The Foundational Four // The People God Used to Form a Nation // Abram - Faith

Family, I'm glad to be with you guys today.

I just wanted to let you know we're starting off a brand new series today called the Foundational Four.

And we're actually going to be sticking through the Old Testament for the majority of the summer and talking about different people within the Old Testament.

But for the Foundational Four, we're going to be talking about the people that God used to form a nation.

We're going to take the next four weeks, talk about four people who we think that when you understand their lives and you understand what God did in their lives, that you can gain a greater understanding of the Bible.

And today we're going to be starting off with one of the most pivotal, one of the most consequential, one of the most important people, not just in all the Bible, but really, when you think about it, in all of human history.

And just to put it into perspective, let's talk social media here for a second.

And I need you, I need you to shout out for me here in a sec.

But who do you think is the most followed person for all of social media?

There is one person with one account that has the most follows of anybody.

Just shout it out.

Who do you think it is?

Jesus.

Dot Taylor Swift, not Jesus.

Who else do you guys think?

Pastor Edgar, no, no, no, no.

Who do you guys think?

So actually, it's not somebody who's even American.

Just to narrow it down.

In fact, I'm gonna just tell you guys right now, it's Cristiano Ronaldo.

If you don't know who he is, he's a Portuguese soccer player, he's big with the kids.

Right now, and I checked this morning, right now I checked this morning.

He has over 660 million followers on just Instagram alone.

Just Instagram alone.

And if you put all of his social medias together, his X account, his Twitter, his TikTok, all that stuff, right?

Whatever, right?

He has close to a billion followers across all his social media platforms.

660 million just on Instagram alone.

That is literally double the population of the United States.

And all these people want to see what he has to say, what pictures he's gonna post, what sponsorship deals he's gonna have next, what what the big news with him is coming, right?

He's an influential person, not just in like America, but in the world, literally, with 660 million followers.

I say that though, because the person we're talking about today lived over 4,000 years ago.

He lived and he died 4,000 years ago.

Yet today, right now, I'm not talking about dead people, I'm talking about people who are alive right now.

4 billion, that's billion with a B.

Four billion people claim him to be an exemplary person of faith.

They claim him to be a father, a foundational person to their faith.

They point to this one guy and say, Yeah, he's got it going on.

He knows where it's at.

Judaism claims him.

Christianity claims him.

Even Islam claims this one guy to be an exemplary person of faith.

Three belief systems that agree on almost nothing else, but they all can trace their heritage back to one singular guy who lived 4,000 years ago in the middle of Mesopotamia, who heard the voice of God.

And if you don't know who he is yet, let me introduce you to Abram.

Abram, also known as Abraham, was uh God would rename him too.

But then with that, the question is worth asking.

So, what what was so special about him?

What did he do?

What was it that this one man did?

How did he live that causes people across 4,000 years of human history that causes 4 billion people alive right here, half the population of the world, to claim this one guy to be a spiritual father to them?

Well, here's the answer it wasn't his accomplishments, it wasn't his military victories, it wasn't the fact that he had a lot of influence or a lot of money or a lot of wisdom, it wasn't his moral perfection because if you read the Bible, you know he wasn't morally perfect.

So if it wasn't that, what could it possibly have been that would cause us to look up to this man, to be this man, to have such a central place in not just biblical history, but in human history in general.

We'll open up to Genesis chapter 12 because that's where we're gonna be this morning.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And as you're opening up to Genesis 12, just a little bit of context.

Abram was a man who lived in a city called Haran, which was in ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Turkey.

He was in uh he was a uh 75-year-old man.

His wife was 65, uh, 65.

They had no children.

Try as they might, unfortunately, his wife Sarai was unfertile.

Now it is it's pretty sad in today's day and age when couples they want to have kids, but they can't, but it was a whole nother business back 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia when that happened.

Because what that meant is that you had no one to inherit anything that you had.

What it meant that you had nobody to pass it along to.

It meant you had no one to protect you in your old age.

Back in those days, there was no social security, there was no social safety net, there was no retirement homes.

