A Stumbling Faith: Genesis 12:10-20

Well, we continue on in the series this morning.

Pastor Tom led the beginning of the series this past Sunday.

Considering the faith of Abraham, this great patriarch in the scriptures, his name is mentioned 76 times in 11 different books in the New Testament.

And so we have a lot to learn about his life and his faith.

And the secret of Abraham's faith is that he believed God and his promises.

As we saw last week, God had come to Abraham, and Abraham had obeyed God's call, and he left his people, he left his relatives, he left his home, and he went into the land that God had shown him.

It was a true demonstration that he believed God, that he took him at his word, and that he was willing to act on it.

A true sign of faith.

And so we see this evidence of a true faith.

And we notice if you go back to read the text from last week, no, he didn't have all the answers.

The future, in many respects, was still dark to him.

But the call was clear.

But although Abraham was a man of faith, his faith wasn't without weakness.

And we can be thankful that the scriptures not only record the triumphs of faith, but that they also record the weakness of faith.

The volatility of faith.

To have ventured anywhere in life is to learn that, yes, we learn from our successes, but also and at times even more significantly, we learn from our failures.

And we can be thankful that even a man like Abraham we see both.

And so let's read this morning from Genesis 12, 10 through 20.

You can find that in your church Bible, page 8, or in your bulletin.

Now there was a famine in the land.

So Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.

When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sira, his wife, I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife.

Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

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.

When Abraham entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful, and when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house, and for her sake he dealt well with Abraham, and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sira, Abraham's wife.

So Pharaoh called Abraham and said, What is this that you have done to me?

Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?

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.

And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord, we give you thanks once again for your truth.

We thank you for your scriptures that we can read and seek to grow in our own faith.

And so now, Lord, we ask through the power of your Holy Spirit, would you produce that spirit-wrought faith that we need?

Holy Spirit, would you do that work within us and through your word this morning?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

It was the fall of uh 2008.

I had just uh booked flights to the U.S.

Um to begin my seminary education.

And I had sensed uh God's call away from formerly what I was doing in the architectural field and vocation, and had recently sold everything that I had to my name at the time.

I had clearly seen God go ahead of me, and he had been faithful in opening many doors that I knew only he could open.

And he had been gracious in confirming this call in many ways.

But two months into my time, arriving sitting foot in Orlando, Florida, around November 2008, the recession hit.

And almost overnight, the uh Australian dollar hovering around parity with the US dollar dropped about 32 cents to the dollar.

I I watched as almost overnight my savings lost about a third of their value.

Funds that I had spent years saving for to live on and to pay tuition.

And I remember my heart time just dropping as all of this was outside of my control, and I tried to consider how I would remain in this calling without the provision of these funds, along with all the restrictions that I had on my ability to work at the time.

I'd seen God's provision.

I'd seen that clearly.

His power had been on display, but now I was reeling, and a new set of questions began to emerge in my own heart and mind.

Should I go back?

Why would God clearly send me here only to have me go back so soon?

Why would this happen now in a new place?

Now that I lacked all of the relationships I had just left that I could have perhaps called on were I to be in the situation?

Had I made a big mistake in discerning the path that he had me on, how would he provide?

Those were some of the questions that began to emerge as I faced this situation.

In the Christian life, we're reminded that we're not called merely to propositions, but to a relationship with God.

And in that sense, it's a walk and it's a life that we're called to.

And life, as we all know, isn't without its ebbs and flows, its paradoxes and lessons.

And what we see clearly in this account, once again, is that faith makes all the difference in how we walk, especially when hardship comes.

And so in this account, we get a glimpse of the hardship that comes in the life of Abraham.

We read that after responding to God's call out of the land of Ur and Haran, there was a famine in the land.

And so we first observe a tested faith.

As I just said, Abraham had accepted this call, and he was now a stranger in this land, this new place that God had promised to him.

This was the land of promise.

He's now living in a tent far away from former security.

And although he had been obedient to God's call and faith, here he is now vulnerable to a famine that arose in the land.

