FOLOWING OUR
FAITHFUL FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS
"I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward" Genesis 15:1
Introduction
In the following we are going to be
looking at how God developed Abraham’s faith in Him. We should be mindful that
Abraham didn’t become a pillar of faith one morning when he woke up! It was God
who shaped and sculpted his faith, the same way He patiently moulds and
conforms ours. God takes a lump of dirty old clay, which is you and me, and
throughout our lives He gently carves it into a model of His Son. As He did for
Abraham so He does for us: God develops our faith.
We’ll see that God develops our faith
patiently. He is patient with us because His understanding is so far above ours
that we can never learn everything all at once. And because our understanding
of God, as individuals, is so sadly lacking we need to listen to what God is
saying with extreme care.
God’s Patience
How does God develop an individual
believer’s faith? Well, He does it with Godly patience. We see something of
God’s love and patience by the way He approaches His children. We never hear
Him say to us, “Look! I’ve told you once and I won’t tell you again.” No. He is
patient with all of His children. He bends over backwards to demonstrate His
trustworthiness. If we can’t trust the One who made us to look after us, then
we can trust no one.
God reassures His children just as he
reassured Abraham. One way He reassures us of His faithfulness is by His Word.
All through Scripture we see God make promises. And all through Scripture we
see God keep and fulfil His Word. God is always true to His Word. Therefore, we
can have faith in Him because He is faithful to His promises. He is reliable.
He perseveres.
Our faithful father Abraham trusted the
Word of God as it was spoken to Him. As Christians we find great comfort in the
written Word of God because, like the Word of God Himself, it is equally
dependable. It was written by our God who is faithful.
Abraham lived in a time long before the
Bible, the Word of God, was completed. In those days God spoke to His children
mainly in voices and in visions. In Genesis 15:1, as we have already seen, we
see that, “The Lord came to Abram in a vision.” There’s Abraham, or Abram, as
he was known at that time, sitting in his tent, or whatever. He’s probably
thinking about the great victory he had just had over the four kings. He might
have been thinking about Melchizedec, the mysterious character who had brought
him bread and wine, and had blessed him. Melchizedec reminded Abram that it was
God the Possessor of heaven and earth who had delivered his enemies into his
hand. And Abram had given Melchizedec the priest of God the Most High a tenth
of all he had. We see in this deed that Abram put his faith into action.
God says in Malachi 3:10, “Bring all the
tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house.” When it comes
to giving back to God what He has given to us we are invited to test Him to
see, says the Lord of Hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
and pour out a blessing that there will be no room enough to receive it.” The
Lord then goes on to say, “All nations will call you blessed, for you will be a
delightful land.” The Lord is faithful
and His Word is our constant reminder.
However, the Lord is also patient with
us as He develops our trust in Him. “Do not be afraid,” The Lord said to Abram.
How many times has the Lord said those words to His children? “Do not be afraid
Isaac, Do not be afraid Israel, Do not be afraid Moses, Do not be afraid,
Joshua, David, Mary, John” or whoever. Who could forget the words spoken
through the prophet Isaiah, “‘Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I
will help you,’ says the Lord.” Do you get the impression that God is trying to
tell us something? We need to learn not to be afraid but to really trust in God
for all things. Jesus says that we are to seek first the kingdom of God and all
these things shall be added to us. “Do not fear little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
As with all of God's children, Abram's
faith in the Lord needed to be strengthened and developed. “The word of the
Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your
shield, your exceedingly great reward.’” When the Lord’s your Shepherd you
shall want for nothing! We have everything in Christ Jesus. But for all that,
Abram's heart’s desire is to have his own son. He tells the Lord, “Look, you have
given me no offspring.” Here, once again, we see the great patience of the
Lord. He promises Abram that he will have a son of his own.
It was the Word of God that came to
Abram. And it was by His Word that God assured Abram of His blessings. It’s by
His Word that God assures all of His children. That He is the Fount of all
Blessings. God is the Possessor of heaven and earth. All of creation belongs to
Him. All of creation testifies to God’s faithfulness, The sun faithfully rises
and sets on time because God is faithful.
