If you don't, there isn't much I can say that will be helpful. This isn't how I put it to them, but it's how I said it to myself. But when the moment came, I decided to say no. I liked everything I learned about the people and their ministry. As I investigated further, I found that they take very good care of the people who work for them. I met the people, liked them very much, and was very impressed by what they were doing. I was once approached by a Christian ministry asking if I would consider a particular position in their organization. But living by faith means no guarantees and no certainty about the future. There's nothing wrong with those desires. You want to grow old and die with your family around you? So do I. You want to rise in your profession? So do I. Abraham truly didn't know where he was going, didn't know how he would get there, didn't know how long it would take, and didn't even know for sure how he would know he was there when he got there. When God calls, there are no guarantees about tomorrow. Once he left the walls of Ur, he was on his own, following God's call into the unknown. When Abraham left Ur, he burned his bridges behind him. More than that, it meant risking his health and his future on a vague promise from an unseen God to lead him to "a land that I will show you" ( Genesis 12:1). Why would anyone want to leave Ur? Obeying God's call meant giving up his friends, his career, his traditions, his home, his position, his influence, and his country. No doubt many of Abraham's friends thought he was crazy. People from outlying areas moved to Ur because they wanted to be part of that great city. It was a center of mathematics, astronomy, commerce and philosophy. Archaeologists tell us that in Abraham's day perhaps 250,000 people lived there. There is only one way to describe Ur of the Chaldees. And he went out, not knowing where he was going" ( Hebrews 11:8). "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. Truth #1: Living by faith means accepting God's call without knowing where it will lead. So what does it mean to live by faith in an uncertain world? What God says will change his life - and ultimately alter the course of world history. It is at precisely this moment that God speaks to him - clearly, definitely, unmistakably. Certainly they have no reason to complain. He is a prosperous, middle-aged man, successful by any human standard. No doubt he and his wife Sarah worshiped the moon-god Sin. When we meet him in the Bible, he is living 4,000 years ago in a far-off place called Ur of the Chaldees - on the banks of the Euphrates River, not far from the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Let's begin with some brief facts about Abraham. And it clearly shows us that obeying God doesn't always work out the way we think it will. It tells us what he did more importantly, it tells us why he did it. Hebrews 11:8-10 tells how he obeyed God's call at great personal sacrifice. Our focus in this message is on the man we often call "Father Abraham." In the Bible he stands as the preeminent example of a man who lived by faith. What they did, they did by faith.Īll of them had moments when they must have wondered, "What did I do wrong?" Yet God considered each of them worthy of mention in this great chapter. The men and women whose stories are told in this particular chapter differ in every way but one. Stories that encompass murder, natural catastrophe, family treachery, physical weakness, failed dreams, missed opportunities, sibling rivalry, and military conquest. Different people, different stories, widely separated in time and space. The names written there are like a biblical hall of fame: Abel. Hebrews 11 offers us a long list of men and women who obeyed God even when things didn't always work out they way they expected. The good news is the membership includes every major Bible hero. The bad new is, we're all a member of that club at one time or another. What club is that? The International Fellowship of Faith-Walkers Who Feel Like Failures. There are a lot of things that might be said at this point, but perhaps this one needs to be mentioned first. That's a hard truth to accept, especially when you're the one in the middle of the mess, after you've done what you thought was the will of God. Or maybe they did, but their current troubles are not proof that they were wrong in the first place. The truth is, it's entirely possible that this person did nothing wrong. That's a natural question to ask when life rewards your courage with nothing but trouble.
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