So if you got old and disabled, no one was gonna care for you.

It meant that when you died, the young men in your town without anything better to do would go into your home, kill your wife, and steal all your possessions.

It meant that history was gonna blot out your name and that you would forever be forgotten in the annals of history.

It's in this silence, though, that God encounters him, that God speaks into his life.

Genesis 12, that's where we're gonna be starting off.

Verse 1 says, The Lord said to Abram, Go from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.

So Abram went as the Lord had told him.

What happens here in this passage is enormous, and it has implications that reverberate for every single chapter, every single verse for the rest of the Bible.

Literally, the whole Bible hinges on Genesis chapter 12 and this one encounter that God had with Abram.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Literally, everything else that you can think of that happens after this point in the Bible goes back to this one man having one step.

So 4,000 years ago, this action reverberates through the rest of the Bible and reverberates and impacts our lives today.

And through this one man at the epicenter of it all, we really learned this that the just shall live by faith.

The just, those who have been forgiven by the blood of Jesus, people who have put their faith in him, the just shall live, not in the past, not in the future, but actively, presently, right now, shall live by faith.

But before we can live by faith, I think it's super important that we all start from the same foundations, that we make some clear definitions by what we mean when we say living by faith.

And I think when you examine the Bible, when you look at what God has to say about the nature of faith, we can really reach a simple definition of this: that faith is trusting who God is, not trusting what you can see.

It's trusting in his characteristics, his character, his word, who he is.

It's not trusting what you can see here in the present, here in the right now.

It's trusting God above what you can see with your eyes.

Let's examine Genesis 12 again with that lens of truth.

The Bible says, the Lord said to Abram, Go from your land, your relatives, your father's house, to the land that I will show you.

Notice, though, that last line when we examine the text, we really can see it.

It's that to the land that I will show you.

That's a future tense verb.

It's not now, it's not in the past, it's in the future.

He says, Go actively, right now, go from your land to your relatives, uh, from your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you.

It's not here, go, and this is exactly what it's gonna look like.

Here's all the little bullet points, and I'll show you everything.

No, it's go and then I'll show you when you get there, right?

This is the entire ask.

Leave everything you know, leave everything you love, leave your relatives, leave all your property, and go from that to a land that when you go, I'll show you, but I'm not gonna show you right now.

Then verse 4 says this.

So Abram went as the Lord had told him.

He just went.

No address, no GPS coordinates, no nothing.

He he he just went after God said, Go, and then when you go, I'm gonna make all these blessings.

I'm gonna give you a great nation, I'll make your name known, I'll I'll bless all the peoples of the earth through your lineage.

And Abram just picked up everything he had, uh, or just left everything he had, and he just went.

Now, this is where I want us to take notice, because I think sometimes, especially if you heard this story before, you can just kind of say, Yeah, Abraham great had great faith.

That's right.

I mean, we know it, and we can nod and move along.

But I really think that when we really zero in on everything that happened right here, then we can fully appreciate what happened.

He's a 75-year-old man.

A 75-year-old man.

He's living in Haran, he has relationships, he has his parents' grave in Haran, he definitely has roots and property and money and all that, and then God tells him one day, leave it all.

Just go to a land that I'm gonna point you in the direction of, but you're not gonna know 100%.

I'm I mean, just to say, from the outside looking in, if my neighbor came up to me and told me, hey, God told me I'm gonna go on a march 3,000, 300 miles down California and I'm gonna leave all my house and stuff right here.

I you know what I would say?

You're nuts, you're crazy.

I'm sorry, I'm just gonna say, because the outside looking in, that's what it looks like.

But Abram went because he trusted in God's word, because he trusted in God's character above what he could see.

So, what happens after that?

What happens after this encounter with God?

Well, 10 years pass, actually, and that's where we get to Genesis 15.

People don't realize like the gap in years between this and that.

People don't realize that he had to live by faith for ten whole years before anything actually even happened.

He was living by faith, he was.

He got up, he left everything he knew, and he left for the land of Canaan, and he was living in the land of Canaan for 10 years, 10 birthdays have passed.

