The Faith and Patience of Abraham and Sarah (1)

Welcome to the Christ Life Ministries Podcast. We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Olubi

Johnson. For more information about this podcast and our other resources, please visit sbcconline.org.

God bless you. Today we are going to continue our series on the faith and patience of the

patriarchs like Abraham and Sarah. Let me say this at the onset. The biblical characters whose

lives have been recorded in the scripture are prophetic pictures, types and shadows that were

written for our benefit. I've said it many times and I'm going to keep saying it with all boldness

by the grace and the mercy of God. We are supposed to replicate what we see them do and go beyond it.

Do better than them. In fact, far better because the scripture says we are living in the New

Testament that is established upon better promises. We are living in a better time in history than any

of the biblical characters including those of the New Testament. In the days of Paul and John and

Jesus, they didn't have all we have today. Electricity had not been discovered. They didn't

have all the digital technology that we have today. At the tip of my finger, I can see 5-10

translations of the Bible. I can look immediately and get the Greek and the Hebrew, the original

meanings. They didn't have that privilege. There is a depth of revelation and understanding that

we possess today that our fathers never possessed. It was part of the plan of God that this end-time

generation would be the ones that would consummate, complete, and perfect the plan of God.

And the Bible says, everybody just turn with me quickly to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Very,

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

very important and instructive scripture. Hebrews chapter 11. And the Word of God tells us in,

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

first of all, look at verse 13, I believe it is. Verse 13. Hebrews 13, excuse me, Hebrews 11,

not 13. Hebrews 11, firstly verse 13. If you're here with me, these are great scriptures. The

Bible says they all, talking about Enoch, Abraham, all the early patriarchs, they all died in faith,

not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, they saw it by revelation,

were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims

upon the earth. What promise, I want to zero in on Abraham, did God give Abraham that he never saw

in his lifetime? It was not the promise of the birth of Isaac. He saw that one. But the day he

took Isaac to Mount Moriah, and raised that knife, and was ready. It's not a figure of speech. He

meant it. He was ready to kill the boy. His faith was so strong, because it was built, the God who

made his body to become alive at the age of hundred, and rejuvenated the womb of Sarah, his

wife, and renewed her youth. We're going to see that. He can raise him from the dead. He was fully

persuaded. Now let me tell you something, if he had not gotten the promise of Isaac, he would never

have the faith to be able to deliver him up. That is why, as Christians, we go from faith to faith. You

must first of all use one level of faith, get the answer, before you can move to a higher level of

faith. The Bible says, he received him in the faith. He was ready to see how God is going to raise this

thirty-something year old. And he wasn't a child though. He was in 20s, 30s. Raise up this thirty-something year old

man. And then the Bible says, God began to speak from heaven. These are the promises he never got. He

said, your seed will possess the gates of their enemies. Abraham never saw it. And in your seed

shall all the nations be blessed. Abraham never saw it. These all died in faith, not having received

the promise. He saw it afar off. May I enlighten you by the grace and the mercy of God. At the time

God spoke to Abraham, they didn't even know all the nations of the earth. Even the nations. All they knew

was a little bit of North Africa, you know, Asia, little bits of Europe, finish. They thought that was

the whole world. They didn't know Nigeria or beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. All that hadn't yet come out. You know,

they didn't know North America, South America, Australia, Oceania. All spaces were totally unknown. But they were there.

And there were people there. When were, when sister Bidemim was so beautifully singing that song, you know,

Baruch Hashem Adonai, said, we who are the remnant of nations. And I almost started crying. And being honest, I'm all emotional.

But there was such an anointing, you know. And this came to me. It came in Yoruba. You know, Yoruba is not my first language. I speak Yoruba

quite well, but not too well, you know, because my first few years, I spoke only English. It was later on around five, six, I started speaking Yoruba.

You know, and, but it came to me Yoruba. And I said, Lord, what are you telling me? He said, who would have told your forefathers 200 years ago

that you would be standing here today,

worshiping God, knowing the Bible, knowing the covenant to the degree that you know it. He said,

even the early missionaries like David Brennan and all those guys who came 100, 200 years ago,

if you told them that this is the degree to which we know this, they won't believe.

