Let Everything Go – Part 4

The vultures of belt circling in your head, picking at your sacrifice and faith drive away the doubts place your faith in God's word for no other reason that it is God's word, then just wait, you may be delaying giving you any feeling of assurance in order to strengthen your faith in him alone, but the assurance will come.

This is living in the light with Graham Lutz in her series of weekly messages on the life of Abraham.

Looks like it's falling apart.

It may just be falling into place faith in God alone is the title of today's message. Here's an Abraham in verse six, believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He just believed God, he just took God at his word. Romans four. Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that way and promised he was able also to perform and he just believed God's word that he would give them a seed in it through that seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed in Galatians tells us in John tells us that Abraham could see through that promise that the promisee was not just Isaac and not a multitude of descendents, but it was the Messiah, the primacy of Genesis 315 would take away our sin and bring us back in the right relationship with the creator.

He saw the promise of prophecy of the coming of Jesus and he believed God's word and it was credited to him for righteousness. He just put his faith in God's word and God's word and I want to stretch this.

Maybe I am but I wonder from a New Testament point of view is this the moment when Abraham was actually innocent, converted and made me wonder in the church today are other people who've left everything behind and are pursuing knowledge of God and the gotten off the fence and leaving behind their failures in building altars there playing in the reading about apples and they let everything going to decide they want God more than they want the world and sodomy.

They give up their rights, but could it be that some of those people have never actually been born again and have never put their faith in God and God alone, has never been credited them for righteousness, because I still think it's up to their self effort that got to do this and that got the study harder than to pray every day. Or, you know, still trusting a little bit in themselves and you have to trust God and God alone for your salvation and I think it's true, but is not taught Bible study Fellowship for 12 years and in that 12 year.

We had several thousand people go through our class and I have had dozens, maybe hundreds of women and these are basically church women who thought they were Christians coming to the class in God's word came into their lives and they realize they had never put their faith in God and God alone for their salvation and you were born again after they came in the class. Just give me Jesus we target Christian women church women I should say in the coming to the arenas by the thousands every Friday night. I give an invitation for them to come to the cross and repent of their sin and claim Christ as their Savior and wasting hundreds and thousands of come to the cross and claim Christ as Savior inside you share that with you.

Maybe there's somebody here. When is that point in time that you confessed to see. And you told God you were sorry and you put your faith in Jesus alone.

Is your Savior believing he died on the cross you and nobody else have not benefited you knew it was for you and you alone. He was raised from the dead to give you life you claim them for yourself and you put your faith in him and him alone not have any work that you've done none of your church activity or your reputation just in God's word when God said all of sin come short of his glory is a God that's in the house in the wages of sin is death got on know that I'm separated from you. Going to hell when I die, but the gift of God is eternal life, and God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that if you place your faith in him you won't perish. You won't die you won't go to hell you have everlasting life you to put your faith in God's word that says if you confess your sins, he just to forgive you and cleanse you all unrighteousness and you have any feelings and for no other reason except God is so you confess your sin and you claim Christ as Savior and you invite him to come in July and and is to say alone and I just throw that out there. Not only for you but I wonder in your Sunday school class in your church in your Bible study. Don't assume just because the people in your class or your church.

Members of the church or call themselves Christians that they have been born again, tucking the gospel whenever you have a chance and give opportunity for people to put their faith in Jesus because I think there are many many people out there within the church walls who've never put their faith in Jesus and Jesus alone and they need to be challenged again and again until finally they come to that point where they gets they put their faith in God and he credits it to them for right Abraham believed God as it was pointing to Jesus and Jesus was in the future. You and I believe Gaza points back to Jesus, but is Jesus who saves his faith in God and God alone as it concerns the son and Abraham brought God his tears of disappointments and God used it to bring them to a new level of faith in you bring God your tears of disappointment.

