Abraham

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Hello, everyone. So glad to have you tuned in today. We are doing something a little different because this past week our system went out, so I'm recording the podcast for our first installment of The Cloud.

So I'm glad you tuned in. Get your notepad out, get your pen out, and we'll go through this message called The Cloud Week 1, and I think you're going to be really inspired. So what I want to start out by saying is when we think of clouds, it's something that's not very unusual for us. We think of the white fluffy things in the sky that we can't necessarily hold in our hands, and we can't touch, but we know they're there, and they bring beauty. They bring elegance in the sky, and we also think about cloud accounts like iCloud, Google Cloud.

They're there, and some type of electronic thing out there in space somewhere. We know we put them there, and we can retrieve that data, but we can't necessarily touch it. And as believers, we have a cloud as well, and even if you're not a believer in Jesus, you can look at this cloud, and you can gain hope from the stories of those who have gone before us. And one of my favorite scriptures is Hebrews 12. I hold on to this scripture dearly, and it's something that I've held close to myself, to my heart in my life over and over again, especially when I'm faced with trials or tribulations.

In Hebrews 12, 1, it starts there, it says, Therefore, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us. And this scripture starts out by saying, Therefore, and therefore suggests that we go back and see what the scripture before this particular moment is there for. Just a little pastor joke there. But therefore goes back to Hebrews 11. So we need to first read Hebrews 11 to get context of Hebrews 12.

And we see a list of people that have gone before us. We call this the great cloud of witnesses, and this is where we get the idea of the cloud. These are stories, these are events that we can go back to and look at the people that went before us. And you see in scripture that there are many people that went before us that they label out throughout the Old Testament. We have Abraham, we have Noah, we have Jacob, we have David.

We have so many different people who have went before us and have walked the life and have experienced the believing in God when there's nothing actually there before them to see. In fact, it says that in their lifetime they didn't even see things come to pass. Yet they believed and hoped and moved forward knowing that God had promised them something and they held on to that promise. And we can look at these people and we can perhaps gain hope from these people when we're going through times where we're challenged in our faith when difficulties arrive. And what would these people tell us if we went back and we were able to actually meet with them and touch them and have a conversation with them over coffee?

Let's just say that. Let's just say that. And we were able to ask them questions. What would be the one thing that they would share with us? Well, the purpose of this series, the cloud, is to go back and see what would they tell us?

And perhaps we can grab some application for our lives in order to live the life that God has intended us to live, walking in faith, walking in hope, even when we struggle in our faith. So this week we're going to deal with the subject of trust, even when we don't see things before us. And our topic is Abraham. And many of you know about Abraham, even if you're not a believer, you've heard of Abraham. Abraham, the father of many nations.

We sang Father Abraham if we grew up in church. He is a significant person in the Bible that God used in significant ways. So here's what I want to start off by saying. When God is hard to understand, when it's hard to trust God, when we can't really know what he's up to, what can we say? Well, we say this, and if you want to write this down, God always does the right thing.

Can I say that again? God always does the right thing. Even when it's hard to understand God, he always does the right thing. Even when it feels like it's wrong. Even when it feels like he's not around.

Even when it feels like he's not listening to us. He always does the right thing. So my goal today is to increase your trust level. We always seek understanding of what God's doing by going to the Word of God. But the truth is, God does not always reveal everything to us in this lifetime.

In fact, there are some things that will never be answered until we get to heaven. And one day when we're in heaven, and we're before the Lord, and we're talking to him, we're going to be like, oh, okay, I get it now. But as we walk out the life of faith, we need to trust God, and that he always does the right thing. So if you'll turn in your Bibles to Genesis 15-1, and it says this, After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He says this, Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield, your great reward. Your very great reward is the specifics of what he says in that passage. And I think it's interesting how God, first of all, says, do not be afraid. Because I'm sure Abram was a little bit afraid. Because Abram, in context, was called out of his home country.

