Faith Overcomes Brokenness

So we started something at the beginning of this year, if you're if you're new to his hands, called the whole story.

It's something we've never done before, but we are going through the entire story of the Bible this calendar year.

And uh we just actually finished our first series in that whole story uh series that we're doing all year long.

So what we've done is we've taken the Bible, we've broken it down into 14 different series, and we're gonna be going through these every single Sunday from now until the end of December.

And so here's the 14 series.

We just finished the human project last week.

To get through it, I did the math.

We've got an average like 3.3 uh Sundays per series.

To finish it, we just finished the human project in three.

We're ahead of schedule.

Look at that.3 Sundays ahead of schedule.

And so we're gonna have a great time going through these all throughout the rest of the year.

Really excited about that.

The human project was all about God's first interactions with humanity.

Because the two main characters in the whole story of the Bible is God and human beings.

It's us.

And that's what makes the story of Scripture so amazing.

It's not just a story, it's not just a collection of stories, it's not just history, it's your story.

You're one of the main characters.

Because it's the story of God and people.

And the better we understand scripture, the better we understand God, and the better we understand who we are, and maybe even more importantly, who we're meant to be.

And so as we go through this all year long, some of you are excited about this because you read the Bible constantly.

It's like a big part of your life.

And in fact, if you want to read along, you're not expected to.

That's not the expectation.

There's no homework this year.

It'd be a powerful experience to do it.

We just finished going through Genesis 1 through 12, a little bit into chapter 15.

Um, this next three weeks is gonna take us from Genesis 12, 13 all the way through the end of Genesis.

If you want to read along, you can.

But I also know that there's many people, and you've tried to read the Bible before, you've had those years where you're like, I'm gonna do it.

This is the year, I'm gonna do it, and you start and then you get to the boring parts.

Because let's be, there are boring parts of the Bible.

The Bible was not written to entertain us.

That's not the was not the point of scripture.

Some of those early books like have whole sections that's just this person had this person, who had this person, who had this.

They were like historical records.

It's not exciting to read.

Or you or you maybe you get to some hard stories that sort of make you go, I don't know what this means.

I don't know what the implications of this are.

I maybe don't like the implications of what I'm reading in terms of what it's making me think about God, and I don't know.

You kind of got tripped up on something, or for whatever reason, you just got busy and you stopped and you feel ill-equipped to open up your Bible and just engage with God.

Well, a big thing that's gonna happen this year is we're gonna do away with a lot of that.

Because if you're here for the year, if you follow along, it's okay if you miss a Sunday, you're not gonna get behind every single, every single series and every single Sunday is meant to stand on its own.

But if you're here consistently, I will tell you that you will have a different kind of confidence when you open up scripture.

Because you'll not just know where you're at, you'll know where it's going.

You'll understand what's happening now and what it's setting up.

And and I do believe it will help you be more equipped than ever to understand what you're reading.

Now, what we're at, what we're doing right now is jumping back into where we were last week.

And last week, as we finished this whole exploration of the human project, God's first interactions with humanity, we met someone named Abraham.

Or Abram.

He's called Abram, his name gets changed to Abraham later, so depending on where you're reading about him, it's either Abram or Abraham.

So we're gonna just jump in and get right back into Abram, to Abraham.

Now, as we said last Sunday, God takes a different approach with Abram.

Up to this point, things have not gone particularly well.

Like God creates people and it's paradise, and then it all spirals out of control.

And so God takes Noah and his family and he rescues them from destruction, and you'd think that they'd be like, Yeah, we're gonna do this, we're gonna be faithful to you, God, and that spirals out of control.

Every single person that God has used up to this point, it just continues to spiral out of control.

But God takes a different approach with Abram.

He takes this random guy, not someone of significance, he's not a king, he's not some leader of some great nation or anything like that.

He's just a guy.

In fact, he's a guy who doesn't even have any kids.

And in his culture and his world, that makes you fairly insignificant because the size of your family was a reflection of how much God loves you and blesses you.

He takes this guy and he makes him a promise.

He says, Hey, I want you to go.

I want you to leave your home, leave, leave where you're from, leave your father's land.

I want you to go to a place.

I'm not even gonna tell you where you're going.

I just want you to go, and I'm gonna bless you.

I'm gonna make you into a mighty nation.

We see this in Genesis 12, 1 through 3.

The Lord says, Leave your native country, your relatives, your father's family, go to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make you famous.

You will be a blessing to others, I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

And ultimately that comes through Jesus, who's a descendant of Abram.

God puts this calling on Abram's life, and he says, I'm gonna make you a blessing to others.

I'm gonna call you to live a life that is more significant than just yourself.

You're gonna live for others.

You're gonna be a blessing to others.

The whole world is gonna be blessed through you.

And at this point, you're thinking, man, Abram has to be special.

Like for God to make these kinds of promises to Abram, he had to see something in Abram that was just unique.

This guy must be different than all the people that we've met so far in the story, all the people that keep starting strong and then messing up really, really quickly.

