Genesis 3:1-8 - Great Faith Is All About... - March 5, 2023

What comes to mind when you think of great faith? What characteristics or behaviors do you associate with great faith? Who are the people you think of as having great faith? In general, I think we associate great faith with people who do great things. For example, we think of Noah as having great faith because he built an ark on dry ground, Moses because he stood up against the most powerful empire in the world and Daniel because he fearlessly walked into a den of lions. We imagine the apostles had great faith because all of them but one – John – were martyred for confessing their faith. We think of Martin Luther as having great faith because he stood up to the heretical teachings of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Today, we might think of the people who are the most active at church or those who are the most generous with their time and money; the people who never seem to struggle with sin, never seem to doubt that God is in control, never waver even when bad things happen. But as we examine God’s call to Abraham, we see that faith isn’t really about us at all.

Even though in Romans Paul called Abram (or Abraham) the Father of believers (Romans 4:1), he was anything but that when God first came into his life. While living in Ur – which was in present-day Syria or Turkey – Abram and his family were (at best) polytheists – they worshipped many false gods in addition to the one true God (Joshua 24:2). Far from being a hero of faith, Abram was an idolater. But in spite of that, God came to Abram, spoke to him, called him to faith and away from his idolatrous surroundings.

Whenever you think about faith, yours or anyone else’s, it’s important to remember that at one time we were all just like Abram – hopeless sinners, pagan idolaters and enemies of God. Paul put it this way: you were dead in your trespasses and sins…formerly, we all lived among them in the passions of our sinful flesh, as we carried out the desires of the sinful flesh and its thoughts. Like all the others, we were by nature objects of God’s wrath…indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:1, 3, 8-9) Whether you came to faith as an infant, a teenager, or an adult – you, like Abram, did not make the first move – God did. God came to you in the waters of Baptism. God spoke to you through a pastor, parent, or friend. By nature, we were all faithless idolaters like Abram, but God in his infinite mercy has called us out of that miserable life to give us a name and place in his family. Great faith, any and all true faith, is only given by God as a gift of his grace, not because we deserved it or sought it out.

Having stepped into Abram’s life and created faith in his heart, God challenged Abram: Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. Imagine that: leave your hometown, your friends, your family, everything you know and love and go – where? you don’t know, just go. If God had stopped speaking at this point, I suppose Abram may have just ignored this command. But you’ll notice as you read the Bible that God almost always wraps his command up in promises. God overwhelmed Abram with promises – 7 in total. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you. God promised Abram posterity and prosperity, fame and fortune, blessings for his friends and curses for his enemies, and finally, the greatest blessing of all: one of his descendants would be the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. No conditions, no “if’s”, no basis in Abram’s obedience, these things would all be his simply because God wanted him to have them.

And that’s how God continues to deal with us today. He deals with us primarily in terms of promises not demands. God doesn’t force faith into hearts with threats or with a gun pointed at our heads, instead he gently and quietly invites us to trust his promises. He doesn’t overwhelm us with laws (think about it, God only gave 10 Commandments – compare that to the legal code in our country or state – or even your own house!), rather he piles promise on top of promise – all apart from anything we do or don’t do. And God’s promises to us are no less incredible than his promises to Abram. Here are a few: 1) The sin we were born with as well as the sins we commit every day – God promises that in Christ they are washed away: as distant as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our rebellious acts from us (Psalm 103:12); 2) He promises an eternity in heaven: the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23); 3) He promises to take care of us until then: …God will fully supply your every need, according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19); 4) He promises that everything that happens in your life, whether you perceive it as good or bad, is for your eternal good: we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). And we could go on and on. Every page of the Bible is filled with God’s unconditional promises to you. Great faith is based on God’s great promises. Promises he never fails to keep.

What is the proper response to God’s promises? So Abram went, as the Lord had told him…they set out to the travel to the land of Canaan…there he built an altar to the Lord and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The emphasis of Abram’s calling is often placed on his willing obedience in the face of daunting, dark uncertainty. But don’t forget those all-important words: As the Lord had told him. Abram didn’t just wake up in the middle of the night and decide to leave his family and homeland – his obedience was prompted by God’s promises and directed by God’s Word. Abram wasn’t taking a blind leap of faith into the unknown (faith is not a blind leap); he was jumping into the safety net of God’s unbreakable promises. Even in his obedience Abram couldn’t take the credit, the credit was all God’s – a fact that Abram acknowledged by building altars and publicly worshipping God every step of the way.