And I can think of many examples where God's people have answered a call to God, to some kind of service in his kingdom, leaving the safety of being anchored to the shoreline of what's familiar, and having waded out into the into the deeper waters, have then been met with headwinds.

And what's often the case is that it does introduce new questions.

Questions like, did I make a mistake?

Does God care?

Pastor F.

B.

Meyer notes the common response to these headwinds.

He says, He says, How often do professing Christians adopt a hurt and injured tone in speaking of God's dealings with them?

They look back on a sunny past and complain that it was better with them before they entered the wicked gate and commenced to tread the narrow way.

Since that moment they have met with nothing but disaster.

They had no famines in Ur or Haran, but now in the land of promise, they are put to sore straits and are driven to their wit's end.

And it's true, famines can affect us all.

Famines, yes, of in the form of food, but also famines can take different shapes.

They can take other forms.

We might find ourselves stripped of other things that reveal our vulnerabilities.

It can be in the form of emotional or relational needs.

Employment or a lack of other resources.

The pressure of famines has a way of exposing or revealing the cracks and the weaknesses of our heart's functional trust.

And that's important to understand.

I was reading the letter of a young missionary last week who recently had responded to a call to serve in a challenging part of the world.

And in this letter, this person describes some of the headwinds that they were facing, one of which was homesickness.

The absence of relationships that this person formerly had, these emotional bonds that this person enjoyed were no longer there.

And it was something that they were struggling with as they sought to acclimate to this new place.

It can also come in in other forms.

There's a story of a British pastor, Jeff Thomas.

He tells the story of the headwinds of the great Welsh preacher, Dr.

Lloyd Jones.

And he said at one point, Jeff here was, he says, I was foolish enough to say to Dr.

Lloyd Jones how fortunate he was to go as a household name to Sandfields, which was his first posture, this before Westminster in London.

And everyone in this steel town knew that he had, as Lloyd Jones, had given up a notable career in medicine at the time.

He had had this uh very uh good career ahead of him in London.

But then he came to Port Talbot, and from that time he arrived, the crowds just flocked to hear him.

And Lloyd Jones, uh hearing uh Jeff mentioned how fortunate he must have been to have been this household name, leaned forward and spoke straight with immediate earnestness.

He said, it did me no good at all.

He said, they they were curious about me.

And they came to look at me.

They did not come to listen to what I said.

I had a barren six months at the beginning of my ministry as they were simply motivated by fascination.

It wasn't until that curiosity had been satisfied that they began to settle down and listen to what I was actually saying.

Only then did people begin to turn to God.

And it's true, I think we see that here in Abraham's case, that prosperity is not always a sign of God's call and faithfulness to that call.

We see that Abraham reaped many benefits from his scheming and his lies, and yet it wasn't the will of God.

And sometimes these headwinds can come.

I could give other examples, but the point is that many who are called to God's service have soon faced their own famines and headwinds of difficulty.

And if we find ourselves in such a position like that, I can say with great confidence to you this morning that there's no greater substitute for the call of God that came before it.

That has been one of the great blessings to me personally.

That when these hid winds come, when challenges come, when trials come, the assurance of his call has always been a great gift of God.

And why that's so important is because we notice that although Abraham considered Egypt when he was confronted by this famine, he didn't go back to Ur or Haran from where he came.

I mean, that would have been probably the most sensible, natural choice is to go back to what was familiar.

He didn't do that.

Why?

Well, because this was a supernatural call that he sensed.

It's the call of God and his assurance that allows us to say when questions arise, we're tempted to look back with rosy glasses to say, God has clearly called me.

He intends to bless me.

And although I face these headwinds, the answer doesn't lie in going back to my former way of life.

And friends, that is true in regard to the small deliverances, and it's true of the greatest deliverance of all and our salvation.

Testing through hardship is something none of us can avoid, but it is something God can use for his glory.

And we see him do that here.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is a stumbling faith.

We see Abraham's faith stumble right at this point.

If you look back at the account again that we just read, you might notice the activity of Abraham.

But I wonder if you noticed what's missing in all of the activity.

The silence of God speaks just as loudly.

Notice there's no word of God telling Abraham to go to Egypt.

And there's no hint of Abraham calling on God.