This guy just has to be on a different level because otherwise, why in the world would God call him?

Would God choose him?

Would God make those promises to him?

And so Abram, clearly some really special guy, begins his journey.

And we read this a little bit more in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

It says that Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Morah at Shechem.

And at that time the Canaanites were in the land, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land.

So he built an altar there to the Lord who would appear to him.

From there he went on toward the hills of east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and I on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord, and then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

Now, when you read stuff like this in the Bible, you're like, this is boring.

This is just he's just going places.

This is like describing my drive home, you know, and then I went to publics, and then I went here.

And it doesn't feel very epic, but it is.

It's actually super epic because if you if you understand like the journey that he's on, this is an adventure.

This is not just kind of rounding the corner, going to the next neighborhood.

This is an adventure.

In fact, how familiar are we with the the Indiana Jones movie?

Is anybody like super familiar with the Indiana Jones?

It's kind of an interesting series.

Did you see that they are making a fifth one?

It's coming out.

I know.

I'm not excited.

I looked, I actually looked this up.

Um, Harrison Ford is 80.

And there's nothing wrong with being 80.

Some of us in the room are 80.

It's fine.

You can be 80 and be lots of things.

Um, a globe-trotting adventurer who swings on whips and punches people in the face?

Probably not.

I've never been 80.

We'll see.

There was a fourth Indiana Jones movie that came out about a decade ago.

Did anybody see that?

Did anybody like it?

Okay.

For those of you that did, we'll talk later.

Um, you're free to like what you want to like.

You know, we live in this world right now where where, and I will say Top Gun 2, I do believe was an exception, but like, that's a good movie.

If you didn't like it, that's fine too.

But like, it seems like there's people who make movies that are just bent on taking the things that we loved from years ago and then ruining it.

Just ruining it.

And that's what that's what they're trying to do.

But in my world, in my mind, there's there's only three Indiana Jones movies.

They never made a fourth, they'll never make a fifth.

Those don't exist.

They're never, they're not real.

Um, and really there's only two for me, because like the second one's a little odd if you watch them all.

It's like, but number one and number three, like those two, Raiders of Lost Ark, and whatever the third one's named, I can't remember right now.

Uh, The Last, was it The Last Crusade?

Yeah, let's go with that.

Those are great movies.

And and when in those movies, Indiana Jones would travel from place to place, they had this amazing way of making it feel epic.

This does have a point.

They made it feel epic because they would have, I'll show you, I'll show you what they do.

This is a scene from the very first Indiana Jones movie, and it's just Indiana Jones traveling.

It's so epic, right?

You got the little map, and there's the line, and all he did, he's just sitting in an airplane.

But it feels like you're on an adventure.

And right here he gets to Iraq.

I mean, great, from Iraq all the way to Egypt in Cairo, and you feel like you've just gone on an adventure because of the music.

So I think that maybe Abram had music, maybe there's a whole team of people following behind him, like playing something like that.

I don't know.

But interestingly enough, the exact journey that Abram makes in this is that last leg from that exact scene.

He goes from Iraq, which is where he was from, all the way down to Egypt.

It's over a thousand miles.

And he was not flying on an airplane.

There probably wasn't a team of instrumentalists behind him making it feel epic as he went.

We're reading, and just in just these few verses, we're reading years of his life.

Because he takes a long time to travel on foot with camels from Iraq to Egypt.

Years of his life have gone by, and he's just following the call of God on his life.

And he lands in Egypt.

And then we get the very first story.

The very first real story, real plot point in Abram's story since his calling to be this amazing man of God that's gonna create a nation.

And here's the story.

Here we go.

Again, Abram must be amazing.

He must be an incredible guy.

God's called him, he's made him these promises, he's gotta be special.

Surely, things are not going to spiral out of control, once again.

Foreshadowing.

Alright, here we go.

Genesis 12, 11 through 20.

As he was approaching the border of Egypt, Abram said to his wife, Sarai, look, you're a very beautiful woman.

And it begins like an amazing compliment.

And she's like, Oh, what a sweet moment between Abram and his wife Sarai.

No, no, no.

When the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife, let's kill him, then we can have her.

So please tell them you're my sister.

Then they'll spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you.

And sure enough, when Abram arrived in Egypt, everyone noticed Sarai's beauty.

And when the palace officials saw her, they sang her praises to Pharaoh their king, and Sarai was taken to his palace.

And then Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts because of her sheep, goats, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

And this is not like, hey, this is just a gift.

This is like, I'm gonna marry your sister.

Okay?

But the Lord sent terrible plagues upon Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

So Pharaoh summoned Abram and accused him sharply.

What have you done to me?

He demanded.

Why didn't you tell me she was your wife?

Why did you say she's my sister and allow me to take her as my wife?

Now then, here's your wife.

Take her and get out of here.

Pharaoh ordered some of his men to escort them, and he sent Abram out of the country along with his wife and all of his possessions.