He was called out of his comfort zone. He had plenty. He was a rich man. He had land ready for him. His father had collected a lot of material possessions.

They had a lot going on. And then God visits Abram and says, You're going to move to this place that you do not know, that you have never been to, and I'm going to give you this land. That was a big deal for Abram because he had to leave everything he ever had to go to this place. So here he is. He says, do not be afraid.

This is what God tells him. Do not be afraid. Because I'm sure he was experiencing some anxiety as any of us would experience when we're called out to do something that may seem a bit ridiculous. And so here he is. Do not be afraid.

I am your shield and I am your very great reward. Our reward is God. Our reward is Jesus. And if we can, first of all, put our eyes on Jesus as Hebrews 12 tells us to, we can find hope to move forward. So here it is.

He says, first of all, take your eyes off the issue, Abram. Take your eyes off the impossibilities. I'm your great reward. Your reward is me. And then in Genesis 15, 2, it says, and Abram said, and he began to unload on God and tell him what his issues were.

Oh, sovereign Lord. What can you give me since I remain childless, and the one who will inherit the estates of Eliezer of Damascus? As Abraham said, you have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir. What does he mean by that? Well, Eliezer of Damascus, who is he?

He was his top servant. And when one did not have a child to pass his inheritance down to, he would give it to his servant, the head of his household. So he's telling God, you've promised me this child. Back in early scriptures, it says he promised him that he would have descendants as far as the dust of the earth. And it hasn't happened yet.

Not even one child has been given to him. It's been years later, and here he is. He's going to have to hand everything over to a servant if he doesn't have a child. So he's not trusting God. It's hard to trust God in the midst of this.

And then the word of the Lord came to him, and he says, This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. So he gave him a promise right there, and he took him outside and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them, which he couldn't, obviously. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. You are going to have offspring so countless that you can't count them as the stars in the sky. So God has a dilemma to get us to see something we can't see.

He wants to get us to see something we can't see. So sometimes he has to take us out and show us some things. And perhaps he's showing you some things through this scripture. So God always does the right thing. Let's talk about that for a minute.

God always does the right thing. I want to give you three things here. God always does the right thing, even if it takes a long time. Here's the deal. God's delay is not God's denial.

Just because God's delaying in something doesn't mean he's not going to fulfill it. And when you're in the middle of it, it's always harder and always longer and always more frustrating because we see it from our perspective. But here's a thought. It's common for God to take a long time. He just does it.

There's not many situations, if any, where God doesn't have something going on in somebody's life that is going to take a long time. And we're never going to be able to enjoy our journey with God if we focus on the delay, if we focus on the time it takes to fulfill the promise that he's given us, to fulfill the things that he's told us about. In fact, we may not even see it in this lifetime, and we will never be able to enjoy the walk that we have with God. And in the grander plan, from God's perspective, it makes sense. It may not make sense in our small brains, but in God's perspective, it makes a lot of sense.

And what happens is we tend to take matters into our own hands. Watch what happens with Sarah, or Sarai, as she was called before her name was changed to Sarah by God. And if you look at 16.1, it says, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. So she said to Abram, The Lord has kept me from having children, so sleep with my maidservant.

Perhaps I can build a family through her. And Abram agreed to what Sarai said. Here's the deal. It's a dangerous thing when we take things into our own hands. When we don't trust God that He's going to deliver and He's promised us something.

And this is after God has specifically told Abram, You are going to have a child out of your own body. You're not going to have to do it any other way but through Sarai. It's going to happen through your lineage. It's going to happen. He specifically told her that.

Told him that. Yet, they took matters into their own hands. And you can never be in a place. God wants you to be in your faith walk when you try to accomplish things on your own. Can I say that again?

When you try to accomplish things on your own. Let me just say it like that. When you try to do it in your own will or your own vigor or your own whatever you want to call it. Whatever you try to do on your own. You'll never be able to follow God in faith the way He wants you to follow Him.

