifies
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. So in this
conversation of faith and righteousness, he just, right off the bat, he
says, faith is of grace. And then we saw in Hebrews that
Christ is the object, he's the author and the finisher. And
faith is a gift of God. And we'll get more into that
in a little bit. But as I said, it's so what Abraham does is
the result of grace given to him freely by God through the
vicarious death of Christ Jesus. It's not so much as what Abraham
does in this chapter, as we also will see in Hebrews 11, as Bruce
further develops that in Bible class, it's who he believed and
who Abraham believed is the God of all grace. No man or woman,
whether it be Abraham or you or I this morning, no man or
woman will persevere in the faith without God's keeping grace.
You can't separate them. No man or woman will stand upon
the words of this book or the promises of this book without
the Holy Spirit first revealing Christ to them and awakening
them from death to life. I've heard people, I hear it
on the news. I hear sports athletes. How did you get through that?
It was my faith. It was my faith that did this.
I did this and I did that. And the believer knows it is
never us laying hold of Christ. It's his
laying hold of us. But let's look at Abraham's testimony. Because there are also those
who say, well, once you have faith, and Bruce alluded to it
this morning, once you have faith, it's an easy ride. He's not going
to have many troubles. You know, there's somebody that
drives around, a caper Jackson, I haven't seen in a long time,
and license plate is blessed. And she used to be a customer
at the place that I was employed years ago. And that, her equivalent
of being blessed was her cars and her money and her houses.
It was things. Abraham had faith and Abraham
was blessed of God. But let's just look at some of
the things that Abraham went through. It says here, for what
sayeth the scriptures, Abraham believed God and it was counted
unto him for righteousness. And then look at with me at verse
17, as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations
before whom he believed even God, who quickeneth the dead
and calleth those things which are not as though they were. Abraham, who against hope believed
in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according
as that which was spoken of, so shall thy seed be. And being
not weak in faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, when
he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness
of Sarah's womb. And he staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God." Isn't that what you want to do? I get discouraged
at myself Easily, when something happens that involves me, and
all I needed to say is just open my mouth and give glory to God,
and then I didn't say a thing. Or somebody asked me something,
and I don't feel like I answered them very well. Or I had the
fear of man in the situation. Or this or that. I want to not stagger at the promises of
God. I wanna hope against hope. Because if you haven't been listening
to the news or if you haven't been, if you get up in the morning
and keep the blinds closed and just stay in your room, there's
not a lot of hope outside in this world. There's not a lot
of hope in this country. There's not a lot of hope in
man. Matter of fact, we're not to put our trust in men. But
let's look at Abraham's testimony, the father of the faithful. We'll
give a few examples. He trusted God. And you knew
that God would take care of him and preserve his seed and yield
a son, and that son would be the son of promise, and that
one day he would even resurrect that son. You don't have to turn there,
but if you want to jot this down, let's just talk about Lot for
a minute. Relation, kindred to Abraham. They were both pretty well to
do. They had a lot of flocks of animals. And all of a sudden
it says in Genesis chapter 13, it says that Lot's herdsmen started
having conflict with Abraham's employees. And Abraham said,
let's not fight. We're brethren, we're kindred.
You say, well, that's not much of a trial. Let me get there. Abraham said, you look out over
all this land and you pick what you want to
take first. And I'll take what's left. Abraham let Lot choose which
land he wanted first, saying, God will take care of me I'm
not going to let the things of this world come between my brethren
and me, my kin and myself, or me and my God. Now, I don't know
about you, but I would probably say, being the elder, I'll take
this and you take that. You say, what's the significance?