Why is it so hard for us to imitate Abram’s response? What makes us hesitate at jumping into the safety net of God’s promises? First, the devil makes promises too, and his promises seem so tempting and so much easier to attain. God’s promises often require a certain amount of patience and sacrifice; the devil’s promises offer immediate gratification without sacrifice. But the sad truth is that the devil never follows through on his promises; he offers one thing and delivers another. The devil always and only lies (John 8:48). He offers pleasure, we end up in pain. He promises riches, we end up poor. He says that following him will make us perfectly happy, and we end up perfectly miserable. He promises happiness and life – but in the end his path leads to death.

But the devil isn’t the only barrier to faith. Our own reason gets in the way too. Too often we let the obstacles of life block out the beauty of God’s promises. We forget that no matter how incredible or impossible his promises seem, he never breaks them. Instead of confidently leaping into his loving arms we act like he is asking us to step off a cliff. We think “If I commit to giving the first part of my paycheck back to God, there won’t be enough left for the mortgage or car payment.” “If I take time out of my day for meditation on God’s Word or prayer, then I won’t have enough left for all the really important things I need to get done.” We think “If I don’t make sure my kids are on all the best teams, in the best academic and music programs they won’t have a future.” It’s our nature to want to be in control of everything in our lives – while stupidly ignoring the fact that we can’t control our own heartbeat, much less the future. And just like that, our faith shrinks because it’s focused on what I think rather than on what God promises. And that’s why faith is such a challenging and rare thing. Faith is a constant struggle between what we see and what is unseen (Hebrews 11:1); between the present and the future (Romans 8:18). Faith is a constant wrestling match between trusting in God’s promises and trusting in our own reason, strength and abilities.

It’s true that when you look around, you might see a bunch of broken promises. But none of those broken promises are God’s broken promises. Who fails? The people around you fail. Your loved ones fail you. Your coworkers fail you. Your job fails. Your government fails. Your bank account fails. Your health fails. Your pastor fails you. You fail you. God never fails. He never has and he never will. His promises are great and he keeps every one of them. He promises to be your shield and your strength (Genesis 15:1). As your shield and strength he doesn’t promise to take you out of every bad situation you find yourself in, he promises to be with you through them. That doesn’t mean life in this sinful world is going to be easy, but it does mean that through every difficulty you are never alone. He promises that you have eternal life. That doesn’t mean you will never have to face sickness and death, but it does mean that on the other side of death is a new life that is perfect and will last forever. All because God kept his promise to Abram that through his seed, the Savior, all of the families of the earth will be blessed in you. Paul put it this way: as many promises as God has made, they have always been “Yes” in [Christ] (2 Corinthians 1:20). In other words, God’s promises are always “Yes” because all of his promises find their fulfillment in him – that is, if God kept his promise to do the hardest thing, save us from sin and death, then we can surely trust all of his other promises too.

I like to picture the difference between great faith and lack of faith like taking a flight. There are two types of people on every airplane. Those who trust the pilot and the plane and those who don’t. And you can tell by their behavior, can’t you? The faithless person will look anxious and nervous at take-off, perhaps clenching the hand of their spouse or parents, perhaps lifting themselves off of their seat – in hopes of making the plane lighter and giving it a better chance of taking off. The person of great faith will sit back and doze off or calmly start to read a book or magazine – because, in the end, they know that the success of the flight is out of their hands. Our success, now and eternally – just like it was for Abram – is really out of our hands. We have his commands wrapped in his promises and therefore we can have great, calm, confident faith that our great, powerful, loving God will do great things through us.  

Could you do what Abraham did? Can you have great faith too? Well, do you have God’s promises? Do you believe them? Then you can absolutely do what Abram did. You can leave behind whatever hinders you from putting your full trust in God and He can do great things through you too. Like what, you may ask? Well, just 26 years ago Risen Savior was nothing more than a plan on the back of a napkin in someone’s living room – look at what God has done. Can we continue to reach the lost with the Gospel of free forgiveness in Christ – even here in Dane County? Yes, we can! Absolutely. Can God’s promise that everything that happens is for your eternal good give you confidence to face any challenge life throws your way? Certainly. Maybe not in the way you expect, but whatever he provides will be for your best. We can do great things because we have great faith. We have great faith because that faith rests on the great promises of our faithful God. May God keep us all firmly grounded in his promises so that our faith may always be great. Amen.