And so you read this and you're like, come on.

This guy's supposed to be different.

This guy's supposed to be special.

He's got this big calling on his life, he's going to be a great nation.

The very first story that we read about him, after his amazing Indiana Jones style adventure, travels, the first story we get is not a story of triumph.

It's not a story of some amazing moment in his life where he conquers something.

It's where he goes, hey, babe, you know how you look really good?

Well, you tell them you're my sister.

That way, you know, they won't kill me.

And yeah, they're gonna marry you and all that goes along with that, which, but, but you know, then I'll be alive and we'll get some camels out of the deal.

You know, it's like, it's horrible.

It's horrible.

It's like instant failure.

Abram does not, he does not level up in our minds when we read this story.

We don't go, man, that guy, that's the guy that I would follow.

That's who I could get behind.

We go, what in the world?

It's like the same thing over and over again.

It's spiraling again.

So, what we're gonna call this three weeks is we're gonna explore this next section of the Bible, is we're gonna call this store, this series Broken Homes.

Broken homes.

Because that's the only thing I can really think of, the only title I can think of that describes what we're going to study as we explore the lives of Abram and his children and his grandchildren and their family.

That's what the rest of Genesis is about.

This one family.

And it is just full of absolute brokenness, terrible decisions, broken family dynamics.

I mean, the level of family drama.

You think you have family drama, and some of us are like, oh, oh, I've got some family drama.

You got nothing on this family, I promise you.

And if you do, then I don't know whether or not to just cry with you or give you an award, because this family, as we're gonna read, I'm talking like family drama, like you cannot believe.

Just Abram alone, and I will say this, Abram is the most mild of those with family drama.

So here we have Abram, like one of the things we just read, right?

He tells his wife to pretend like she's his sister.

This happens, by the way, twice in his life.

He does this again in another one of the places that they go to because it went so well the first time.

He's like, let's do that again.

Now, just so you know, if you want to talk family drama, um, technically he wasn't lying because Sarai was his half-sister.

So he married his half-sister.

But it was 3,000 years ago.

So we just have to go, I guess that happened.

You know, a hundred years ago, I think people married their cousins.

I've heard that.

So I guess if you go 3,000 years, you know, sisters, half-sisters, maybe at least it wasn't his full sister.

We can just say, at least it wasn't that.

But that's a bit of family drama.

Is that your wife or your sister?

Both.

Like, it's not super we're not off to a good start here with Abram.

All right, okay, here's here's a story uh in Abram's life.

He gets his wife's servant pregnant.

But don't worry, it's much worse than you think.

So, Genesis chapter 16.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

They don't have kids yet.

He and Sarai have tried, it hasn't worked.

So, Sarai, Abram's wife, has not been able to bear children for him, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.

So Sarai said to Abram, The Lord has prevented me from having children.

Go and sleep with my servant.

Perhaps I can have children through her.

And Abram agreed with Sarai's proposal.

There is no story of Abram saying, I don't think this is a good idea.

There's no Abram going, babe, is this is this a this is clearly a test, and I know that the answer is no.

It says, Abram goes, good idea.

Like, this is awful.

So Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant, gave her to Abram as a wife.

This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.

So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant.

But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai with contempt.

Then Sarai said to Abram, This is all your fault.

I put my servant into your arms, but now that she's pregnant, she treats me with contempt.

The Lord will show who's wrong, you or me.

And Abram replied, Look, she's your servant, deal with her as you see fit.

Which is awful.

Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away.

This is a terrible story.

And like it's it's partially funny, we we laugh at it because of how ridiculous it is.

But this is brutal.

Like he goes along with it, and then his wife complains, and he's like, you know, do whatever you want.

I don't care.

It's terrible.

And she actually does run away, but God shows up for her.

In fact, if you want to have some interesting study time on your own, God's interactions with Hagar are some of the most interesting and beautiful moments that we have in scripture to see how much God notices us, sees us, loves us, even when nobody else does.

This is messed up stuff.

Like this is family drama.

This is a broken home.

Later on, Sarai does get pregnant.

Now she has a child of her own, then she has a lot of contempt for Hagar and her son Ishmael, and so she encourages Abram to just send them packing.

Hey, just can you just banish them?

You know, your other wife and and your son, and Abram's like, okay.

And so he banishes his baby mama and his son.

This is I'm I'm I'm not trying to make light of this.

This is actually really messed up stuff.

And I want to stop here for a second and address something because sometimes it's when we read things like this in the Bible that we get really tripped up and we have a hard time with it.

And in fact, many people have read stories like this and they kind of go, see, that's why I don't have much interest in scripture.

And I want to explain to you why that is the polar opposite of the way we ought to feel.

For a variety of reasons.

Number one, understand that God does not condone everything that the Bible records.

This is not like how God wanted them to go about it.

This is not God's plan.

This is an example of what we often do with freedom.

So just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean it's something that God is like a big fan of that.

The Bible doesn't condone everything that it records.