Just take your mind back to 200 years, 200, 300 years ago, this very spot that I'm standing on

was probably a forest where they were making sacrifices, killing human beings, sacrificing

to the devil and doing all kinds of things. Our forefathers were uneducated, illiterate,

heathen, a remnant of nations. And if you had told them that in just a few generations,

just a few generations, your own children will know the Bible as well as and better than the

white man, he would not have believed. He would not have believed.

What am I saying? I'm saying that God's promises are sure. However impossible it looks at the time,

they are certain. Now it gives me verse 39 of Hebrews 11. Then Pastor OJ is going to speak to

us about Abraham and Sarah. Verse 39, these all, I didn't hear you, I didn't hear you,

I did not hear you, turn to your neighbor and say, who are they all?

Who are they all? Start naming them. David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, all, all, all, all.

And because we're reading now in retrospect, it was Paul who wrote this,

this all now includes Paul and John. And all of them, these all, all of them,

having obtained a good report through faith, none of them received the promise.

Not one of them received the promise, particularly the promise of perfection,

the promise of the full. They didn't receive it, they saw it. Paul said, I pressed toward the mark,

but they never got it. Verse 40, verse 40.

Verse 40, God, God having provided some better thing, we, we, we're better than these guys.

We're not better than them as people, don't misunderstand me. We're not better than them

as honesty and humility, but in terms of the time in history in which we're living in,

and the, what is available to us, God provided something better, better education, better Bibles,

better knowledge of God, watch this, better scientific knowledge, better technology.

There's understanding we have now because of the things that have been made.

The Bible says the invisible things of him are clearly seen, being understood by the things

that are made. There are many things you could not understand until something that was made

that looked like it. I understand spiritual laws now and things because radio and television

waves have been made, so I understand how something can be real and yet unseen.

I understand how a radio wave, a television wave can come through the wall and enter this

microphone and enter this computer. Now, I understand how Jesus walked through the wall.

That generation didn't understand that because what had been made to, what, what needed to be

made, what needed to be made to make them understand it had not yet been made.

I don't know where, who's tracking with me?

I never said church is spiritual school. You can't leave your brain behind.

Go back to Hebrews. I'm going to blow your mind.

Tell your neighbor, say, our minds need blowing. There's plenty of dust in them.

Having provided some better thing for us, that they, they who, all of these people, without us

should not be made perfect or the word is complete. I said, Lord, what does that mean?

What does that mean? And he told me one day, he said, they are all watching from heaven.

Today, our Daily Rayman was cloud of witnesses. It's very true. For every time we have service,

the saints gather in heaven. They want to hear what we have to say.

Don't you see? I want to ask, do you understand that too? See, see, see, see, see what Pastor OJ is preaching.

Yeah, so this is not pie in the sky. It's reality. They, without us, should not be made perfect.

All the promises that they did not receive, they saw them. All the things they did not do,

they, they heard about them. It is us who is going to do it. So they are watching to see

that without us, they cannot be perfect, made complete. You know why? The Lord told me,

he said, when you've completed on the earth,

the reward that they should get, had it been in their time, but it was not in their time,

that you get will now be what it was we get. They are not going to be rewarded based on the

time in history. They're going to be rewarded based on the same level of faith, the same level

of honesty and humility of heart. So a person who lived in 1563, who did not have the privilege

of knowing what we know now and entering into perfection, you have the same level of

honesty and humility of heart. You break into perfection. You inherit it. When you inherit it,

everything you inherit, God on judgment day will say, is exactly what he's going to get.

So that God can be perfect, can be just. That they, without us,

that's why we must finish. We must not just finish, we must finish well. We must not just

finish, we must do better than they did. For us to live below what they did is to

cut the expectation of the heavens.

Yeah, did they get it? Are you tracking with me? Don't worry, you can get it. You can go back home,

listen to it on YouTube, because all these things, they're a little bit,

they, without us, cannot be made complete. So they're looking every day, whenever we have service

like this, the ones on earth don't value, but the guys in heaven, they know what's going on.

Ah, what are they going to say again today? How far have they gone? Have they entered perfection yet?

Yet, the courts of heaven are filled with excitement and expectation,

waiting for a company that will break through. That's why it's called the breakthrough company

in Micah chapter 2, verse 13. The breaker company that will break through and say, aha!

Micah 2:13

Then they say, yes, now my reward is certain, because they have broken through,

because they, without us, should not be made complete. I present to you, Pastor OJ,

faith and patience of Abraham and Sarah.