He will never be able to bless you the way He wants to bless you if you do things on your own. And the lack of patience cost Abraham a lot. And I don't have time to go into everything today. But he had a child through the maidservant, Hagar. And a lot of things happened throughout history in the Old Testament as a result of that.

And what happens is we live in an instantaneous culture. We have drive-thrus. We have ATMs. We have Prime Now. We can actually go and order something on Amazon online and it can be to our house within the hour if we want it.

And we live in a time and a day where everything has to be instantaneous. We have pick up groceries and we go to the grocery drive-thru or we walk up. We park in the parking lot at the Walmart takeout, right? And if they're not there on time ready for us, we're still frustrated. And we don't even have to get out of our car.

We don't have to do anything. We can order everything online and go out and pick it up. It's great. But it's created a mentality of I've got to have it now. And God doesn't always do things in our timing.

And we expect him to do it exactly like the people at Walmart should when they bring out our groceries. But we'll never get it if we don't understand God's ways and God's timing. There's a joke. A man asked God, how much is a million dollars to you? God tells him it's like a penny.

And he says, well, what's a million years like to you, God? And God answers back. He says, it's like a second. And the man asked, can I have a penny? And God says, give me a second.

And that's kind of how God is, you know. He often is a God who takes his time because in his perspective and looking at it from his standpoint, we don't get it right now, but we will get it one day. We will get it one day when we're before him. A friend of mine, just an example, he was in a job situation years ago where he just felt like he was never going to get out of. He was underappreciated.

He wasn't making a lot of money, but he was good at his job and he was comfortable. And there were a lot of thoughts and complaints and things that came out of that. And he would put in job applications and he would push himself and nothing would happen. Nothing. All the interviews, nothing would ever happen.

And this happened for probably a couple of years. And I, in some respects, said, well, maybe he's not selling himself enough. Maybe he's not giving himself enough credit. But in the process, over a couple of year period, he finally got an interview with the company. And it wasn't necessarily exactly what he wanted, but he took the job and it definitely wasn't what he wanted because he was miserable in that job.

So he went from that job to another job he hated even worse. And he's asking himself, you know, God, you're kind of putting me in the area I want to be, but I don't like this job. I don't like the people. They're not good to me. And you question God in those moments and he began to question God.

But then God gave him another opportunity through that particular situation. He connected with someone who brought him into a company he actually enjoyed. He was making more money. He was prosperous. He found his niche.

Niche, he began to work in this industry and then from there he was promoted and then he was promoted to another company. He found another job and now he's just, he said, I would have never known that I would be where I am making the money I make and enjoying the job and enjoying the people I'm in way back then when I was underappreciated, when I wasn't thought about, when I didn't know if I was ever going to find anything else. And in the middle of those seasons, people, we can question and we can not enjoy where we are because we're thinking about where we are. So my challenge for you is look at it from God's perspective. God always takes a long time.

Even when he takes a long time, he's doing the right thing. He's working things behind the scenes to bring about his glory, number one, through your situation. And number two, he's got something for you. You just got to believe it and receive it, even if you don't see it. Number two, God always does the right things, even when it seems ridiculous.

God waits 99 years. Abraham's 99 years old and Sarah is around 89. And then he shows up on Abraham's door again. He says this in chapter 18, if you're following along with me, verse 10. Then the Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah, your wife, will have a son.

So he actually put a time on this one. Now, this is interesting. Sarah's kind of around the corner and she's listening in. She's eavesdropping. And it says, now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, which was behind him.

And Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years. And Sarah was past the age of childbearing. And this is what happened. So Sarah laughed. She laughed to herself as she thought, after I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?

Then the Lord said to Abraham, because you know, God just kind of hears everything because he's God. He says, why did Sarah laugh and say, will I really have a child now that I am old? And then he says this, is anything too hard for the Lord? Well, I will return to you at the appointed time next year. And Sarah will have a son.