Your troubled questions in your tough questions and you let God use that to bring it to a new level of faith. Maybe that's why he's let you have the disappointments. Maybe that's why he's let you struggle because he's wanting to bring you to a new level of faith in your neighbor brought them also. His tears of doubts and had already expressed his disappointment in not having a son and got his answer that I'm going to give you a son from your own body and your descendents are going to be like the stars of the sky, but God given him another promise to member and was that he would possess the land and so now Abram is coming back in several God, since you answer that when you answer my questions about a son. I want to ask you about the land that I think he must've said that even though is not recorded because God answers the unspoken quest maybe is a question maybe after believing God's word about a son maybe had voiced his concern about God's promise for the land God answers them anyway.

So in verse seven God also said to them, I am the Lord brought you out of the Chaldees. I will give you this land to take possession of it and I don't know what your doubts are Jeff down and sending the God's promised you.

Maybe there's somebody here is doubting your salvation something the people like that from time to time just don't have the assurance of their salvation. Maybe your doubting God's word to you concerning a child or concerning your future concerning your career, some promises given you in something you just doubting its and bring your doubts to him.

Also, he knows the secrets in your arteries reading your heart and you might as well voice it to him and in this case I believe Abraham was able to overcome his doubt when God set Abraham remember my promise to you and let me remind you that I would never lean down and your life in the Chaldees and called you to follow me if I wasn't going to do something dramatic I'm going to give you a son, and I'm going to give you this land on the same God who spoke to you and the same God is speaking to you today and have an unanswered prayer in the life and I've played it and prayed and Frank from time to time, God will give me a promise to give me a little bit more information he'll add a promise to something for me to keep hanging my faith on the list of those promises in my devotional Bible and from time to time when the doubts overwhelming because he just hasn't answered yet. I go back to my list of promises and I read those verses and I just remember what God is said to me, and it strengthens my faith and I just remind myself to put my faith in his word and claim the promises that he's given me and I think we can overcome doubts by just remembering the promises that is given and that includes if your doubt is about your own salvation you go back to those verses that say that if you confess your sin. He will forgive you. You put your name in those verses in the verse in Revelation.

If you open up your heart he will come in. You put your name and at first John 112 as many as received him to them. He gives the power to become a child of God, but your name in the verse and you just remember the promises and help you overcome the doubt and not on the remembrance of the promises but I think there needs to be in obedience to any command. God gives you people say Anna not sure my salvation down and asked him if there prayed a prayer of repentance and asking God to come to the lab I say yes. Not that you know they just get on with your Christian life you read your Bible you apply. You obey it as you live in a box. You going to know that you know that you know your child of God because you just develop that relationship. And so now God gives Abram a command that he is to obey because faith without works is dead is Abram's said he believed God's credit them for righteousness. But now he's got acted out to his obedience God gives him a pretty weird command and he says Abram I want you to bring me a heifer go to RAM your three years old, a governor pigeon and I mean just so strange. But you know what God was doing archaeologists and historians tell us that this is the way people entered into a covenant. Back in those days, and that they would take these animals and they would cut them in half and they would lay them out in two rows so two people entering into an agreement or covenant would pass between those rows of of pieces of animals and the idea was that if they would enter into a covenant and that if either of them broke the covenant.

It was it would cost them their lives. That's how serious it was that it could only be broken by death, and so they would pass through these rows of animals that have been slain and it was just indicating the seriousness of the covenant and that it was it was life binding only broken by this and so he tells Abraham to gather these pieces and Abraham does and he lays them out like God said, and then Abram is waiting for God entering to this covenant with them in the ways in the way the vultures begin the circle they start picking up the sacrifice as the shoe them away. And sometimes when were obedience and with done what God told us to do.

It just doesn't seem to work and he seems to delay in a sense accepting the sacrifice that we brought them and we don't see it working in the vultures of doubts and criticism begin circling our minds and I expect is Abram assuring the physical vultures are white in his mind the vultures of that were circulating like you know the understand God right and was supposed to do this and is he going to end this covenant with me and you not feel sort of strange shooing away these vultures and where is God when is he going to come in and I wonder this is one application. Maybe when you go back home and God's put on your hearts lead a Bible study in your church or teacher Sunday school class using the Scripture novel idea and you go back and you share with your class. You want them to just study the Scripture and you believe this is something God called you to do and you going to lay out a passage in have them just say what does it say what does it mean what does it mean to me in the vultures begin the circle to start picking at your sacrifice. I don't know if we can do that people won't study for themselves.