I have a prophetic message for you today, drawn from the life of two of the most

instructive figures in the entire canon of scripture, a man and a woman, whose journey

from promise to fulfillment spans 25 years, three continents of human experience, and the full range

of faith, from hesitant obedience to breathtaking surrender. I'm speaking of Abraham and Sarah.

The story is preserved, not for our admiration. It is for our instruction. It is a pattern,

and patterns are meant to be walked. Paul writes in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 12, with a directness

Hebrews 6:12

that strips away every comfortable abstraction, that you be not slothful, but followers of them

who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. Be not slothful. Do not be spiritually

lazy. Do not coast. Do not admire from a distance the faith of those who have gone before you,

and imagine that admiration is the same thing as imitation. Be followers. The Greek word carries

the sense of deliberate mimicry of intentional reproduction of them who, through faith and

patience, inherit the promises. Two words carry the entire weight of that sentence,

faith and patience, not faith alone, because faith without patience becomes presumption,

the dangerous confidence that acts on the promise before God has appointed the time,

and not patience alone, because patience without faith degenerates into resignation. It is the

marriage of these two qualities that produces the conditions in which God's promises are inherited,

and no two lives in scripture demonstrate that marriage more vividly than Abraham and Sarah.

Paul himself returns to this in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 15, with the sentence I want to carry

Hebrews 6:15

as our anchor through today's message. After he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

That sentence is the destination. Every stage of the journey we are about to walk through is a stage

on the road toward the moment when that sentence could finally be written over Abraham's life,

and as we walk it, I want you to hear it as a sentence being written stage by stage, test by

test, year by year, over yours. After he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

Before Abraham was a patriarch, he was a pagan. Enter Ur of the Chaldees, one of the most

sophisticated cities in the ancient world, steeped in idolatry from the floor to the ceiling. There

was no written word. There was no covenant community. There was only a conscience, the

innate moral compass that God has placed within every human being, and a man who for 75 years

had been following it faithfully in the dark. Paul explains in Romans chapter 2, verses 14 and 15,

Romans 2:14

that when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law,

the work of the law is written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness. God evaluates

the inner disposition. He works with those who are upright and responsive to the moral compass

he has placed within them. And in Abraham, he found a man who had been doing exactly that,

not perfectly, but honestly for the whole of his adult life. 75 years of obscurity,

no dramatic encounter, no angelic visitation, no burning bush, just a man obeying his conscience

in the small things that no one was recording. And then God spoke. God does not call the perfect.

He calls the honest. Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. Now the Lord had said unto Abraham,

Genesis 12:1–3

Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I

will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name

great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that

curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. There is something that must

be noticed immediately about this call. God does not tell Abraham where he is going. He says, unto

a land that I will show thee. The destination is withheld. The route is undisclosed. The timeline

is unspecified. Paul confirms this in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 8. By faith, Abraham, when he

Hebrews 11:8

was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he

went out, not knowing whither he went. That is the essence of biblical faith. Obedience in the absence

of complete understanding. Movement initiated not by a map, but by a voice. The promises attached

to this obedience were staggering. A great nation, a blessed name, and the blessing of all families

of the earth, channeled through his lineage, made to a 75-year-old man with no children and a barren

wife. 75 years of obscurity were not wasted. They were the qualification. Genesis chapter 12, verse 4.

Genesis 12:4

So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 70 and

five years old when he departed out of Haran. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him.

No recorded deliberation, no request for additional confirmation, no negotiation about the terms.

The call came, and he went. This immediate obedience is the foundation on which everything

that follows is built. God's dealings with Abraham were progressive. Each act of obedience

would unlock a deeper revelation, a more specific promise, a greater intimacy. The man who went out

not knowing where he was going would eventually know God as no man before him had known him.

But it began here with a departure into the unknown, secured by nothing but the word of a God

he had only recently begun to hear. There is a word here for every person who is today at the

beginning of a journey God has initiated. The obedience God requires is not a comprehensive

understanding of where this is going. It is a departure, a step, a leaving behind of what is

familiar enough to follow what is true. Abraham's 25-year inheritance began with that single step.

So does yours. Abraham's departure from Haran was not without complications of his own making.

He brought his nephew Lot. God had said, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred.