The significance is he had to believe that God was going to
take care of him like he said he would. And my point here is
to you this morning and to me, anything that you allow to come
between you and the service of Christ is not a blessing and
could be a curse. Right? You don't think that's
not a trial? Let the Lord give you a promotion
at your job that takes you away from the gospel. What are you
going to do? You're gonna believe God that he'll take care of you
and support you with the means that you have? Or are you going
to pursue the world? I've seen a lot of this. I've
seen a lot of this. Or lock, stock, and barrel. The
Lord's gonna take care of me. You pick which is best. In this dog-eat-dog world, in
this money-driven society, it's not that way. I had one
man ask me one time, he said that he had an opportunity for
me to actually get a job at what I went to school in, in forestry. I was gonna be a forester. That's
what I wanted to be. I've always liked the outside. I've always liked that kind of
work. I've always enjoyed those type of things. That was before
grace, before salvation. And then when it was twice, laid
out, just can't do it, can't do it. And Abraham, he said, I don't
want to stagger. And I know some of you have had
to make some decisions. But what people in this world
say is a blessing. It could very well be a curse
indeed. Secondly, or well furthermore, if you would look at Genesis
14, you don't need to turn there, but Abraham as he was, remember
Lot got, he and his, all of his possessions and Lot and everything,
they got kidnapped and they told Abraham about it. So they went
and raided the camp and killed the kings and they fought and
he was bringing Lot back. I believe it was the king of
Sodom said, Abraham, come here, said, you know, your God's blessed
you and we really thank you for what you did. We're going to
give you all this stuff. Look at it in Genesis 14, Abraham
said, I'm not going to take it, lest you say, or lest it be said,
that the king has made Abraham wealthy. And he said, and then
you go right into Genesis 15, and the king was going to give
Abraham a reward, and he said, I don't want your money, because
you'll say, you made me rich, and I know it's God. And then
I think it's the second verse in Genesis 15, God says to Abraham,
he says, I'm your exceeding great reward. These are trials. He staggered
not. Well, let's look at Ishmael.
Genesis chapter 17, you don't have to turn there. Abraham,
in Genesis chapter 17, they're trying, they know that their
Lord promised them a child, but, you know, they're getting a little
impatient, they're getting old. So he has a son through Hagar,
through his handmaid. In Genesis chapter 17, and if
you want to look at there at home, verse 18 particularly,
Abraham loved Ishmael. It wasn't his true son, but he
loved that boy and God heard his prayer for him and said,
well, I'm not going to just cast him out and he's going to die. I'm
going to take care of him. He says, I'm going to bless Ishmael too.
But my point is, is Abraham loved Ishmael. He loved that boy with all his
heart, but it was not the child of promise. And just because
the child is not from your household does not mean that you don't
adore them and cherish them. We've got some grandkids running
around here. Not your child. You love that
child. You're going to pick between
Debbie or Allie. What are you going to do? You're
going to do that? No, I love that child. God says
he's not the child of promise. He's got to go. We only got one daughter, so
I don't have to play it. I can't. Which one? Which one is it going to be? You love them all. You don't
think that's a trial? Grandparents, what a trial, hard
and difficult for this man of faith, but grace does reign in
the heart and God gives faith and peace to obey what God says,
even if it is and it often is contrary to our flesh. Paul's
in a ship and he doesn't know anything about guiding a ship or being a captain
of a ship, an axe, And it's gonna, it's, it's the Lord, it's, it's,
they're in a, you know, or you like, or you like to die, and
I think it is, was a, was a storm. And they're, they're throwing
everything out, out of the ship, because it's gonna sink. And
they're getting ready to start jumping, and Paul says, don't
do it. An angel stood by me, and told me, everybody's gonna
be safe, you just gotta stay here. Because God told me, he
says, I believe, I believe God. by faith, acting contrary to
what His eyes saw and contrary to even what He was told by superiors. This is day by day living. As I said, it's where the rubber
meets the road. God, give me grace. God, give me faith to
simply believe You. It might be contrary to flesh.
but Abraham did what God said. The third situation is found,
this can be found in Genesis chapter 22. What about offering
up of his son, his only son, that's how it's worded, this
is my son, my only son, Isaac. He believed what God said, he
believed God in the power of the resurrection. He already,
and when we get there in Hebrews, that's what he's talking about.