But here's what's really amazing to me, and it's so amazing, because it's so the opposite of the world we live in.

Think about how many times in a world that we live in, there's someone of prominence, there's someone who's famous, a celebrity, a politician maybe, and there's this veneer of perfection.

There's this image that they just they do everything right, that they're a virtuous person, and then something comes out, and you find out, oh, actually, this person is like super messed up.

And the veneer and the image, it's all a lie.

And you feel so betrayed and just bewildered, and or maybe anymore you're just used to it, you're like, yeah, figures.

And someone who who used to be celebrated because everyone thought they were amazing, now we find out this person's actually pretty messed up.

That happens all the time in our world.

There's so much effort in our world for people of prominence, for people in power to maintain an image of perfection.

How incredible is it that the Bible never attempts to do that?

Because let's be honest, these are stories that if you were like trying to write your history and make sure that you come out looking good, you'd be like, yeah, we're not gonna put that one in the book.

We're just gonna we're gonna skip the whole Hagar subplot.

That's not making it into this account.

Because it makes us look really bad.

Like really bad.

That's what makes scripture so amazing, so unique, is that it doesn't just record the moments of victory, it's not like a highlight reel at all.

In fact, it records the low points, the ugly parts.

And what this means is that the Bible doesn't lie to you.

God doesn't lie to us in scripture, He's not selling us something, it's not image management, it's brutal and sometimes ugly honesty.

And so there's a level of trust that we can have in scripture that we just can't have in many other things because clearly it's it's being so honest and direct.

And it reminds us of a few things.

Number one, and I've said this many times, and this is something that has encouraged me greatly over the years, the Bible is not the story of amazing men and women doing great things for God.

The Bible is a story of really broken people who are still useful to a God who loves us so much that he's willing to use us in our brokenness.

And so if you're a broken person, you are useful to God.

If you're a broken person, you can still have a destiny and an ability to be used by God to be part of the work that He's doing in this world.

You don't have to be a perfect person, you don't have to be one of the good ones.

You don't have to live in this veneer, this image, and project to the world that you've got it all together because the heroes of the Bible clearly didn't have it all together.

They are broken, they are messed up, it's a bunch of broken homes.

So if you've got brokenness in your life, you're in really good company.

The second thing it reminds us, and I think this is so important, that there are qualities we can possess as people.

Qualities that are so valuable, that are so important, that they can actually allow us to rise above our own brokenness.

We have a phrase in our world today called a saving grace.

And theologically, saving grace would be the grace of Jesus Christ by his death on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin, forgiving us for our sins and our mistakes and all of our baggage and all of our issues.

We've been given grace.

Mercy means you don't get what you deserve, grace means you get what you don't deserve.

We've been given this, given the saving grace, where now we've been included into the family of God, adopted as his own sons and daughters, because of the grace that Jesus has given us through his death on the cross and his resurrection.

That is the theological definition of saving grace.

And if you're a theologian, if I got a little bit of that wrong, just forgive me.

And if you believe in grace, you should have an easy time with that.

So um, but colloquially, like the idea of saving grace in our vernacular is that you know, maybe there's this person and they've got a lot of stuff that's that's really messed up and they're really annoying and frustrating in all kinds of different ways, but there's this one quality, this one thing about them that's like they're saving grace.

And because of that one aspect of who they are, it sort of compensates for the rest.

What we find in these stories, in these broken home stories that we're gonna study this week and in the next few weeks, is that all these people, they're messed up.

I mean, it's jacked up stuff, but we find these qualities, these saving grace qualities that are able to elevate them.

Above their own brokenness.

And for Abram and Sarai eventually too, as she gets there, it's clearly faith.

They're broken, they're messed up, they have all kinds of issues, but their saving grace is their faith.

Hebrews chapter 11 says it was by faith that Abraham obeyed God when called to him to leave his home and go to another land that God would give him as an inheritance.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

He went without knowing where he was going.

And even when he reached the land that God promised him, he'd lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in tents, and so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise.

Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations.

I want you to hold on to that word, pin it in your brain, confidence.

Ask yourself the question what am I, what am I most confident in in my life?

What am I the most confident in?

It says that Abraham was confidently looking forward to what God had promised him.

A city designed and built by God.

It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old.

She believed that God would keep his promise.

So a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead, a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there's no way to count them.

All these people died still believing what God had promised them.

They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and they welcomed it.

Abram and Sarai, eventually Abraham and Sarah, are people of faith.

And faith is vital.

It's a quality that God just adores.

And so I'd like to talk for just a few minutes and share a few truths about faith.

Because if we can be people who live by faith, if we can be people who have even a bit of the faith that Abraham and Sarah end up having in their life, whatever our brokenness is, whatever our messed up stuff is, we can actually find ourselves rising above it as well.

So let's start here.

Faith is really powerful.

Faith is powerful.

Faith is actually really potent.

Jesus actually says this in Matthew chapter 17.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

He says, I tell you the truth, if you had faith, even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it would move.