They need blanks to fill in your going to lose members in your class. Passersby fought like it and you know the vultures are just circling our and you just have to shoo them away. Maybe something I should have done in obedience to God and other people just don't understand. And they think you're stepping out you doing something not right but you know God is called you and people are whispering behind your back and the criticizing you and you just shoo the vultures away ever friend back home. One of the sacrifices that she thought God was calling her to make was that she was to submit to her husband with a sweet expression on her face and had to be thankful God had called me to make a sacrifice like that. Although I felt convicted for a moment and so she said you made the sacrifice submitted with a sweet expression on her face. Her husband got meaner. The vultures were circling. Are you sure you doing the right thing. Are you just going to be walked all over you going to set them up in his authoritarian Rowlands is sometimes we make the sacrifice before God accepts us and gives us that assurance that he's going to follow through. We just have to protect me and aprons protecting the sacrifice you overcome your doubts.

I think with not only your faith and trust but with your obedience. You remember the promises that is given you and then you obey the commands that he gives you and you just have to protect it and follow it through until he totally accepts its bring your tears of disappointment your tears of doubt to the Lords you can trust them with your fears and you can trust him with your tears and you can trust them with your years and God now gives Abram a vision of the future, the end of this remarkable day. The sun goes down and Abram falls into a deep sleep and a horror of darkness. The sin I think he goes into a deep spiral of depression and maybe that's why God doesn't let us see the future, but Abraham goes in this depression and that what God is saying is Abram you can trust me with your years, because I'm in control, and then he tells how he's in control.

He says I'm in control was sovereignty and he says in verse 13 know for certain that your descendents will be strangers in a country not their own will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years. That's when Joseph was sold into Egypt, and Jacob followed with 11 brothers and they lived under their under Joseph and in a nation that wasn't their own. They grew up and multiplied in several generations past and Pharaoh rose up and you not Joseph and he put them all in the slavery and mistreated them 400 years and God may allow our children and our grandchildren to suffer throttle want to look too far into the future. God's in control maybe won't branches that he's in control he knows what he's doing anything. Abraham I'm going to allow your children and your grandchildren to suffer, but I'm in control and not just choose certain things. I am sovereign and not only is he in control was sovereignty but he's in control with authority, because he says in verse 14 will punish the nation they serve as slaves need that each of the one Moses led the churn of Israel out to destroy the Army in the Red Sea and they came out with all the loot and the plunder, but that is also in control with mercy because he says in verse 15 you, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age, and I'll deal with the people here and I'll bring your children back and he's just think Abraham you can trust me with your years, because I'm in control and know what the future holds and hold the future and we look at the future. The war on terrorism the economy going back and forth things happening in our country. Things are being said the division.

The hurt that anger, the bitterness and the things going on in the rest of the world and you know sometimes I wonder how people can stand facing the future without the Lord I would be so terrified. But we can trust him with our years.

We can trust him with the future because God is in control. You might just read the end of the story. Read the book of Revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ not on the revelation of the future.

The revelation of Jesus, and we think the world is falling apart. Revelation tells us is just falling into place right at the feet of Jesus. God is in control in control of your future in control of your children in control of your descendents in control of the world in control of the universe.