How many stars can be seen by the naked
eye without a telescope, five thousand or more? How many grains of sand are on
a beach? More than five thousand? The Word of God elsewhere compares the amount
of stars in the sky with the amount of grains of sand on a beach! How could
anyone possibly know this before the age of telescopes, even Hubble telescopes?
Abraham was unable to number the stars in the sky just as no one can number the
grains of sand on a shore. Abraham is the father of the faithful and the
faithful are without number! John on the Island of Patmos wrote of his vision,
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could
number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne
and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their
hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Revelation 7:9.
We see that the Lord was patient with
Abraham and that His Word is true and dependable. Isn’t it wonderful how the
Lord patiently develops the faith of His children?
God’s Promises
God develops our faith patiently because
His understanding of things is different to our understanding. God knows that
we are fallen, finite and fallible human beings. With our limited knowledge we
tend to view everything in human terms and not in God’s terms. In other words,
human beings tend to be man-centred and not God centred. God said in Isaiah, “‘My
thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9. Clearly God has a different way of looking at
things than you, me and Abraham.
We are never that sure how God will
accomplish the things He has promised. We might get the general idea of what
God proposes. It’s when we try to figure out how God is going to do such and
such a thing that we begin to prove that our ways are not His ways!
Abram perceived a practical problem and
focused his attention on it. In fact he was preoccupied with it. “Lord God what
will you give me, seeing I go childless?” To paraphrase, “I'm not getting any
younger and I want a son so bad!” We know that this was a problem to Abram because
of what happened later on with Sarah’s maid Hagar. Abram knew the Lord, and he
knew the Lord’s promises. Yet he continued to focus on the thing he wanted most
– a child! This is where we can be thankful that God is patient with us because
this is where we tend to get side-tracked. We need to realize that our
understanding is limited, whereas God has infinite understanding.
We tend to focus on that which directly
concerns us, whereas God is unfolding a plan which concerns all of creation. God
would have us focus our undivided attention on Him, “You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Yet we take our eyes
off of Him whenever we imagine we need something to make our lives more
complete. The Lord is everything we need. We are told to, “Be content with such
things as you have, for He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor
forsake you.’” And the Apostle Paul could say, “I have learned in whatever
state I am, to be content.”
There was nothing wrong with Abram
longing for a child, in the sense that it is normal for a married man. The fact
is that God has said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” This is all in the context of
marriage, of course. Abram’s preoccupation about having a child was causing him
to miss the full depth and implication of what the Lord was saying. In other
words, Abram was placing too much emphasis on his own ability to produce the
offspring that God had promised him. Abram would be thinking, “Lord, You’ve
promised to make me the father of a great nation. But don’t we need to hurry
things up a little bit? I’m not getting any younger. Look at me, I go
childless.”
It was God’s revealed will that Abram
have a child, but Abram should have been letting God worry about bringing His
will to pass. In this we see how our understanding and God’s understanding
differ. We need to understand that God is God. He is not a man like us. He has
sovereign control of everything that comes to pass. As the angel Gabriel said to
Mary, “With God nothing will be impossible.”
So we see that Abram's faith in God
needed further development. However, we also see that God is patient with us. He
has a higher understanding. Therefore we need to have faith in Him. We need to
trust that He will provide.
God’s Provisions
We need to listen to God with more care
because our faith develops the more we understand and experience who God is.
Abram was interacting with God. We all need to interact with God, for this is
how He develops our faith. As we interact with God we need to listen to Him as
he speaks to us by His Spirit with His Word. Why? Because “Faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”
There are dozens of cults around today all
because they are not listening to God! Even in some of the mainline churches
people are losing faith in God, because they are not hearing His Word! We can’t
expect a person’s faith to develop and grow in strength if that individual does
not hear the Word of God. Therefore we must tell our ministers: PREACH THE
WORD! If we don't hear the word of God our faith in God, if we have any,
remains undeveloped. We need to listen to God carefully. Then we will
understand that He doesn’t operate as a man but as God, the Almighty!