Kindred includes Lot. But Abraham carried his nephew with him, an act of human sentiment

rather than divine consultation. And Lot throughout his time with Abraham functions in the

narrative as a warning and a mirror. He was a man who attached himself to the blessings of the covenant

without a direct personal relationship with the God of the covenant. He benefited from Abraham's

anointing without carrying his own. When the land could not support both their herds and strife

arose between their herdsmen, Abraham's character was laid bare. He could have asserted his rights

as the elder, the patriarch, the one to whom God had actually spoken. Instead, he offered Lot the

first choice of the land. Genesis chapter 13 verses 8 through 11. And Abraham said unto Lot,

Genesis 13:8–11

let there be no strife. I pray thee between me and thee and between my herdmen and thy herdmen,

for we be brethren. It is not the whole land before thee, separate thyself. I pray thee from me.

If thou will take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if thou depart to the right hand,

then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan,

that it was well watered everywhere. Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah,

even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zohar, then Lot

chose him all the plain of Jordan. Lot lifted up his eyes and chose by sight. He saw the well-watered

plain, lush, productive, commercially promising, and took it without hesitation. Abraham went the

other way. And immediately after Lot departed, God spoke to Abraham, lift up now thine eyes

and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all

the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever. The one who released

chose by faith. The one who grasped chose by sight. And what the one who released received

made what the one who grasped appeared trivial by comparison. Faith chooses by the spirit.

Greed chooses by sight. Lot went one way. Abraham went deeper. There is a consistent principle here

that runs through the whole of scripture. The believer who holds his possessions, his rights,

and his position loosely, who releases when God says release, is always the one who receives the

greater portion. Not because God rewards passivity, but because the open hand is the hand

God can fill. Abraham's gracious release of Lot was the posture of a man who had settled the

question of his source. God was his portion. What Lot took was not what Abraham needed because

Abraham's supply did not come from Lot's direction. Abraham's integrity was tested again after the war

of the kings in Genesis chapter 14 when he rescued Lot and refused the spoils offered by the king of

Genesis 14 · chapter mention

Sodom. Lest thou shouldest say I have made Abram rich. This was not false modesty. It was a strategic

declaration of dependence. Abraham would not allow any earthly king to claim credit for what God alone

was providing. His encounter with Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of the Most High God,

opened a prophetic dimension of breathtaking significance. Paul unpacks this in Hebrews

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

chapter 7. Abraham's tithe to Melchizedek legally established the superiority of the Melchizedek

priesthood over the Levitical order that would come centuries later. God is a master of the long

game and he was inviting Abraham into the same long-term perspective that governs his own purposes.

The most theologically dense moment in the first half of Abraham's journey occurs in Genesis chapter

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

15. The promises have been given. Abraham has obeyed, released Lot, refused the king of Sodom,

tithe to Melchizedek and yet he has no son. The years are passing. He and Sarah are aging and

God comes to him in a vision. Fear not Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.

Abraham responds with candor, Lord God what will thou give me seeing I go childless? He names the

gap between the promise and the present reality without dressing it in religious language and to

this honest wrestling God responds not with rebuke but with revelation. Genesis chapter 15 verses 4

Genesis 15:4–6

through 6 and behold the word of the Lord came unto him saying this shall not be thine heir but

he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir and he brought him forth abroad

and said look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them and he said

unto him so shall thy seed be and he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness

enter this night God brings Abraham outside the tent and tells him to look up count the stars

if they'll be able to number them so shall thy seed be and Abraham believed God. Paul quotes this

in Romans chapter 4 verse 3 one of the most theologically significant statements in the Old

Romans 4:3

Testament he believed in the Lord and it was counted to him for righteousness the word translated

counted carries the sense of a deliberate ledger entry a formal act of reckoning God opened the

books and made an entry faith credited as righteousness not performance not the accumulated

merit of 75 years of conscience following faith the act of looking up at an impossible promise

and choosing to believe the one who made it Paul unpacks the mechanics of this in Romans chapter 4

Romans 4:18–21

verses 18 through 21 Abraham considered not his own body now dead neither yet the deadness of