He's not a 75-year-old man anymore, he's 85.

His wife Sarai, she's not a 65-year-old woman anymore, she's 75 now.

And each year that passed, it seemed less and less likely that God was going to fulfill his promise.

Because 10 years passed and there was no offspring, there was no child.

He went out and he lived by faith, and he had nothing to show for it.

Zero, nothing at all.

And so one night, when he's alone in his tent, God speaks to him again.

But when God speaks to him, Abram replies with an honest, brutal thing that probably in his head has been swirling around for years.

Well was probably the reason why he was up so late in the night.

And when he was alone with his thoughts, after 10 years of living by faith and having nothing to show for it, he finally spoke to God.

He says in verse 2 of Genesis 15, Abram said, Lord God, what can you give me since I'm childless?

And Abram continued, Look, you have given me no offspring.

Notice though, this isn't a man who stopped believing.

This man still has faith.

He is talking to God, he is praying to God, he still believes in all his heart that God is going to fulfill his promise, but just the math isn't mathing.

It's not making sense to him, right?

From what he can see, he it doesn't make sense anymore.

So he's going to God with his doubts, he's going to God with his unresolved, honest questions.

And I love the fact that God doesn't correct him or rebuke him or say, No, what are you talking about?

Get out.

No, God's not angry with him.

So, how does God react?

This is how God reacts in verse 5.

He took him outside, away from the tent, away from his bed, away from being alone.

And he said to him, Look at the sky and count the stars if you're able to count them.

And he said to him, Your offspring will be that numerous.

God tells him, I haven't forgotten you about you, Abram.

No, no, look at the stars.

I promised you a great nation.

I promised you that all the families of the earth will be blessed by your name.

I promised you a child, and I am still gonna fulfill that promise.

I am still gonna do it.

God says, My word is sure that what I called you to do, I am still with you every step of the way, that I am still gonna fulfill my end of the bargain, that when you live by faith, faith in God, that God keeps his word.

And then verse six is one of the most important verses in all the Old Testament, in all the Bible.

It says, Abram believed, he trusted in, he had faith in the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Sometimes I think we can get in the mindset of like, oh, in the Old Testament, they had to sacrifice animals, they had to do yada yada yada.

Or sometimes even today, we get in the mindset of like, oh, I have to do X, Y, and Z.

I gotta go to church every day, I gotta read my Bible.

No, from Genesis to Revelation, the message is the same that when you put your faith in God, when you put your faith in what he says, what he does, it's not of our good works, it's not what we do, it's not our good deeds, it's all him.

And when we do that, when we put our faith, our trust, and everything in him, God says, That's enough.

You're clean in my eyes because he is holy, not us.

He's holy.

And when we put our faith in him, he credits to us as righteousness.

He believed, and that was it.

He put his faith in that.

But this tells us what faith actually is.

If you notice it.

Faith is not the absence of doubt.

It's not, it's not the absence of doubt because Abram had doubts, but he still had faith.

Faith is also not waiting until everything stacks up and everything is perfectly clear and everything is safe and everything is risk-free, because that's not what Abram had.

What is faith then?

Faith is not based on results.

Faith is based on God's character, his faithfulness, his track record, his nature as the God of that is the way maker, the promise keeper, his goodness that we just sang about.

It's all about that.

It's all about him.

It's not about what we can see, it's not what about what about what's going on right now.

It's just trusting and confiding and falling ourselves into his goodness, his faithfulness, his love.

That's all it is.

That's the nature of faith.

But what does it look like like in practically, like in real life?

If you've been in one of my foundations classes, you know what I'm about to do.

All right.

This is what faith looks like in real life.

Okay.

Y'all ready?

This is gonna blow your mind.

That's what faith is.

What what do I mean by that?

Okay, this is what I mean.

I looked around.

I didn't see nobody.

Doesn't matter if you've been to the church a lot of times, doesn't matter if you've this is your first time.

I didn't see nobody do this.

Okay.

Seems solid enough.

Structural integrity seems pretty good.

All right, neighbor, help me out here.