Abram was so busy thinking in human
terms. So much so that he didn’t seem to quite catch what the Lord was saying.
He’s too busy thinking, “Okay Lord, we need to do this and we need to do that. If
I'm to be father of a great nation then I need a child. I have a plan! I'll put
my plan into action. Then Bingo! –God’s will will be Done!” That smacks of
immaturity! That’s running ahead of the Lord. That proves that you haven’t been
as attentive to God’s Word as you should have. This is something that we’re all
guilty of. But it’s all part of the development of our faith in God.
What we're looking at, by way of an
example is how God patiently developed Abraham’s faith in Him. Abraham got his
name included among the great pillars of faith, (as listed in Hebrews 11). In
Hebrews 11:6 we find these words, “Without faith it is impossible to please
Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder
of those who diligently seek Him.” God is a rewarder of those who diligently
seek Him, a rewarder of those who wait on Him – those who listen carefully to
Him.
We seek God by trusting Him for who He
is. And we discover who He is by carefully listening to Him. When God
introduces Himself to you He reveals who He is. If you seek God He won’t come
to you and say. “Hi! I'm that warm and fuzzy feeling you’re experiencing.” No,
when you diligently seek God He begins to reveal to you who He is. E.g., “I am
the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.”
The more you seek Him the more He
reveals Himself to you. The more He reveals Himself to you the more He is
developing your faith. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Abraham
was seeking the Lord. “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your
exceedingly great reward.” And how does Abram react to this startling
revelation from God? “But Abram said…” I think it was the Baptist preacher
Spurgeon or somebody who preached a sermon on the word “but” in the Bible! “Yes
Lord, You’re my shield, my exceedingly great reward, BUT what about this child
you’ve promised me? – I go childless.” In other words, Abram could see no
reward greater than that which he at that moment in time desired – a child.
Instead of paying close attention to
what the Lord was saying, Abram turned his attention from the Lord and on to
himself. He wasn’t quite grasping what the Lord was saying to him, “I [that is
Me, God] am your exceedingly great reward!” To paraphrase, “In Me you have
everything, Abram. What more do you need? I am your shield, the One who
protects you, the One who guards and defends you. Not only do I shield you from
your enemies in the physical realm, but I also protect you from your enemies in
the spiritual realm. Being your shield means that I am your cover. I am also
covering and protecting you with My righteousness. I am clothing you in My
righteousness, like a cloak to protect you from you sin. Being your shield
means that I have enclosed you, encircled you, as a garden is enclosed, even
the Garden of Eden. I am the One who hedges you about. I am the wall which
surrounds you. Being your shield also means that I am your deliverer – your
Redeemer. I am the shield of faith.”
Scripture says in Proverbs 30:5, “Every
word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him” And in
Proverbs 2:7-8, “He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; He guards the
paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints.” David says in Psalm 28,
“The Lord is my strength and my shield.” Psalm 5:12, “You, O Lord, will bless
the righteous; with favour You will surround him as with a shield.”
“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your
shield. Your exceedingly great reward.’ But Abram said, ‘What will you give me…”
“Can’t You see it’s a child I’m needing?”
“I know Abram, I know. Come on outside
and we’ll play at counting stars.”
Conclusion
The lord is patient with His children. He
patiently develops our faith in Him. He reassures us by His Word, “Don't be
afraid, Abram.” And by His creation, “Abram, count the stars I have made if you
are able.” He is patient with us because His understanding of things is so high
above ours. We are unsure of how God will accomplish His promises, and our
tendency is to focus on the perceived problem and not on God. Therefore, we
need to listen to God most carefully because our faith develops the more we
understand and experience who God is.
The Lord is our shield, our exceedingly
great reward. Who could ask for more?
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