He's in charge was sovereignty and authority and mercy anomalies in control, but God is absolutely committed to you and apparently Abraham awoke from his vision the sun and set darkness fell. Verse 17 the sun set darkness upon a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces and on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said to your descendents will give this land know what you're not something what's up sons. Abraham is not walking through the pieces. This is just God walking through the pieces and if you can just hang with me for a minute I want to confuse you but I think God the father is represented by the fire, because Hebrew says our God is a consuming fire. And I think it's God the son that's represented by the torch because John says that Jesus on the light of the world, and I think it's God the spirit that's represented by the oath when God swore by himself because Ephesians as he is Marcus with the seal of the oath of the spirit and God the father, God the son God the Spirit passing through those pieces and the Bible says that God not knowing somebody graded us whereby he swore by himself. Abraham you want to know how you can know that I'm going to keep my word to you because I swear by myself and my promises are backed by my character and backup my word with myself and you have to enter into this contract because I'm just committing myself to you and since you didn't have to do anything to earn this contract.

You can't do anything to lose the contract and when you enter into the covenant.

Listen to me. God is committed to you. If you doubt it.

Do you that. Then look at the class.

That's the sign of the covenant he's made with you didn't pass through pieces of broken animals. He gave you the broken body of his own son and he says if you ever tended to doubt that I'm committed to you. Look at the cross at the cross swear by myself. All you have to do is place your faith in my word, and put your faith in Jesus and enter into this contract because you can't do anything to earn your salvation.

You can't do anything to lose it. He's just committed to and he was just committed Abram. Abraham could do nothing to lose because it does nothing to earn it and enter into it was just God swear himself and you can trust God with your years, you can trust him. He's in control and he's absolutely totally committed to forever and this time his commitment and this time his confidence is the cross in the blood of his own dear son. And he who gave up his own son for you, will he not freely give you all say you can trust him with your fears and you can trust him with your tears and you can trust them with your years. Just trust everything the as you embrace the magnificent up/and you choose to pursue. Knowing him and making him known and receiving his blessing to be a blessing and fulfilling the potential that he has. Would you just trusting trusting trust everything which you pray with me, please father the answer to our doubts and our disappointment. The answer to our tough in our troubled questions. The answer to our concerns for the future is just so simple. We make it hard. The answer is just you. So Lord help us to get our focus off of ourselves. Just put it on you and your words and believe that your word is backed by the integrity of who you are, your gentlemen, you don't live you don't mock your children. We can take you at your word.

So Lord, we thank you for your word recorded in Genesis 15 and through this passage of spoken to us relevantly at this particular time in our lives personally parts of this just have our name on and clearly through Abram's example and so we trust you with our fears or to understand and you know us inside out and back.

You've proven that by the way you spoken to us. We trust you with our tears of doubt and disappointment.

Whatever our tears are Laura dins has between you and me when we put into our pillow, but our tears are precious to you and the psalmist says that you collect our tears and you put them in a bottle and we trust your heart when we don't understand, and we trust you with our years, not just our nearest Lord but the years ahead for our children and our grandchildren. We trust you with the future we know whatever the future holds.

You hold the future in the God is the same today is the same God of Abraham's day is the same God. Tomorrow you're going to see us through to the end of the story when Jesus comes back and all of his glory, to reign and rule and will know our faith becomes, and we did the right thing when we placed all of our faith in you and you alone because you're trustworthy.

We commit this to with praise and thanksgiving for who you are trusting you in the name of the one who is to sign of the new covenant. Even the broken body of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ whose name we pray. Now here's a man with this final word. Could it really be that simple. Could it be that you and I don't have to do anything because he has done it all and I know for sure God is accepted my obedient faith can know for sure he's forgiven me of my sin cannot know he has placed his Holy Spirit within me cannot know he has given me eternal life cannot know he is even now preparing a heavenly home for me. Yes yes yes I can know for sure, and so can you. Because Abraham's God is our God, and he says so.

Your hope is secure because God is made a new covenant with you at the cross, God swore by himself that he's committed to you. There's nothing you could ever do nothing you could ever fail to do there's nothing that can or will ever ever ever break the covenant. Romans 832, says, and if he is not withheld. His only son from you, will he not also freely give you all things, trust them trust everything completely to him, trust him completely because he says so and who is he here is the God of Abraham plan to join us again next week for living in the light is anagram lots continues under message series on the life of Abraham, and in the meantime, be sure to go to anagram lots.org for more the life of Abraham in the magnificent Obsession