God said to take your son and sacrifice your son. What a trial
that would have been. Slay your son. But he'd already slain it.
Before he actually did it, he got stopped because God knew
he'd already made him. In his heart, he'd already killed
that son. But the trial is, that's part of the trial, but the other
part of the trial is that he believed that God would raise
that son up. Well, you know back then, they
didn't have vaults. To keep the body in like we got
now, we spend all this money to keep the body as uncorrupted
as possible, you put it in a big vault and you seal it and you
put it in a casket and then a casket goes in that, you know, spend
thousands of dollars on all this stuff, sealed, sealed, sealed.
Why? Well, I've heard the funeral
directors, well, you don't want anything to, you know, corrupt
the body. The body is corrupted. The body's gonna decay. What
about back then? They didn't have that technology.
So in a matter of months, weeks, months, years, Abraham, that
body's dead, that body's decayed, that body, the wind has got it,
it's blown all over the place. There's little fragments of bodies
scattered everywhere. But Abraham believed that God,
with God, nothing's impossible. and that body's gonna raise.
Well, should we be cremated? Is that Christian? All that kind
of stuff? Why don't you ask the martyrs who got burnt at the
stake. Are they not gonna raise? Hmm. Believe God. You're in Him. Gonna raise that body. That's
faith. You know, we don't think about
those things. God, can He not raise the dead? Can He not give
us a body which pleases Him and will one day worship Him with
no hindrance? Yes, He can. So this God-given
faith will be proved quite often to see if it's real or not in
everyday situation, every decision, every choices that you make.
God, give me grace to make it in faith. We looked at the foundation of
faith. We looked at Abraham's trial
of faith. Let's look at some other things
concerning faith. And we've already showed that
it's by the grace of God. It's not of works. We've already
established that. But what are some other characteristics
of faith? Look at verse 17 in our text.
As it is written, as it is written. And Terry and I were talking
about this just a little bit ago right after Bible class. As it is written,
you desire that God would give you more grace, you desire that
God give you more faith. How often are you in this book?
How often am I in this book? I remember years ago going through
a very difficult situation and God had given me a word of hope,
of promise in this book. And then I remember that not
too long ago that similar situation is coming up, I went and found
it. I went and found that word because
it was good then, it was good before I met and married her,
and it's been good for 20 something years. Why? As it is written. Feelings come and go, your moods
change, your eyesight gets dim, Have somebody read it to you
if you can't read it. Don't let it sit and get dusty.
You want to increase your faith? You want to strengthen your faith?
What did Abraham do? As it is written. As it is written. This book, its contents, its
letters, its words, make up part of faith's foundation. If what
you believe is not in this book, it's not the truth, it's a lie,
it's maybe tradition, it may be superstition, but it needs
to be gotten rid of. The things contained in between
the covers of this book are not true because you believe it.
It's true because God says it. I think about illustration or
situation where Matt's teaching history to those kids. Are you
teaching the history about the Boston Tea Party or Washington
crossing the Delaware? What would you do if a kid came
and said, I believe that, or, you know, how do you know this
is true? Well, it's true because I believe it. Oh, really? It's
true because it's fact. This is not true because you
believe it or not. It's true because it's God's
Word. And our point is that this is an anchor. This is a solid
foundation. And if I don't preach from here,
don't listen to me. Don't listen to me. This book It's no more true because
people believe it than I've always heard, well, grace is a gift.