Nothing would be impossible.

Jesus says, You don't even have to have a lot of faith.

Faith is so powerful, faith is so potent that even a little bit of faith goes a long way.

There are things in this world that are like that that are so concentrated that you just need a little bit to accomplish a lot.

I was actually reminded of this story, and it's one of those stories that I feel kind of bad about.

Um, and I got his permission to share this story.

Chris Harris, usually he sits over there.

Chris, are you here today, out of curiosity?

Or see you watching from home?

Yeah, he said, Yeah, you can tell that story, and he's not here today.

So, Chris, I know you're watching.

He might be serving somewhere, and then I feel really bad.

He's probably helping out in a kid's area or something.

Okay.

So Chris has been part of his hands uh since he was in high school.

I met Chris when he was like 18 years old, and uh we've we became really good friends.

And when I was the youth pastor here years ago, Chris became my right-hand guy.

And so he was about six, seven years younger than me, and Chris just faithful, helped out, showed up every single time we had youth stuff, and he was he was the guy that I counted on for many, many years, and he's still involved here at his hands, does a lot of stuff for us.

Love Chris.

So when Chris was in college, we were we were gonna go grab a bite to eat, and I asked him, Have you ever had sushi?

And he's like, No.

He's like, I know nothing about sushi, but I've kind of always wanted to try.

And I was like, I love sushi, so meet me at this place.

So we go there, and he's like, What should I order?

And I'm like, well, here's what I like, and and we're having a good time.

And they bring us, they bring us the food.

Any sushi lovers in the room.

Like you are anyone who's like, I will never eat sushi, you'll never get you'll never make me do it.

Nothing could ever convince me to put raw fish in my mouth.

Okay.

Well, I used to be one of you, I will say.

And God changed my heart, and it's all good.

Um, hey, Chris, wait, you are there.

You didn't raise your hand.

Hello, sir.

Ah, now I know.

Okay.

He's being stealthy.

Do you remember this story, Chris?

What I'm about to say?

You know where I'm going with this?

Okay, man.

So we get our plates.

And there's this little blob of green stuff on the plate.

And those of you who know sushi know what that is.

Wasabi.

And if you know wasabi, you know that a little bit goes a long way.

So Chris says to me, What's this?

And I said this and I'm being honest.

I was being like playful and I was kind of pranking him, but I didn't really expect what happened next to happen.

So I said to Chris, Oh, that's wasabi.

That's a palate cleanser.

Yeah, you put you put it in your mouth before you eat the sushi, and it really clears your palate so you're able to get all the flavor of the sushi in.

And so Chris just takes the entire green thing of wasabi and goes like and I was watching him like, oh, that just happened.

And he just immediately starts to like cough, like, like, like, and I'm like, oh, I'm so so I'm like, I'm so sorry for what I just did.

Like you trusted me and I have failed you, and I'm so sorry.

And uh it's good.

But but he got through it, ate this.

Do you still eat sushi?

Yeah, okay, we're good.

We're good.

I am really sorry about that, man.

I'm amazed that you still go to church here.

It's incredible.

It's awesome.

Okay.

Like there's some things in the world that are so potent that you know that just a tiny little bit goes a really long way.

Jesus actually describes faith like that.

He says, if you just have the faith, the amount of faith that would be the equivalent of a mustard seed, and mustard seeds are tiny, that amount of faith can move mountains.

Sometimes we feel guilty that we don't have enough faith, and Jesus says, you don't even need that much as long as you have faith in God.

Because one of the biggest mistakes that we make in life is that we put faith in things that can't actually do much for us.

There's a lot of people that have a lot of faith in some really small things.

You might have a lot of faith in your finances, you might have a lot of faith in your abilities and your talents and your plans and your career.

You might have a lot of faith in other people, you might have a lot of faith in like a government or something like that.

But if you put a lot of people laughed, I knew they would laugh when I said that and was like, yeah, right.

Or a candidate.

It's better to have a small amount of faith in something truly powerful than to have a lot of faith in something that's not.

And if your faith is in God, the God of this universe, the God who created everything, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, you don't even have to have a ton of it.

Now, the more you have, the better off you are.

But faith in God is so powerful that even a little bit goes a long way.

Faith is not only powerful, faith is effective.

Like faith accomplishes things.

An interesting story in Matthew chapter 8 says, When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, Lord, my young servant lies in bed paralyzed in terrible pain.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

And Jesus said, I'll come and heal him.

But the officer said, Lord, I'm not worthy to have you come into my home.

Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed.

I know this because I'm under the authority of my superior officers.

I have authority over my soldiers.

I only need to say, go, and they go, or come and they come.

And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it.

And when Jesus heard this, he was amazed.

Turning to those who were following him, he said, I tell you the truth, I haven't seen faith like this in all of Israel.

Jesus was amazed.

Think about what it would be like to amaze Jesus Christ, to blow him away.