So we have Sarah listening to this ridiculous, absurd promise that God gave her. And the next year you're going to have a child. So even when it seems ridiculous, even when it seems out of this world, God always does the right thing. And God delivered. Romans 4, 19 and 12 says this, without weakening in his faith, talking about Abraham, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old.

And that Sarah's womb was also dead, meaning she could not have children. It was impossible. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded, fully, fully, fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. See, we need to go back to that childlike faith. I love talking about childlike faith.

When Jesus tells his disciples, unless one becomes like a child, they cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Why? Because children do a few things. Number one, they have imaginations. When things seem absurd, when things seem ridiculous and somebody says it's going to happen, they believe it.

So sometimes we need to become a little more ignorant so that we can understand God. And we've got to realize that we are ignorant of the things of God. So they have an imagination. We need to believe God for things that are impossible. Number two, children trust.

When mommy and daddy say that something is, they believe it. As they get older, they realize that mommy and daddy are a little, they don't know a lot either. They're not as smart as they once thought they were. But they trust them when they're kids. We need to become like children so that we can believe the impossible and that we trust God no matter what.

Because God, even when it seems crazy, he always does the right thing. He always, always does the right thing. Number three, God always does the right thing even if it seems wrong. Now this is tough for a lot of people because a lot of times it seems wrong. It doesn't seem right.

Just look at some of the stories in the Old Testament. We don't like to go there in church a lot and teach about those things because there's genocide that takes place. There's war that takes place. There's famine that takes place. And even after the New Testament in history, we see things that happen that we just don't understand.

And we question God about them and it seems like the wrong thing. But God always does the right thing. God always does the right thing. And we just like to tell God that he's wrong. Let's go back to the story when Abraham tries to bargain with God because God wants to wipe out Sodom.

In Genesis 18, we see God visit Abraham and he says, Abraham, I'm going to sweep out everything. I'm going to sweep out this whole Sodom and Gomorrah. These people are evil. They're wicked. And Abraham begins to say, hey, listen, God, will you kill everybody there?

Even if there's a few righteous people? Because the dilemma was Abraham had a nephew there named Lot and he was living in that land. And God's like, I'm going to take these people out. Well, God, there might be some righteous people. This just doesn't seem fair.

How are you going to take a whole land out based on, you know, the wicked people that are represented there? So he vends a bargain. Hey, if there's not 50 people there, will you save it? God says, okay, I'll save it. I'll pull back my judgment if there's only 50 people.

And guess what? There wasn't 50 people. And he goes 40, 30. He goes down to a few people. And they could not identify one righteous person in that city.

So what does God do? He wipes out the city. But he does offer grace to Lot and his family and pulls them out of the city before everything happens. See, we don't always understand what's going on in the greater, grander picture. That evil is in the world and sometimes God has to make decisions about things that may not make a lot of sense to us.

Because we really don't understand righteousness. We don't understand grace. We don't understand judgment. We don't like to look at God as a just God. We like to look at him as a loving God, which is great.

But if we don't balance out the justice that God needs to bring to the world because there's a lot of evil in the world and we want justice. We're people of justice. We want to see the right thing done. And God will do the right thing because he always does the right thing. He will defend the innocent, but it may not be in the way we think that the innocent should be defended.

The righteous be defended. Those who are just be defended. It may not seem right in our eyes, but God always does the right thing. So what do we do? We trust in him.

Proverbs 14, 12 says there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. So for us, it appears that some of the things that we do and we think and the way we think is right. But in God's eyes, they lead to death because he has a greater perspective on things. And we need to trust him that he will always do the right thing, even when it doesn't seem right. And number four, even if we don't understand, even when we don't understand and we will not understand in many cases, I can promise you this.

There's some things that are going to happen in your life that you will never. Don't understand. There's no way around it. You will never understand it, but you need to learn that God is doing the right thing even when we don't understand. A perfect example of this is God comes to Abraham and he says, I want you to sacrifice your son.