Sarah's womb he did not pretend the impossibility did not exist he simply refused to make it the

governing reality of his thinking I will repeat that Abraham did not pretend the impossibility

did not exist he simply refused to make it the governing reality of his thinking instead he gave

glory to God fully persuaded that what God had promised God was able also to perform his attention

was directed not to the evidence of the senses but to the character and capacity of God and that

redirection of attention sustained in faith was what God credited as righteousness he considered

not his own body he considered God and God considered that righteousness this is the

covenant confirmed that night sealed with the passing of the smoking furnace and the burning

lamp between the pieces of the sacrificed animals a covenant of blood of divine solemnity sworn by

God upon his own existence and the promise is extended 400 years of affliction in a land not

their own and then a return and an inheritance Abraham is being given not just the promise of a

son but the outline of centuries God is a master of the long game and he is inviting Abraham into

the same long-term perspective that governs his own purposes years pass the covenant of the stars

has been confirmed with solemnity and blood the promise is more specific than it has ever been

a son from Abraham's own body and still there is no child and in that gap between the specific

promise and its continued non-appearance something begins to move in Sarah that will produce one of

the most consequential decisions in the history of the human race Genesis chapter 16 verses 1 through

Genesis 16:1–4

4 now Sarai Abraham's wife bear him no children and she had a handmaid an Egyptian whose name was

Hagar and Sarai said unto Abram behold now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing I pray thee

go in unto my maid it may be that I may obtain children by her and Abram hearken to the voice

and Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian after Abram had dwelt 10 years

in the land of Canaan and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife and he went in unto Hagar

and she conceived I want you to notice something carefully Sarah's proposal begins with an honest

assessment the Lord hath restrained me from bearing she is not denying the promise she still

believes God has spoken what she is doing is deciding that she can help God fulfill it by

providing a different vehicle than the one he intended this is the anatomy of impatience not

unbelief in the promise but the refusal to wait for God's method the faith is genuine the patience

has run out and from that combination Ishmael is born every Ishmael is born of a faith that believed

the promise but could not wait for the method Abraham hearken to the voice of Sarai he did not

seek God he did not bring the proposal before the altar he simply agreed and the consequences of that

agreement are still unfolding today the strife between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants

of Ishmael one of the most persistent conflicts in human history traces its origin to this single

domestic decision in a tent in Canaan when we attempt to fulfill God's promises through human

engineering and fleshly impatience the consequences can reverberate through generations we will never

meet what followed in the household was immediate and painful Hagar conceived and began to despise

Sarah Sarah responded with harshness the household was thrown into conflict Hagar fled an angel found

her in the wilderness and sent her back and Ishmael was born not the promised son but a son

who would always know he was not the promised son and whose descendants would always contest

the inheritance they were denied this is what presumption produces not nothing Ishmael was real

Ishmael was alive Ishmael was in some sense a blessing but he was not Isaac and the difference

between Ishmael and Isaac is the difference between what the flesh can manufacture and what God alone

can produce faith believes the promise patience endures the process true inheritance requires both

there is a word here for every believer who has made an Ishmael decision who has moved ahead of

God's timing and produced something close to but not precisely what God intended the Ishmael you

have produced does not disqualify you from Isaac but you must be honest about which is which

the flesh produced result and the spirit produced promise will always be intention

not because God is punishing you but because they belong to different orders of origin

the way forward is not to disown the Ishmael the way forward is to stop looking to Ishmael

to fulfill what only Isaac can accomplish after the birth of Ishmael something changes in the

narrative Abraham is 86 when Ishmael is born the next recorded divine encounter does not come until

Genesis chapter 17 when Abraham is 99 between those two chapters there is a silence spanning

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

approximately 14 years no vision no angelic visitation no altar encounter no word from heaven

this silence was not abandonment the covenant was still in force Abraham was still in the land what

had withdrawn was the communion God was waiting for Abraham to come to the full end of his self

effort and arrive at the place where he was ready to receive what could only come by divine power

divine silence is not divine absence it is divine discipline there are believers today who are in a

season of silence of their own you received a promise you walked in it for a season there was

intimacy conversation the regular confirmation of the spirit and then something happened perhaps

a decision made in impatience perhaps the natural consequence of an Ishmael that needed time to

reveal what it was and the communion went quiet God has not left the covenant has not been revoked

but the intimate voice has withdrawn and the silence is the discipline if you are in that

silence today hear what happened at the end of Abraham's 14 years God broke it he always breaks

the silence the question is whether the believer has arrived by the time he does at the posture

that can receive what is being offered Genesis chapter 17 verse 1 thank you for listening to

Genesis 17:1

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