There's only two times in Scripture where it actually says that Jesus was amazed.

And once is here, he's amazed at the faith of this man.

The others in Mark chapter 6.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Jesus is in his hometown and he's rejected, and he says that a prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.

And because of their unbelief, because of their lack of faith, he couldn't do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Two times, Jesus is recorded as being amazed, both related to faith.

Faith, it moves the heart of God.

Like maybe nothing else does.

Matthew chapter 9 tells us the story of a woman.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

It's a woman who had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding.

And she came up behind Jesus.

She touched the fringe of his robe, for she thought, if I can just touch his robe, I'll be healed.

And Jesus turned around, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be encouraged, your faith has made you well.

And the woman was healed at that moment.

We might ask the question, well, what healed her?

Jesus or her faith?

And the answer to that question would be yes.

Like he says, Your faith has healed you.

We see Jesus actually say this many times, your faith has made you well.

And it's not Jesus saying that he didn't do it, right?

Again, their faith was in him.

It wasn't just their positive attitude.

He didn't say, your positive vibes have healed you.

But he credits their faith and he lets them know that their faith was enough to produce a result, to have an effect.

Faith is incredibly effective.

Mark chapter 2 says, when Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

And soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors there was no more room, even outside the door.

And while he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat.

They couldn't bring Jesus to him because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head.

They lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus, seeing their faith.

Jesus said to the paralyzed man, My child, your sins are forgiven.

And then he heals the man and he walks.

Jesus saw their faith and it moved him.

And he responded to it.

He says, Your faith has healed you.

Your faith has made you well.

Because of your faith, your sins are forgiven.

Faith, it's powerful, it's potent, but it's also effective.

It does things.

And one of my favorite stories, I don't have this up on the screen, but there's this man who brings his son to Jesus.

And he asks Jesus to heal his son, and he actually kind of does this whole thing, I don't know if he's like baiting Jesus or not, but he's like, you know, if you can.

And I think he's just being really honest.

And Jesus says, What do you mean, if I can?

Don't you believe?

And the man says, I believe, but then he says, help my unbelief.

In other words, he says, kind of.

And I think we can all be honest that there are times in life where if someone asks us, do you believe right now that God is going to help you?

Do you believe that God is going to meet you where you are?

Do you believe that God is going to get you through this?

We would say, I do also not really.

And Jesus doesn't look at him and say, Then get out of here and come back when you fully believe.

Again, even a little bit goes a long way.

Jesus says, Okay, and he heals his son.

And I imagine that man's belief level went up a little bit in that moment.

But Jesus wasn't even bothered by this man saying, I kind of believe.

Even a little bit of faith goes a long way, and faith is effective.

It moves the heart of God.

Faith is also necessary, it's a necessity.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, it says, It's impossible to please God without faith.

Hebrews 11:6

Whew.

That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room.

Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

Anyone who wants to come to him must believe.

John 3, maybe the most famous thing Jesus ever said.

For this is how God loved the world.

He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

God sent his son into the world, not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him, but anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son.

And the judgment is based on this fact.

God's light came into the world, but people love the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

Romans chapter 10, verse 9, if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

John 5, 24, Jesus says, I tell you the truth.

Those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.

They will never be condemned for their sins because they've already passed from death into life.

Faith is a necessity.

It says, God so loved the world, he loves everyone.

His love is unconditional.

But there is this one thing he asks of us, this one, let's be honest, it's like a small thing, too.

It's a low bar.

Like, like, what does God say we need to do, we must do if we're gonna inherit eternal life?

Just believe that he's real, that he exists.

Like, can you imagine that being the prerequisite for anything else you've ever done in your life?

Like all you have, it's like you want to get married, what's the prerequisite?

Just believe that your spouse exists and is real.

If you're like, I don't know if I can do that, you know, like, well, that's a weird relationship.

It's kind of impossible to have a relationship with someone you don't believe in.

And the reality is God loves you.

Even if you're here and you're, I'm I want to be really honest, even if you're here and you're someone who struggles with belief.

And there's a lot of reasons that we struggle with belief.

Sometimes it's because, you know, maybe we're really logical and there's just certain things that don't make sense to us.

Until those things make sense, we're like, I can't quite believe.

Or sometimes we've we've had belief in the past, but then we feel let down, we feel like God didn't show up for us, maybe we had expectations about God that don't match reality, whatever it is, now we struggle with believing.

I believe this with all my heart.

God will meet you where you are.

Because he loves you.

And that's actually the story of Jesus.

It's God meeting us where we are, not God demanding that we come to where he is.

But but all God asks, all God asks of you is to put your trust in him, is to believe.

And if you need something to happen to be able to cross that line, and it's a little bit nuanced because you shouldn't test God.

This isn't about saying, God, I will believe in you if you do X, Y, or Z.

I do know people who have said that and it's worked.

But I couldn't say with confidence as a pastor that that's a good approach to God, like make improvement.

Like, like it's not how it works.

He's God, we're not.

