Powerpoint Slides

Ian’s Preaching Notes

Today is the last in the series on Abraham. As we have progressed through our talks about Abraham, I hope you’ve been able to pick up the the span of this remarkable man’s life.

Today we’re considering the legacy that Abraham leaves us as Christian believers.

There was once a solicitor charged with overseeing the distribution of a wealthy man’s estate. One of the beneficiaries asked him on the phone “How much did he leave?” to which the solicitor replied – that’s easy. He left all of it!”

None of the chattels that Abraham left exist today. His extensive possessions have gone to the four winds. We have notheing except the story of his life – and what other people said about him. – That’s the legacy he leaves us today.

That’s what I want to focus on today – what the NT says about Abraham when it looks back 1,700+ years to this man’s life.

Mind experiment

I’d like you to do a brain experiment with me. I’d like you to imagine you’ve been invited to a funeral

• you enter the church, soft music playing, a coffin already in the centre of the church
• usher shows you to your seat – soft music playing
• you notice from the order of service there are going to be three tributes – from a friend, from the church and from the workplace
• As you look at centre pages of the order of service you realise you’ve not looked at to cover to find out who it is who’s just died. So you turn to the cover and do a double take
• There on the front of the leaflet is your picture and your name.
• This is your funeral!

Just think. If that was the case, what would you like each of those people to say >>>

• your friend
• your church leader
• your boss from work.

If you’ve been following me through this exercise you will have touched on some of the most fundamental desires that drive you. How is it that you want to be remembered?

That’s what I want us to do with Abraham. What fundamental forces drove him that we can learn from and live by.

I want to inspire you, encourage you, motivate you to take two leaves out of Abraham’s book – Firstly to live by faith , and also to be right with God.

This is Abraham’s legacy. We don’t have a transcript of his funeral but we do have what other people said about him – especially in the New Testament greats said about him.

Abraham’s greatest compliment

But before we dive into the NT, let’s highlight the most remarkable accolade of them all – from God himself

When Moses had a life-changing encounter with God at the burning bush he wasn’t sure who was talking to him from the bush.

Can you imagine walking down the road without a care in the word when you see, on the opposite side, a burning wheely bin? Curiously the plastic is not burning up, or even melting, it’s just … burning .. it’s engulfed in flames.

• What would you do? I think you’d walk over to see what’s going on and that’s exactly what Moses did.
• If you read the Hebrew text you’ll encounter a word which mean he ‘diverted from his path’ to see what was going on.
• As you approach the wheely bin a voice comes out of it. (Can you see how bizarre this story appears)
• And a voice booms from the bin and says ‘Terry, Terry’ or Jill, Jill’ and you think ‘What on earth is going on here? someone is talking to be from the burning bin’

Listen to Moses:

God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’ ‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’

How would you be sure that it was God who was speaking to you? Moses wasn’t sure at all! So …

God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, … and at this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:6

Moses, if you’re unsure about which God it is who’s talking to you here, look at Abraham – I’m his God!”

Just for a moment, think of a character whom you hold in the highest regard for their faith and their walk with God

• Might be a Billy Graham, a Mother Thesesa, a John Calvin, a John Wesley, a John Wimber, a John Piper (for me a David Watson)

If you were to hear God speaking from a burning bin, he’d say “I’m that person’s God!” “All I was to them I can be to you!” “I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!”

What greater praise / compliment is there than this? – That almighty God pins Abraham’s name to His own!

• pins Abraham’s reputation and legacy to his own image

Why might God do this? Because Abraham’s life welds these two qualities together: faith and Righteousness

Romans 4: Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness

Abraham lived by faith

Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,

Here’s the principle: There was a moment of faith that worked its way out in a life of faith.

A moment – God said ‘move out of Ur’ and Abraham began packing.

That’s how God works in our lives. He grants us moments of faith that are intended to be worked out an a life of faith

What does a moment of faith look like?

• coming to Christ and accepting him personally >>>
• (as my Lord, my mentor, the person I model my life on)
• You may look back to a moment of faith >>>

God’s intension in your life is for that moment to be worked out in a life of faith.

That initial moment of faith is followed up by many other

• moments of decision where I have to decide whether to go God’s way or not, whether to live for Christ of live for myself
• moments of perplexity when I’m drawn to cast all my weight on the Lord and trust that ‘He ca see me through this’

And it’s God’s intention for us that the moments of faith work out into a life of faith. This is the inner life of faith that brings joy and confidence in Him. Nehemiah said ‘it’s the joy of the Lord that is your strength!

• yes, faith is obedience, but it’s a glad obedience!
• it’s daily bowing humbly and with trembling with joy before the awesome God who loves us more than anyone else possibly could.