Well, it's not a grace until I receive it. You know, if it's
Ron's birthday and I think in my heart I want to get him something,
that's where it all starts. But I've heard people say, well,
it's only a grace. It's only grace because grace
is a gift of God. It's only a gift if I receive
it. Well, what's that doing? Your works. That's not the faith
of Abraham. Salvation is brought up in the
mind of a covenantal God before we were even there. Eternity
past. If He's taken care of us in eternity
past, He will take care of us presently and He'll take care
of us in eternity future. But I've heard that before. It's
true because I believe it. No. A third thing, look at verse
17 again and the first part of it, as it is written, I have
made thee a father of many nations before whom he believed. In verse
3 of Romans 4, for what sayeth the scripture, Abraham believed
God. Now, you say this is faith, this
is a characteristic of faith, it believes God. Now, James said,
now listen to me, it believes God. I didn't say it believed
in God. I didn't say it believed on God. I didn't say it believed there
is a God. Because you can look at James, when you go home, James
chapter 2 towards the end of the chapter, he says the demons
believe in a God and one God, but they tremble. Most people
don't even tremble. And then somebody's brought up
something in Bible class about somebody who understood the Pharisees
and the people understood all this doctrine. You can believe
doctrine and still miss Christ. Do you believe God? Not in a God. Not in a higher
being. Abraham believed God. There's
a huge difference. The Pharisees believed in God
and had some measure of doctrinal accuracy. Salvation is in Christ. A look, believe, trust Him. I'll
not give you steps to believe God if you do this, this, and
this, and that. There are years ago when I was
in college, there used to be a thing, it was called the Roman's
Road of Grace. Remember that, Roman's Road of
Grace? One, two, three, four, I don't know how many steps it
was, check, check, check. Believe God. I rather declare unto you, come
to Christ, believe God, believe God and his record concerning
Jesus Christ and what is written in this book. There's a story
about a preacher, well, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, you probably
know, you heard me reference him before and you probably read
some of his stuff, preached as a pastor of England in the 1800s
and raised religious. I think he was 16 years old. It was a wintery night in London. He was trying to make his way
to church because he knew that's where he needed to be. He didn't
necessarily want to be there but that's where he had to be because
he was religious. It was so heavily snowing and it was such a bad
storm that he couldn't make it to his church. But he saw a church
and he popped in it. He sat down. And while he was
waiting, apparently the preacher of that chapel couldn't make
it either because of the snowstorm. So one of the old elders got
up, asked the Lord to give him grace to say the truth. And he turned to this passage, Isaiah 45. And he just looked at this verse
and he just, look unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I am God and there's none else. And old Spurgeon said, that man
just kept reading that saying, he didn't have an outline. He
wasn't supposed to be preaching, but he knew enough. I'm just
going to say what the word says. And he said, Spurgeon was all
by himself and thinking about, And there was a handful of people
there and that man kept saying, look to Christ. And he said he
didn't know if he was pointing at him, but he sure thought he
was pointing at him. And he said in one film, one film moment. He realized. That becoming a Christian and
believing on Christ was not. didn't have to do with memorizing
scriptures day and night. It didn't have to do with doing
this. It didn't have to do with doing
that. He said he was always burdened. He understood the scriptures.
He understood. Dad was a preacher. He understood the grace of God. He understood many things that
were in this book, but it was it was more of a burden to him.
He never you know, what do I got to do? And that's I remember
myself. What do I got to do to be saved? What what do I got
to do to feel like I'm saved? What do I got to do? It's all
these things. And the man stands up there. He's not even supposed
to be there. The preacher's supposed to be there. He's supposed to
be in his church. The Lord sovereignly and providentially took that.
The man opened the book, didn't, had enough sense to read the
book that's without error and said, look to Christ. And Spurgeon
said, that's it. That was it. God gave me grace
to look and I lived. And again, I say, we know with
our children, when children are burdened, we want to talk to
them, we want to help them, we want to encourage them. But I
tell you, read the book to them. Bring
them to hear the gospel preached. Tell them to look and live. And they might say, well, I've
done that and all that. Well, we'll see. We'll see. You'll see with me
and I'll see with you, because the same, those who endure to
the end, the same shall be saved. And if we're going to endure,
like, remember, we're talking about faithful Abraham, staggered
not. Well, didn't you feel something,
a big, didn't you feel? No, that wasn't quite my experience.