Hold my arm.

Hold on, hold on.

Okay.

We're good, we're good, we're good.

No, what did you do?

You came in, you saw the chair, you put your little coffee on down there, and then that's it.

That's all you did, right?

Why why'd you do that?

Why'd you do that?

Because you've seen chairs hold you up before.

You know the nature of chairs, the characteristics of chairs.

You go to a dentist's office, you go to the doctor's office, doesn't matter.

It's a chair, it's four-legged, it's got a seat, you go in, and what do you do?

Chairs hold up people.

That's what they do.

That's the nature of chairs, right?

So, what do you do?

Because you know the nature of a chair, because you know the characteristics of a chair, what do you do?

You sit, you put all of your body weight, all of your confidence, and you put your faith in this thing right here.

And when you know the characteristics of God, when you know the nature of God, when you've been held up by God before, what does that turn into?

That turns into faith because you know, because you know he's gonna held you before and he's gonna hold you up again.

That's the nature of faith, right there.

That's all it is, that's all it is.

The just shall live by faith.

It means trusting in who God is over what I can see.

Because trust me, I've been there.

I'm the planner, right?

I'm the guy who has the backup plan for the backup plan.

I'm the guy who writes the itinerary that nobody else reads.

I'm that guy, okay?

I get it.

And look, sometimes, if I'm being honest, when God is moving in my heart, when God is calling me towards a direction that I don't know the results of, when God tells me to have a conversation with this person, and I don't know how that person is gonna take it, and I have to step out in faith.

Sometimes I get scared, sometimes I have my doubts.

Honestly, like the hand to the Bible.

This is this is how I feel sometimes.

But this is what I can keep going back to.

That he's shown up before, and he's gonna show up again.

That if he called me to do something, he's gonna equip me to do it, he's gonna empower me to do it, and if he's held me up before, he's gonna hold me up again.

That's what I can put my faith into, not what I can see, not the answers or the results I'm anticipating, but his character, his love, his faithfulness.

That's all that is.

That's what Abram had.

He didn't have the masks, he didn't have the results or whatever, right?

He just had a faith, a trust, a belief in the character of God, and he took one next step because of that.

So let me ask you where is God asking you to take one next step of faith?

I get it, I get it.

Asking God to speak into your life can feel scary because it can feel like you're going down the highway at 80 miles an hour and you're letting go of the wheel.

You don't know what's gonna happen next.

It can feel like sometimes asking God to bring his light into areas of our life that we keep tightly managed, that we keep secret from everybody else.

But here's what really makes it not scary is that the God who calls you also goes forward with you.

And maybe you already know what it is.

Maybe as soon as I started talking about trusting in God's character more than what you could see, God has already been doing a work in your heart.

You came in knowing what that next step of faith is.

Don't dismiss it because that's probably where God's leading you.

Because faith is not trusting what you can see, it's trusting who God is.

And as we've been learning though, true faith, faith like Abraham's, it doesn't just stop at a feeling, it turns into action because that's what the nature of faith is.

Because the nature of faith is not, oh, I love this chair, I have my whole confidence in this thing, I'm a right.

A three-page report on this thing.

The nature of faith is action.

It's taking what I believe, it's taking what I trust, and it's turning into movement in my body.

That's what it is.

And I would go so far as to say this that biblical faith always leads to action.

Not sometimes, not most of the times, but biblical faith, faith in the Bible, always leads to action.

And I get it.

I get it.

Especially as like non-denominator, non-denominational Christians, we can be really careful when we talk about like faith and works and like action and all that stuff.

And I fully affirm and I fully believe that salvation is by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

It is by his work, not ours.

It's by putting our faith in his death, his burial, and his resurrection.

Not of our works, not of anything that we can do so that we can boast, but it's all through him.

I affirm that I believe that.

However, sometimes I feel like sometimes we can take it to an extreme where we can use that as an excuse for spiritual passivity.

What do I mean by that?

I mean this.

Abram could have easily said, God, I believe you.

