The Church Part I: Abraham, Our Father

In beginning the new year, I wanted to help cast some vision for my two churches, to enable them to stretch their ability to dream God's dreams. Thus, in February I preached a series entitled simply "The Church." Each week we looked at one particular virtue that I believe vibrant churches possess and one or two particular person (people) in Scripture from whom we need to inherit that virtue. In week one we looked at Abraham as our father, from whom we need to inherit Scriptural faith. In week two we looked at Jesus as our bridegroom, from whom we need to inherit Scriptural love. In week three we looked at Mary as our mother, from whom we need to inherit hope. In week four we compared Judas and Peter as our potential brothers, from whom we can either inherit perseverance our giving up.

Abraham is indeed our father in the faith. No we don't have to be Jewish to claim him. Actually Paul teaches us in Romans that believers in Jesus ... Jew or Gentile ... are the true Israel, the true and living sons of Abraham. Let's take a look at this father of faith and perhaps grasp a better understanding of the Scriptural concept of faith.

In our society most equate faith with deep and sincere belief in something. Certainly, deep and sincere belief is a major part of faith, but I'm afraid that in this common cultural understanding of faith, something vital is missing. Let's take a look at a couple of snapshots of Abraham in Genesis.

Genesis 15:1-6:

After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great."

But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"

And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, adn a member of my household will be my heir."

And behold the word of the LORD came to him: "This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir."

And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

And he believed, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess."

But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" (ESV)

In our opening verse we read "after these thing ...." After what things? Abraham ... or rather Abram (this was before God changed his name) ... had just led an early version of special forces to recover people and possession stolen by raiders. After defeating the enemy, the king of Sodom offers Abram a reward, which he turns down, I believe, out of faithfulness to God. Abram is despondent.

God appears to him and encourages him with the revelation he is Abram's great reward and defense. Does Abram say thank you? Does Abram act out of humility? In our culture of sugar-sweet politeness and non-confrontation, Abram looks down right rude and unappreciative. However, this happens to be the common means of pressing deeper into God out of faith. Notice that Abram does this sort of thing twice ... and God credits him as righteous for his believing God. According to Dr. Ray Vander Laan this is what is called chutzpah ... a deep persistence of pressing in to God unabated and undeterred. However, this is not the end of the story. We must read the companion story found in Genesis 22

Genesis 22:1-12:

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!"

And he said, "Here am I."

He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."

So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.

And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, "My father!"

And he said, "Here am I, my son."

He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son."

So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. The Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

But the Angel fo the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!"

And he said, "Here am I."

He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seein you have not witheld your son, your only son, from me." (ESV)

So here's the question: Why did God have to test Abraham? When Abraham pressed into God and came to believe, his "belief" which was "credited" to him as righteousness, was really untested. He might have been quite sincere, but it was as of yet untested. It was belief without works ... or faith devoid of works. You see, Abraham's faith is not pictured simply in the Genesis 15 story. Rather it's pictured together in Genesis 15 and 22.

As I said earlier, in our culture we equate faith with simply believing. However, this is not a complete understanding of faith. Perhaps we should understand faith as:

Believing which spurs action for a purpose.

But wait a minute! That is starting to sound a whole lot like works-righteousness or being saved by works. Well, let's compare the thought of Paul with that of James.

Romans 4:1-3:

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness."

Now let's turn over to James and read 2:14-26:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself , if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works. you believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? you see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"--and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart form the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (ESV)

Woeeeeee! This sounds like a contradiction ... at first. But let's take a closer look. If we consider Paul's arguement in context, we will come to understand Paul as pondering the question of how we come into the kingdom of God and become the people of God. In his day Gentiles were told ... quite wrongly ... that they had to first become Jewish, which meant being circumcised and then keeping the ceremonial aspects of the Law in addition to the moral aspects of the Law. Paul argues this was certainly not how Abraham was chosen. He was chosen and then he responded by believing God. Abraham became our father before Moses gave us the Law. Likewise the Jews believed they were the people of God simply because they had been born Jewish and they kept the jots and tittles of the Law. So Paul was addressing an identity crisis of sorts, while James was addressing the Christian lifestyle.

Taking James and Paul together we can again define Biblical faith in the following way:

Believing that spurs me to action for a purpose.

The question is "Do we have faith in God, I mean truly have faith God?" Are we willing to continue to press into the deep recesses of God ... even when the going and believing gets tough? When God shows up in our church, are we willing to respond in obendience ... even if responding is painful and unpleasant?

Consider Jesus in Matthew 9. He encounters several different people: a group of friend who carry their crippled friend to him; some scribes who critize Jesus for healing on the Sabbath; a tax collector who leaves his family and job to follow Jesus, carrying his reputation with him; some Pharisees who critize Jesus for eating with tax collectors and other sinners; a ruler who presses Jesus to heal his daughter; a woman who presses into Jesus who has been menstrating uncontrollably for 12 years; and two blind men who continued to follow after Jesus begging him to heal them.

Each of the people are compared by what they believed and did with what they believed. The lost and lowly believed Jesus could heal them and fix their situation ... and pressed undeterred into Jesus. The ones who should have known better, who claimed to truly believe God, rejected his messiah ... thus rejecting God.

Jesus tells the blind men in verse 29: "According to your faith be it done to you."

Question: if Jesus did to our church according to our Biblical faith, what would he do?

I pray we inherit the faith of Abraham our father.