The reason for that is he's now walking by sight.

He sees the flower pot slowly emptying.

He sees the oil jar drying up.

And he makes the determination, Egypt has the resources that we need.

And although Egypt is the actual geographic location that Abraham believed deliverance would come from, Egypt is often used figuratively in the scriptures to depict a reliance on the flesh, an alliance with the world.

Alliances that give the impression of initial deliverance and promise much, but always end up letting us down.

And so we see here that Abraham first stumbles in faith and then he wavers in courage.

His lie about Sarah really just serves his own interests and seeks to quiet his own fears.

No doubt the justification is desperate times call for desperate measures.

Right?

But at the heart is a plan that's driven by fear.

No longer walking by promise, he's walking now by his own fears.

And he looks to his own resources and the beauty of Sarah.

And although it's true that Sarah was Abraham's half-sister, his concealing of the full truth amounted to deception.

And so with Sarah entering the courts of Pharaoh, Abraham endangered the promise of God that the seed would come through him.

Promises that Abraham was to be a father to the nations, not any Pharaoh from Egypt.

And so there's some mess that's happening here as Abraham starts to walk down his own path.

There's something about the human heart that's so quick when we face headwinds to resort to control.

In the flesh, we we want to resort to our own activity, our own resources, to rely on our own powers.

Our activity can be a disguise for an unbelieving heart.

And that was true of my own journey and seminary.

I never thought that the situation that I was in, the circumstances that I was dealing with, masked something deeper that God wanted to do in my own heart.

But what lies beneath all the activity of a fearful heart is the sin of unbelief.

And unbelief is the sin of suspicion that God is not good.

It's a sin of suspicion that God is withholding something good from us.

The suspicion that if we therefore take things in our own hands, we can get more for ourselves or something better than God would otherwise provide for us through what we experience.

And the sense is that in relying on our own powers and abilities, I can achieve a better or more or more fulfilling deliverance than the one that he has written for me.

And those suspicions, that unbelief in God's goodness will always lead us to Egypt.

We see that all throughout the scriptures, don't we?

The prophet Jeremiah reveals God's good intentions to Israel years later.

They're in the promised land.

And he says, I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things.

That was his promise.

That was his intent for them.

But then the questions come to them as to why they're settling for less, he says, and what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile?

We go down to Egypt whenever we look for other springs or sources of life or confidence other than Jesus and his living water.

Our author Chuck De Grote states it succinctly.

He says, over and over again, we choose to return to Egypt instead of daring to enter the promised land.

We settle for less than the life for which God made us.

And friends, the truth is that we go down to Egypt whenever we choose to walk down our own path and place our confidence in our own resources.

And the thing about that is that in turning to Egypt, it always invites fear.

Because our allegiances can never hold up to the weight of what we desire.

They can never promise or keep the promises that they make of real security, of real stability.

And so, yes, they might make promises to us, but they always end up letting us down.

And fear without God is frantic.

It's uncertain.

It's unpredictable.

It lacks assurance and peace.

Testing reveals our heart's functional trust and God's goodness.

And you might consider your own heart this morning, as I do my own.

Are you facing headwinds?

Are you facing difficulty in your own life?

Are you unsure of what the future holds, of what tomorrow will bring, or the next, or the next?

Are circumstances pressing you?

Who are you turning to?

Are you turning to God?

Are you willing to wait for Him to answer?

Or are you surrendered to His will?

Where does your confidence lie?

In Him or in your own powers or your own strategies?

That makes every difference in the world.

And it's only one of two paths.

That will show up in how we walk through life.

If we walk by faith, God's promises, or if we take things in our own hands and seek to control our own paths.

And yet, you might say this morning, yes, but what if I have gone down a path of my own making?

What if you're here this morning and you've made a mess and you're living the reality of that mess?

Well, even then, you can't outrun God's goodness and mercy.

And we see that here.

Abraham likewise has constructed a mess.

But we see God's goodness and we see his mercy follow him.

Even into the courts of Pharaoh.

So he brings disease to Pharaoh's house, and eventually they're led to the conclusion that the trouble seemed to begin in their household when Sarah entered the scene.