God, you say you're gonna make me a great nation, you're gonna give me offspring, you're gonna give me land, you're gonna make my uh my lineage a blessing to all families of the earth.

I believe you, I put my full trust in you, so I'm gonna stay here in Haran.

God, you do your work.

I'm just gonna put my faith in you.

I know you do it, God.

I know you're good.

He could have just stayed there.

Would have God blessed him?

I don't think so.

Because part of that faith was a belief in his character as God said, Go and go to the land that I will show you.

And his belief and his actions and his next steps happened at the same time.

He took that step of faith because his faith turned into action.

And we see this really lived out in the chapter of Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11, if you don't know, is also known as the Hall of Faith.

In the New Testament, it talks all about people in the Old Testament who lived out their faith, who did not let their faith just be a feeling or just be a thought, but who lived it out and giving demonstrable actions of how they lived it out.

It gives a summary of Abram back in uh Hebrews 11, verse 8.

Hebrews 11:8

It says, by faith, it all starts by faith.

By faith, Abraham, when he was called, he obeyed and he set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance.

He went out, even though he did not know where he was going.

That underlined phrase right there in the last line, he did not know where he was going.

That should give us pause because the faith that the Bible celebrates is not the faith that goes when everything is safe and everything is laid out and everything is risk-free.

The faith the Bible celebrates is the faith that trusts in God's character above what could be seen right here in the now.

When the math doesn't work, when the results haven't shown up yet, when nothing's been confirmed, because faith is an action before it's a feeling.

And I want us to get super practical here for a moment, because the faith that I'm talking about is not primarily a faith that you feel in your chest on a Sunday morning during a worship service.

It's not.

The faith that I'm talking about this morning is the faith that is lived out by the way that your feet move on a Tuesday morning when no one's looking around, before the results have shown up, before you've been confirmed anything else, when the math still doesn't seem to work.

That's the faith that I'm talking about.

So let me ask you this simple question.

What is the step that God's been asking you to take that you haven't taken yet?

Because I want to get super brass tacks here.

I think we can hear a message about faith, and it's so abstract and it's so out there, and we can nod along and say yes and amen.

But then when we walk out and nothing's changed in our lives, I don't want that for you.

Let me give you some real examples of what a step of faith can actually look like in the life of a normal person in a typical week.

It could be reaching out to somebody that you've been meaning to reach out to.

Maybe you know a friend who hasn't been to church in a while and God's been laying on your heart to reach out to them, but you don't know how they're gonna react.

Let me tell you something.

If God's calling you to do that, take a step of faith.

It could be reaching out to a family member that the last time you talked to them, it just things didn't really go well.

But if you feel the spirit moving in your heart, if you feel the God, the call of God in your life, take a step of faith.

Could be as simple as having a faith conversation with a coworker that God's been laying on your heart.

Bringing up Jesus just a little more, go in public with your Christianity at work, maybe an invite to church, even.

And you don't know how they're gonna react.

Are they gonna say, oh yeah, I've been looking for a church?

Or no, don't talk to me about that Jesus stuff.

You don't know.

But remember, the faith that the Bible celebrates is the faith that is doesn't move when it knows how everything it's gonna be.

It's the faith that moves when they put their full confidence in God's calling them for their life.

So take that step.

Have that conversation.

It could be showing up somewhere where you've kind of been hovering around the edge for.

Maybe you've been coming to the church for a good while now and you know this is the place that God is calling you to call your church home, but you're just you don't know how you feel about the whole commitment of it.

Let me urge you if God's telling you this is your church home, come to connect next week.

If that's the direction God wants you to go, turn it into action.

Maybe God's telling you to join a serve team.

God's telling you, use your gifts, use your talents for my glory.

And you don't know exactly all the all the things that come with it.

Let me tell you, take that step of faith if that's the direction God's pointing you.

Show up, take that step.

It could be a financial decision that God's been laying on your heart.

Last week, Pastor Nate preached a great message about generosity.

Don't take what God has been doing in your life, the way the spirit has been flowing and moving, the fire that he's been building in your heart, and just let it sit.