Verse 8b describes Abraham’s faith as “not knowing where he is going” when he set out.

So sometimes the inner response of faith brings perplexity and uncertainty about the details of God’s call on our lives. but true faith doesn’t focus on the present reward and prosperity, but what God has promised to be to us. That was Abraham!

This is what glorifies God – (i.e. what speaks most clearly about him) it’s living by faith and walking closely with him.

God is glorified most clearly when we enjoy him most intimately

Difference between seeking faith and resting faith >>>

Abraham was righteous

But wait – wasn’t Abraham a complex person? Didn’t he lie about his wife / have sex with another woman

Yes, but God didn’t end up counting these things against him because Abraham lived by faith – and God is a gracious God!

One of the great verses of the New Testament >>>

Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Now you can tell that, because it begins with the word ‘therefore’ this verse is half way through a story that Paul is telling – so let’s start in 4:13

A wise teacher will always choose the best examples he or she can come up with to illustrate a point or a principle – and that is what Paul is doing here.

He wants a good example of someone who was justified by God but who didn’t rely on the law to get there – and that example is Abraham

Abraham

God made a wonderful promise to Abraham – that he would be the father of a great nation. In fact Abraham had a nightmarish experience with God at this time where they went through the traditional covenant-making ceremony with him on one side and God on the other (Genesis 15). From then on Abraham was bound to God and (incredibly) God was bound to Abraham to keep his side of the bargain of being the father of a great nation.

In order for God to enter into this kind of agreement, Abraham must have been counted as righteous in God’s sight – he must have been justified – so how could that have come about?

First of all we discover about one way it didn’t come about

Consider this time-line: Abraham, Promise, Moses, Law – Jesus (not to scale!)

Rom 4:13-14 It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world,

Surely (from our time line) we can see this is obvious because the law hadn’t been given when Abraham received God’s promise to him!

So how did it come? V16 tells us

Rom 4:16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith,

so that it may be by grace

and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring –

not only to those who are of the law (the Jews) but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham (including us today). He is the father of us all.

So to be at peace with God needs two things:

On our side it’s by faith

we just say ‘Thank you God I’ll have that!’

• I’ll start living my life using the assumption that I’ve got it all!
• I’ll receive it just by saying ‘yes’ to your offer!

That’s faith

On God’s side it’s by grace

God’s totally over-the-top generosity

• “you want justification? – you have it!”
• “you want peace with me? – it’s there for the receiving – just take it!”
• “you want joy in the holy Spirit? – just have it! It’s there for the receiving!”

that’s … grace!

What did Abraham’s faith look like?

Paul gives us a couple of key characteristics of faith

It was reasonable (i.e. it was based on reason) (v18)

Cynics sometimes speak of faith as ‘a leap in the dark’ – the sort of this a rational person who never do in their right mind

• Bertrand Russell once called faith ‘a conviction which cannot be shaken by contrary evidence’

However Abraham’s faith was based on something. It was reasonable – God didn’t expect him to turn his mind off.

• And the thing that Abraham based his faith on was God’s promise to him – something he could rationalise and understand

It was reasoned faith

It was full of hope (it was not based on foresight) v19

If I have faith that something is going to happen and I can already see it coming, then my faith is bolstered by my vision

For example, If I am a business man with plans to grow my business, I may trust God to grow my business by (say) 10% this year. Recession or no recession, I can see my way clear to picking up the additional contracts and staffing the additional work. It’s a risk, it’s a step of faith and I trust God for it.

I can then start strategising for it. Still walking by faith but seeing faith’s vision develop week on week as I plan for it step by step.

Abraham’s faith was of a different order.

• He had absolutely no idea how God was going to deliver on his promise!
• God promised him that he would be the father of a great nation but he was nearing 100 years old, his wife was 90, and we all know that 90 year olds don’t fall pregnant! – So where is he going to get his family from?

But he still believed – that’s faith of a different order – that’s faith that does not rely on seeing it’s goal in the distance or strategising for it in the present

Romans 4:19-20 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead– since he was about a hundred years old– and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

So justification – being righteous in God’s reckoning – was not earned by Abraham as we might earn our wages, it was credited to him by God because faith was his life-principle.

And it wasn’t just for him, it’s for us too!

Rom 4:23-24 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone,

24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness — for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

The same righteousness and peace with God will be credited to us as we live by faith!

So when we have our time of ministry in a few minutes, receive from God by faith! – You may not yet be able to see the reality of God’s blessing (that’s where Abraham was) but the promise is real and solid.

God is faithful – He will not let you down.

Now you understand tonight’s text!

Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Is that you?

Do you have peace with God, and if not, do you want it? >>>