Now, at this point, Abraham's been through a lot, and I think he's learned to trust God at this point because he's questioned God over and over and over again. So we probably see his faith built up more than any other time. And this is probably the greatest test that Abraham has ever faced. So he says, I want you to take your son up to Mount Moriah. This is the place where we believe existed.

If you go to Jerusalem, you can actually visit this place. It's where the Temple of the Mount, the Dome on the Rock sits. It's believed that that was the very place, Mount Moriah, where he where he took his son. And he brought him up on this mountain and he Hebrews 11 says this in verse 17. By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.

And even though God had said to him, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. God could raise dead. He had no idea he was going to take him up. Eventually, he takes him up to the mountain.

He puts him down on the altar. He pulls the knife back. He pulls the knife. He pulls the knife back. And God's angel interacts with the knife and stops him.

And he provides another sacrifice for him. But Abraham didn't know that. In fact, Abraham's reasoning was that faith like a child, believing the impossible, that God could raise the dead. If Isaac is going to be my offspring, Isaac will be my offspring. And God will provide a way somehow, even if it is raising from the dead.

So he didn't question God. He packed his stuff. He went up to the mountain. There was no question that God could do something. Now, he may not ask you to sacrifice your children.

He may not ask you to sacrifice anything to that level. But he does ask us to sacrifice things all the time. Number one, our time. He asks us for our time. He asks us to give our time to the church, to ministry, to the people around us that need to be reached.

Because God's plan is to save the world, to let the world know about the good news. And he wants to use us. Because the great commission that Jesus gave us is to go out into the world and share and baptize people in the name of Jesus. And it wasn't limited to pastors. It was enlarged to everyone.

It was a broad calling to the church. The purpose of the local church is to give their time to God to reach others. And the second one I want to mention, and this is a really hard one because a lot of people don't want to listen to this. But I'm going to say it. And I'm going to say it loudly.

And I'm going to say it plainly. Our finances. God cannot reach the world unless he uses us to accomplish those purposes. And he uses the means that we provide through our finances. That's why tithing is so important.

If we do not tithe, we cannot reach people. Can God make money appear? Absolutely. Can God just bring about something impossible? Just show a million dollars in our account all of a sudden?

Absolutely. I believe it like it was yesterday. Or like it's happening now. I believe it. But he chooses to use us.

What means does he do that through? Through people. And if the church tithed as a whole, I think the average tithing, and I may be making this high, but I believe it's like 15% of church goers actually tithe church. That's the average of the entire nation. Imagine if 100% of people tithed.

Just gave 10% and that's it. 90% is yours and 10 goes to God. God, the things the church could do, the things the church could accomplish, the amount of people we could reach for the gospel, the things we could resource. And then thirdly, our comfort. We do not want to give up our comfort.

And that goes to time and finances. That all tacks on to comfort. Abraham could have stayed in his country and lived the rest of his life in luxury, having everything he ever wanted, everything he needed, his inheritance and stuff, but that wouldn't have been fulfilling. God's got something greater for us, something fulfilling. He wants to fill us with the hope and joy that we've never experienced if we just stay in our comfort zone.

If you sit in the walls of your comfort zone, you're never going to be fulfilled. Fulfillment is what we all desire. Purpose. You're never going to have a purpose if we hold back based on our feelings. And God wants to do that for us.

So the main point I want to make is that the more you know him, the more you trust him. The more you know him, the more you trust him. And if you do not know him, you can't trust him. So dig deep. Get to know him.

Psalm 9, 10 says this. Listen, those who know your name, trust in you. For you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. He never forsakes us. If we seek him, if we know him, if we trust him, if we know him, we will trust him.

Let me just say it like that. If we know him, we will trust him. So get to know the Lord. So what would Abraham's final words of encouragement be? What would he tell us if he could sit down and have a cup of coffee with us today?