So you can do the whole God, I will believe in you, but I need to see this, this, and that.

You can try it, but he is not obligated to respond to that.

But but more than testing God, I will say this.

I believe with my whole heart that if you truly need something, something to break, to show you that he's real, he will make himself known to you.

And if you have an open heart to him, if you are open to him, if you say in your heart, God, I I'm struggling to believe, like that man who said, help my unbelief, I'm struggling to believe, I just need something to happen.

If that's your heart, I believe you'll be fine.

But faith, belief, it is a necessity.

We have to put our trust in Jesus to step into that love, that relationship that He has for us.

Faith is powerful, faith is effective, faith is necessary.

And Abram is a man who lived by faith.

Let's wrap this up.

Where we see this all come to a head is in maybe one of the most strange stories we have in the entire Old Testament.

Genesis 22.

This may have been a story that you read as a kid and you were like, nah, I don't know about this one.

Sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith.

And by the way, it's okay to test people sometimes.

I actually test my kids.

Parents, you can use this.

Sometimes I just go, I bet they've done something.

And I'll just say to like, especially my oldest kids, hey, I know what happened, and it would really help you out if you just told me about it and told me the truth.

Just like, I'm waiting for the day.

We're like, okay, well, listen, I didn't mean to.

I was like, ah.

It's okay to test people.

All right.

Sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith.

Abraham, God called.

Yes, he replied, here I am.

Take your son, your only son, yes, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah.

Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I'll show you.

It's the second time that God has said, Go, and I'll show you where to go.

Except this time, it's a different thing.

The next morning Abraham got up early.

He saddled his donkey and he took two of his servants with him, along with his son Isaac, and then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering, and set out for the place God had told him about.

And on the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

Stay here with the donkey, Abraham told the servants.

The boy and I will travel a little farther.

We will worship there.

And then we'll come right back.

So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife.

And the two of them walked on together.

Isaac turned to Abraham and said, Father, yes, my son Abraham replied, We have the fire in the wood, the boy said, but where's the sheep for the burnt offering?

Well, God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son.

They both walked on together, and when they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it.

Then he tied his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice.

And at that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, yes, Abraham replied, Here I am.

Don't lay a hand on the boy, the angel said.

Do not hurt him any way.

For now I know that you truly fear God.

You've not withheld from me even your son, your only son.

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket.

So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in the place of his son.

Abraham named the place Yahweh Yireh, which means the Lord will provide.

And to this day, people still use that name as a proverb.

On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

Now, this is a story that throws a lot of people off.

It's like God is asking Abraham to sacrifice his child.

This is barbaric.

That's not what this story is about, though.

This is not a story about a man sacrificing his son.

This is a story about a God providing a sacrifice in place of his son.

It's actually a story foreshadowing Jesus.

I said this a few weeks ago.

Almost every week you're going to see a little bit of Jesus.

Jesus said, You search the scriptures thinking they give you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me.

This is all about Jesus.

I mean, you've got so much imagery.

You've got Isaac carrying the wood on his shoulders up the mountain.

By the way, on this mountain, it will be provided.

Do you know where Jesus was crucified?

That same place.

And so how I don't really know what to do with this, by the way.

This is something I've been pondering for a long time.

It's just a thought.

It's amazing to me that God would never ask us to sacrifice our children.

He would never do that.

He's testing Abraham.

It's not, he doesn't really want Abram to sacrifice.

God would never ask you to do that, but he did it for us.

God did give up his only son.

He gave up his only son as a sacrifice for us.

He's willing to do what he would never even ask us to do.

There's something amazing about that.

The implications of that, they're just incredible.

Hebrews tells us this that it was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him.

Abraham, who had received God's promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son Isaac, even though God had told him Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.

Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God would be able to bring him back to life again.

And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.

So this tells us that it was by faith that Abraham was able to do this entire thing, that Abraham was able to go up the mountain.

He knew what God had promised about Isaac.

He knew it.

And so he knew that this is not what's going to happen.

Either God's going to stop me or he's going to do something crazy.

And he looks at his servants and he says, Hey, we'll be back.

Don't worry, you guys stay here.

We'll be back as he goes up the mountain.

He's not lying to his servants.

He knows they will be back.

One way or another.

And I asked you a few minutes ago to pin this idea of confidence in your mind.

What are you most confident in?

What we learned from Abram is that there's nothing that he's more confident in than God.

So confident in God, and I don't even understand this.

So confident in God that he could go up this mountain, like prepared to do something like that, willing to go all the way to the place that he went, because he was so confident in the promises that God had made him that he knows, he knows it's not going to happen.

I'm not going to lose my son.

God will not go through this.

I know who my God is.

I know that God actually detests child sacrifice.

That's something we learn about God.

All the other cultures around Abraham did that, and God detested it.

He's like, something's going to happen.

I'm confident in God.

There's nothing that Abraham was more confident in than God.

And so he doesn't lose his son.

