Faith is active trust. Faith begins when belief marries behaviour. A man or a woman of faith is a person who believes God’s promises and trusts His character so deeply that he or she acts with radical courage, wisdom and strength. A person of faith is a person who moves forward, trusting in God’s word, and leaving the details to Him.
Abraham is the franchise player on the team called faith. In the catalogue given in Hebrews 11 known as the “hall of faith”, one third of the text is taken up by Abraham. His story of faith is twice as long as any other character described in Hebrews 11 (for those of you keeping score: 12 verses are devoted to Abraham, the next closest is Moses with 6 verses). I love how the author of Hebrews describes Abraham’s radical trust in God. “By faith Abraham obeyed… he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
I think a study of the life of Abraham is so fitting for our church at this point in time. Our church is so new and we don’t know what God is going to do, but we are expecting Him to do “far more abundantly” (Ephesians 3:20-21). We’ve already seen Him do great things and God is calling us to have the faith to expect even more! What we need as a church is more faith.
We need to keep moving forward as a church, trusting that God will provide and that God will remain faithful to His promises. When you commit to moving FORWARD BY FAITH, the most important consideration is not the destination, the directions or the details. What matters most is who you are following.
We aren’t going got be studying the life of Abraham so that we can learn how walk like he did, rather, we are seeking to know the God who he followed. As we study the life of Abraham, we will find that we can move FORWARD BY FAITH only because we are following a faithful God.
You can get a head start this week by reading and praying through Genesis 11:27-12:9. I’ll meet you there on Sunday.