Well, how was it with you? I looked to Christ and lived.
I trusted him. Abraham believed God. Believe the good book and good
promises. In our text, he said he staggered
not at the promises. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God. Now, this is something that, you know, I'm sure about. I've talked to some other pastors
and they, you know, they're not really so sure, but I'm sure
about it. This book has many wonderful promises. Well, I'm
not sure that's talking about me. Are you a sinner? Are you ungodly? Do you need
Christ? Well, Bruce and Jackie, they
had to fix that food and everything. I'm not sure that's for me. I'm here. I'm hungry. He makes His people willing in
the day of His power. See, our problem is our self-righteousness
gets in the way. Or we think we've got to feel
bad enough, or we've got to this... Take Him at His Word. Stagger
not. Stagger not. Ask for grace to
look and to believe and to live for him. Don't argue or debate
with God. He's not interested in your puny
or my puny mind or my brain or what we think is, well, that
just doesn't fit as we talk about Bible class. It doesn't quite
fit in John Calvin's theology. So what? John Calvin is a sinner
just like you and I. I'm not sure my preacher would
approve of that. I'll approve anything if it's going to glorify
God and you're not going to stagger. Don't argue or debate with God. Like I say, I used to like to
debate. Brian and I talked about this
years ago. I used to like to debate. I'm going to prove my
point. Realize I can't convince anybody of anything. Can't convince
your children of anything. You can't save your children.
You cannot, the old saying, you can lead the horse to water. And then I'd argue and I'd think,
well, I did a pretty good job. Usually what would happen right
after that, two things, the person that I thought I convinced wasn't
convinced, and then the Lord would just bring me, slap me
upside the head with a good trial, and then cause me to realize
I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Who art thou, O man, when
you think you're something when you're nothing? It says Christ came into the
world to save sinners, to heal the sick, to rescue the fallen. Are you? Those are the ones that He redeems. One man, one old writer said,
the problem is not our sin, the problem is our righteousness.
You look at the Pharisees, and we talked about this this morning
in Bible class, and I heard some folks say they get kind of nervous
and concerned. I do too, because I'm preaching this to you not
like somebody's outline that I wrote down. I didn't get this
message from the Lutheran's Association to tell me what I had to preach
today. Matter of fact, I was pretty concerned all week. We're
out of Zachariah, and working a full-time job, it's easier
oftentimes to pick a book and I know where I'm going to be.
Well, I haven't done it the last two Sundays. So guess what? I'm getting
dealt with and tore up on everything that I'm telling you, but that's
okay. That's what I need, is I need
not to stagger. Not swagger. I know something
you don't know. I need not to stagger. I want
to hope against hope. I sit there and I talk to these
people in the job that I'm with, and it's all money-driven, or
it's this or that, and there's all these fears and all these
different things, and I tell you, you get caught up in it.
If you got a whiner at work, you get to whine. If you got
a complainer, you start to complain. Met one yesterday. And I left,
and I just thought, But His God is not my God. And for me to
act like that would bring dishonor. It would be not to glorify God,
and it would be worrying instead of hoping against hope. And that's
what I want to do. I want you to see Christ, and
I want you to be comforted so much. I want you to worship Him,
and I want you to... We want to be like our Father,
Abraham. Because we heard this morning,
without faith, it's impossible to please God. You all talk about
that resurrection, that's an impossibility. With men, not
with God. Can He save such a sinner as
myself? With men, it's impossible. With
God, it's possible. Let us look to Him. Come what
may. There's a song that... Kara,
my daughter, and I like from a movie, it's called Come What May. I'll
always love you to the end of my days. And I pray that would
be us here. Come what may, because stuff's
going to come. It's going to come. But may we
look and live. We might say, I want the Lord
to do this. And he says, I'm not going to do this, but I'm
going to do that. And we get so focused on what we think he
should be doing that we lose sight of our hope. May we not
lose sight of our hope. The Lord Jesus Christ.