And no doubt they sense that that caused some kind of displeasure to some higher power.

And so Pharaoh seeks out Abraham.

And rightly accusing Abraham of deceiving him, he sends he and Sarah on their way.

Abraham's reputation is injured.

But his faith in God is reassured.

And what we're left to believe is that God's mercy extends to us even in our stumbling faith.

The scriptures remind us God doesn't treat us as our sins deserve.

He doesn't repay us according to our iniquities.

Though our faith is often fickle, he remains faithful to his promises.

Promises that offer to us both life and blessing.

At the time that I was asking these new questions of God, the Spirit used a question at the time asked by my professor to get my attention and to give me fresh perspective in the midst of my fears.

And at one point he said to us as a class of students, he said, the reason why it's so important to have a right view of God in life and in ministry is because at times we may find that we are attempting to use God to solve our problems rather than using our problems to find God.

And those words stuck with me because although my circumstances didn't and wouldn't immediately change, they actually grew more challenging for a season.

Those words challenged me to consider the goodness of God in the new light.

That far from allowing me to experience these providential headwinds because he was displeased with the path that I had taken, that I'd ventured down, which was a question that I had raised in my mind at the time, I was led to believe that God was willing to use these hardships to invite me into a more intimate knowledge and relationship with himself.

And so I came to see that my view of his goodness was far too small.

And so he followed with those days and showing me much of his goodness in far deeper ways than I'd ever seen before.

He showed me more of his goodness.

And in those days, the Spirit's ministry became even more precious to me.

Promises that I'd read many times before began to take on a more precious quality and a deeper place in my heart.

And in time, he delivered me in some powerful and surprising ways.

But in all of that, it was accompanied with this blessing of greater degrees of his assurance.

That I was indeed carrying out his will.

And that is a gift that no, that cannot be substituted for anything else.

That deep sense of God's assurance in our heart of hearts, that he is indeed orchestrating things in our life, even the hardships that we might face.

That he is orchestrating it all.

That he is working in and through it.

That it is for our blessing and for our good.

And to give us that deep sense of assurance that he is working it all out.

Leading the way, guiding us, establishing us an even deeper and greater certainty of his promises and his care.

Pastor Ian Simpkins sums it up well.

He says, What if waiting isn't just about what you're waiting for, but who you're becoming while you do?

Biblical hope isn't wishful thinking.

It's confident expectation.

You're not just waiting for something, you're waiting with someone.

And that someone is God as he orchestrates, as he moves, as he establishes his purposes and his plans for you.

Does that kind of hope reorient your heart like it does my own?

Are you asking the Spirit to show you more of God's goodness in deeper ways to your own heart?

If circumstances seem to say otherwise, are you looking to fortify your own heart with his precious promises, promises that are intended to bless you and to reassure you?

Is that where you're going to in order to fortify your own heart?

If circumstances say all and anything else, are you coming to his precious promises where he intends to bless you, to quiet you, and to aid you?

Do you desire to see God's very nature imprinted deeply upon your soul, which his promises will do?

Friends, there's nothing more glorious and wonderful than that.

God's very nature more deeply impressed and printed on your soul.

You can go through any hardship, but when you look back on life, that will be something you will never look back on with regret.

Because it holds true not only for the moment, but for eternity.

And yet, oftentimes these lessons are learned the hard way.

And it's in our stumbling that he reveals his good and merciful heart.

Friends, in the end, our hope lies ultimately not in the strength of our faith, but in the strength of the object of our faith in Jesus Christ.

He who remains faithful, whose mercy and whose goodness chase after you, even after your stumbling and mine.

The God who knows us intimately, even to, even to down to the number of hears on our heads, who clothes the flowers of the fields, provides for the sparrows day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, and who assures us of how much more precious we are, even than these.

The one in whom we can always trust and be certain that he is working all things together for good.

Both seen and unseen realities.

Such is his love.

And so the old hymn reminds us so well: his oath, his covenant, his blood.

Support me in the whalming flood.

When all around my soul gives way.

On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

May we look to him and give thanks for all his blessings.

Amen.