What would he tell us? What would, from his perspective, because it's always important to look at other people's perspectives, you know, because when we're in it, we really don't have the answer. So we go to other people. What would Abraham, as he's cheering us in the stands, as he's there in the cloud, as he's looking and he's saying, hey, I've been through it. You can do it too.

What would he tell us today? What would he tell us? I think he would tell us two things. And before I leave and lead into the first one, all the tragedy, all the circumstances, all the situations that happen in this world, he was very aware of it because he saw it happen even in his time. But what Paul says is, we do not grieve like those who have no hope.

So Abraham would say, don't grieve like those who have no hope. And the first point he would make, don't make earth your home. Don't make it your home. Don't grieve like other people because earth is not your home. We are just pilgrims passing through.

We are citizens of heaven. We're not citizens of earth. We've got something greater, something extraordinary before us. Hebrews 11, 9 and 10 says, by faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. So he was living among strangers in a place that he had no clue about, believing in the promise.

He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him in the same promise, or of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder, his people, no, his cities, no, his governments, no, but his God, his builder and architect was God. So he knew that this thing, this promise that he had sitting before him, waiting for him, was not something of a human understanding. And he lived by faith, not making earth his home. He knew that if things were not fulfilled in his lifetime, they would be because God promised them.

And he would be able to look back and see. Even if he's not alive in this world or earth, but in heaven, God, I'm sure, in his way of doing things, shows us the legacies that we leave. Even in the afterlife. He gives us that. I don't have anything right in front of me that says that specifically, but there's so many indications that what we're doing on this earth reflects an eternity.

So the second point I want to make is live with an eternal perspective. Be eternally optimistic, as it was told to me years ago when I started this ministry. When I started this church a few years ago, I was told, be eternally optimistic. Realize that what you're doing, the legacy that you're leaving, is going to influence people way down the road. People are going to get saved through this ministry far beyond you.

So the way I spend my time, my money, my talent, knowing this is going to make a difference in eternity, I want to make a difference in eternity. I don't want to just make a difference now. I want to make a difference that keeps going, that keeps reaching people. So don't build your foundation. Don't build your structure and your legacy on what happens today.

Build it on God's promises. He promises. He promises us. There are promises throughout Scripture that we can hold on to. He tells us.

He has a purpose and He has a plan for us. He has a joy unspeakable and full of glory. We can live life today. Hebrews 11, 12 says, And so from this one man, and he was as good as dead, came descendants, as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sand on the seashore. So in conclusion, I'll leave you with the ending passage of Hebrews 11.

He says this, starting in verse 13, But if they had been thinking of a country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. When he says people who say such things, he's talking about the people who don't understand your calling, your mission, your eternal perspective. They don't get it. But the people who went before us, the Hall of Fame, the faith people that walk before us and give us these acknowledgements, these stories, these You can do it, brother. You can do it, sister.

All these things that they show you and tell you, speak into our lives through Scripture. They had an opportunity to leave it all and return back to their home and they would have been okay, right? But instead they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. Can that be something that you hold on to today, that no matter what you're going through, no matter what your situation is, no matter what your perspective is, that you'll hold on to that?

That we can't see, we don't understand everything, but we can trust in God. Perhaps you're here today and you're listening to this and you're struggling with your faith. You don't know if God's going to come through. Can I tell you, He always does the right thing. Maybe you've never had a relationship with God.

Maybe you've never trust God. Can I tell you? Trust God today because He always does the right thing. I want to invite you to know God and trust God. Whether you've been a Christian or whether you're just coming to faith, maybe the Holy Spirit's stirring your heart right now.

Could you pray this with me? Lord, I believe that You are the Son of God and You gave Your life on the cross for us, that the blood covers a multitude of sin, and my shame and my sin can be wiped away. Today, I want to know You and trust You because I know You have great plans for my life. God, I give You my life. I give You my heart.

Today, I walk with You. Today, I trust in You, knowing that You always do the right thing. So, I give this to You today. In Your name. Amen.