Isaac goes on to be the son that he had hoped that he would have, and Abraham's line continues through his son, and we get all the way to Jesus eventually.

But this story highlights for us just how confident, just how confident Abraham was in God.

On top of that, there are things that we're gonna see in the story and in the stories to come.

These saving grace and qualities that are able to lift these people up from their brokenness and make them incredibly useful to God and allow them to be this really special part of what God is doing in the world.

And faith happens to be one of those.

What would it be like if we were people of faith, like genuine people of faith?

And I know I know so many of you, I'm looking at you, you are.

I'm not saying you're not, I'm not accusing you, but I've learned that I can never have too much faith.

There are things that you can have too much of.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

That does not apply to faith.

You can never have too much faith.

You can never put too much trust in God.

And what if this year, what if you could get to a place where you could say there's nothing I'm more confident in than God?

I am more confident in God than I am in myself.

I am more confident in God than I am in those around me.

I'm more confident in God than I am of my own plans, my own opinions, my talent, my intelligence.

What would it be like to put it all on God?

I I once read something where someone said, God loves it when we don't have a plan B.

He just loves it when it's all on Him.

When our hope is not God, and then if He doesn't work out, I've got this and this, but it's all on God.

And I have had seasons in my life where there was like, God, you've got to do something.

There's nothing I can think of, there's nothing I can do, and God has never disappointed me.

Doesn't mean it hasn't been hard, doesn't mean there haven't been challenges.

God never promises us a life without problems and challenges, but he always promises to be there with us when we go through them.

What would it be like this year?

Even just this week, if you could confidently say, I believe in God, and I believe in him more than I believe in anything, and I trust him more than I trust anyone, and I'm putting all my faith in him.

For all of his horrific qualities, for all of his messed up baggage, for all of the brokenness in his life, Abraham believed in God.

And his faith, that belief, lifted him out of his brokenness and made him a person of significance in the eyes of God.

That's powerful.

That's something all of us can learn from.

So be a person of faith.

Be a believer.

Jesus says in Mark chapter 9, verse 23 that anything is possible if a person believes.

Mark 9:23

Anything is possible if a person believes in Jesus.

Be a believer.

Believe more, believe greater.

Your belief in Jesus will never disappoint you.

It won't.

Your belief in just about anything else will, but it won't with Jesus.

And if you struggle with belief, if you need something to happen for you to believe, ask God to give you what you need.

And I believe that He will.

Be a believer.

And let your belief and your faith lift you out of your brokenness because that's what it does.

That's what it did with Abraham.

That's what it will do with you.

As we wrap up, let's take Lord's Supper to kind of seal this in our minds.

If you didn't grab one of these on your way in, you can do it at the back of the room.

You're never going to mess things up by doing this.

I want to say that every week because sometimes I think some of us are like, oh, I didn't get one.

I guess I'm stuck.

You're not stuck.

You know, in many ways, this little meal that we take, which is symbolic of the sacrifice that Jesus made, if you're new to this, this bread represents his body that was broken on the cross, the juice represents his blood that was spilled.

This reminds us of a moment when Jesus had to put all of his confidence in God the Father.

Before he was arrested, Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and he prayed, Father, if there's any other way, get me out of this.

If there's any other way than me dying on the cross, show me, because I don't want to do this.

Who could blame him?

But then he pauses and he says, Yet not my will but yours.

In other words, he says, You know, all the thoughts that I'm having, I'm confident in you, God.

I put my trust and my confidence in your plan.

And we might think for a moment, well, that didn't really work out for Jesus.

It actually did.

Because yes, he went to the cross, and yes, he died, but it didn't end there because he rose again with a new life.

And he actually says, Scripture teaches us that because of what Jesus went through, he is now the name above all names.

That because he was obedient even to the point of death, that God has lifted him up and given him all authority in heaven and on earth.

That worked out really well for Jesus.

But there was a moment in his life where he had to put all of his confidence in God, and this meal is connected to that moment.

And as we take this this morning, this can be a moment for us just to reiterate, maybe for the first time, or maybe it's something you just need to recommit to in your heart that I am putting my confidence in you, God, just like the man who I follow had to.

So with that in mind, let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this bread and for what it represents.

The body of your son broken on the cross for us.

Lord, give us the same kind of confidence in you that Jesus displayed when he died as a sacrifice for us.

Let's take the bread.

Pray for the juice.

Lord, this juice represents the blood.

It's your blood, Jesus.

It's precious.

You provided a sacrifice for us.

You hinted about that with Abraham and Isaac.

But you went through with it.

Jesus, you allowed yourself to be sacrificed on the cross to pay for our sins.

And that surrender that you displayed on the cross, and the trust and the confidence that you had in God the Father, Lord Jesus, give us the same trust and confidence.

So that as we live our lives, we can obey, we can follow, we can stay strong even when we struggle with doubt.

Thank you for all you've done for us, for paving the way for us to have a relationship with our God.

We love you, Jesus, and we're grateful.

Let's take the juice.