If God is prompting you to do something, even when you don't know the results, trust in his character, trust in his goodness, trust in his faithfulness, not what you can see.

It could be a step as simple as just giving regularly or increasing your giving percentage or starting to tithe.

If God is calling you to do something, he's gonna equip you to do it too.

It could be a conversation you've been avoiding, an apology that you've been meaning to have, but your pride has gotten in the way.

A conversation with your spouse or with your kids about the faith that you know as a spiritual leader in your home you should be having, and God is telling you to do so, but you don't know, you don't know how you're gonna come across, you don't know if it's gonna be awkward or if it's too late.

Let me tell you this: God can work through an imperfect conversation.

You know the conversation that God can't work through?

One that doesn't happen.

So trust in the Lord, trust in his work in your life and take that step.

Finally, maybe it's saying yes to something that scares you.

Maybe it's a leadership role on a serve team.

Maybe it's a group that you've been asked to lead.

Someone says you'd be a great group leader, and you look at yourself and you think, I don't think I could do that.

I don't feel qualified, I don't feel ready, I don't feel like I'm the type of person for that type of thing.

You know who else felt unqualified?

A 75-year-old man who God told you, I'm gonna make a great nation out of you.

But Abram went and he trusted in what who God was more than what he could see.

Let me tell you, all of these things that we're talking about right here, these are not extraordinary acts.

These are not things that are gonna get you placed in a Hebrews 11 hall of faith that are gonna get your name on a plaque somewhere in Fairfield so soon.

These are regular, ordinary things that you can do this week to live out your faith.

From Genesis to Revelation, it's super consistent that God doesn't bless the faith of the people who don't move.

God blesses the faith of the people who trust in his character more than what they could see and turn it into action.

Maybe you already know what step is yours.

It's probably the one that stuck out to you.

It's probably the one that hurt a little bit when I said it.

Hey, don't dismiss it.

Because if God is moving you towards a direction, even if you don't know the results, even if you can't see two steps ahead of you, if that's God moving in your heart, trust in him and he will carry you the rest of the way.

Because faith without a step is just a good idea standing still.

Here's what's on the other side of Abram's steps: a blessing, yes, a son, yes.

But ultimately, ultimately, what started in Genesis chapter 12 culminated the great fulfillment of everything that God promised in Genesis 12, a great blessing, a blessing that would bless all the nations of the earth was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a direct physical descendant of Abraham.

And through Abraham's promise, right here, the greatest fulfillment of everything was that the Son of God came from his lineage.

He came, he lived, he taught, he died, he was buried, he was resurrected so that we could have eternal life.

And now we are recipients of the blessing that God gave Abraham.

And all of that came, all of that came was because 4,000 years ago, one guy took one step of faith.

One guy trusted in God's character more than what he could see.

All of that world-shaking thing happened just because one guy at one time took one step of faith.

And today we have an opportunity to do the exact same thing.

To shake up our lives, to impact our families.

I want to close with just two things for you today.

And I want to get really specific here.

First thing before you leave the room, that I want you to do is ask God to identify one area where you've been entrusting more what you could see more than who He is.

A lot of you, like I said, I have faith that God's Spirit is stirring in your hearts, that God is awakening something in you to identify what that next step of faith looks like.

But if you don't know right now, you know what the Bible says that you can do if you last if you lack wisdom?

Ask.

That's all you gotta do.

The Bible says if you lack wisdom, just ask God and He'll give it to you.

So right now, if you need help identifying where is that next step of faith in my life, I would encourage you just bow your head and start praying.

Ask God right now.

And then, secondly, if you know what that is, take one step of faith this week.

Just one, one step of faith this week.

That's all I'm asking.

I'm not asking you to do a five-year plan.

I'm not asking you to change your whole life around in one day.

I'm just asking you to take one step of faith this week.

One conversation, one decision, one first Sunday on a serve team, one first offering.

It's one step you can take.

Because all it was is one step.

And Abram went, and it changed history.

And one small step of faith today can change the trajectory of your life and impact the life of your family.

Because the just shall live by faith.

Let's join those who are already in prayer right now.