Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Power through God's tests of your faith. Put your head down and trust him. When your faith is tested, it will come out resilient. It will come out stronger. It won't make a lot of sense at first, but in the end, it will be something that brings glory to God and confirms the path that you're on and ultimately brings you to the place of saying God keeps his promises, God is faithful.

Guest (Male): Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Have you ever felt a disconnect between what God has promised and what you're experiencing? There are times when it seems like what God has said isn't the way things really are. Well, today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez explores what to do when God's promises don't seem to match what's going on in our lives. To do so, we'll turn to an Old Testament character for encouragement and instruction. Pastor Mike calls the message "Abraham: A Fascinating Template of Promises and Faith."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Turn with me if you would to the story of Abraham beginning in the bottom of Genesis chapter 11. God makes a promise to Abraham, and he swears that he is going to carry it out. Indeed, he carries out his promise to Abraham. Well, let's look at how this all started.

We find out his name is Abram. That's his name. Now, in Hebrew, Abram means great father. In a culture and in an ancient time in ancient Mesopotamia where few things meant more than your progeny and your lineage and the people that you are raising in your clan and your family, Abraham was a real dramatic failure. Not only did he not have children, but his name was great father, and no one had ever called him that because he was married to, if you'd look down in verse number 30, to Sarah, and Sarah was barren.

Now begin chapter 12, verse number 1. Here comes the promise. Yahweh had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. Now, this is an amazing statement for a 75-year-old man who's married to an infertile wife, and he's being told by God you're going to be great.

It's important for us, just like Abraham, to embrace the hard-to-believe grace in God's promises. Did you catch that? We need to embrace the hard-to-believe grace in God's promises. God makes promise after promise after promise and even changes his name in the middle of this narrative from Great Father, Abram, to Abraham, Father of a Great Nation. Again, he's building on a promise. As a matter of fact, we go quite a few chapters before he even has his first child, let alone grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

Genesis chapter 12, the promise comes. You're going to be a great nation. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to take care of the land. I'm going to give you a place that is sprawling, and you're going to fill it with people like sand on the seashore. Well, look what happens. We don't even get out of the 12th chapter of Genesis. This is not a mistake that we go from this grand and huge promise to this, verse number 10: "Now there was a famine in the land."

What? You promise me we're pulling me out of this place, you're taking me to this great place, and the next verse says, "Now there was a famine in the land." So Abraham has to run down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. It was bad. Look what happens next, verses 11 and following. He has that little problem with Pharaoh and Sarah, his hot-looking wife. Remember that? Trouble. He has another problem in chapter 14. It's the Lot is captured. "Now I've got to go fight to get him back" problem.

Chapter 16, this is a disaster. "We're getting tired of waiting for God's deliverance on the promise, so maybe the housekeeper would make a good mother for our child" problem. That wasn't a good deal. And I just hit the highlights. Bottom line is Abraham's never going to stand up and preach a prosperity gospel to his friends about, "Hey, if you follow God, it's going to be great." As a matter of fact, at every turn in Abraham's life, all we read is one challenge after the next.

It starts with, "I'm going to make you a great nation. Follow me." "Okay, I'll follow you." "Great." Next verse: famine in the land. Guess what? The truth of Jesus's promise comes true time and time again. That is, in this world, you will have tribulation. You'll have trouble. Don't think that the promise of God to bring you into the kingdom, to sit you in heavenly places, to march you into a place where everything is made right, means that somehow between here and there the journey's going to be easy. The journey for Abraham is hard, and that's what makes him a great template of faith for us. But what undergirded his life, which is what the writer of Hebrews is going to get to in chapter 11, is he still trusted God.

We need to prepare to be patient. To be patient as God delays fulfillment. Here's the thing: God is going to give me a great and perfect life. It just wasn't going to be right now. The question is, are you going to trust God and still believe his promises amidst the fact that he's not fulfilling them right now? Can you imagine waiting 25 years? You're way past the registry at Babies "R" Us at 75. Nobody in there but an occasional grandpa, great-grandpa. Abraham had chalked it up to, "I'm not going to have a kid," and God says, "No, yeah, you will." Around 97, I'm thinking it's not going to happen. I'm about giving up. And God said, "Yeah, I'm going to do it. Just not right now."

Has God done that in your life too? The promise in chapter 12 was, "I will bless you." God's promised the same for us, and I'm thinking, wow, the blessings seem delayed. The blessings come in strange packages. God, these blessings hurt. Yeah, because they're not the blessings I'm talking about. Don't let people try to twist it. The Christian life is not about the here and now. We're preparing for something better, and it's somewhere else. You realize that, right? What does verse 15 say? Abraham received the promise after waiting how? Patiently. Patience. That's the key.

Jot down Luke chapter 12, the latter half of the chapter. Jesus told parables about the fact that if you want to wait patiently for the return of Christ, get busy serving the King. If you get busy serving the King, guess what? You'll stay on track. At the coming of Christ, your mind and your heart will be set with a patient endurance and a tenacity that you won't have if you sit around and say, "Well, I don't know, he's coming back a long time from now, so I don't have to do much." The point is, if you have the eminent return of Christ in your mind, you'll get to work in doing the work of the church. If you get to work in doing the work of the church, the Bible says you'll be okay. You won't sit around and struggle with patience.

God is going to delay his fulfillment even in the subsets of his promises. God is going to come through, but it's always on his timetable, and I guarantee you it's a lot less urgent than ours. Our little microwave minds, he's doing it the old-fashioned way. Back to Genesis 22. The wait for God's deliverance of the promise, that was certainly a test. But God is not content with that. He wants to bring people to points of crisis to get them to have their faith, as the New Testament says, tried like with fire, refined by fire, so that it can come out sterling. Just the wait, and God is going to make you wait. That's why the whole "how long, O Lord," "wait on the Lord," all of that is such a theme of the Bible. But he's going to bring you to the point of crisis, and that's the harder part.

It's this kind of thing: the completely, seemingly, rationally antithetical moments and crises of life. Here's an example, and I'm sure you have examples in your own life. I've got my list. Look at verse 1. Just read the story and try to get into this historical context. Sometime later, which is what certainly Abraham is used to, a lot of waiting. Genesis 21, Isaac is born. He's probably a teenager at this point. Look at these words: "God tested Abraham." Which, by the way, it's not because God is ignorant or he's not omniscient or he doesn't know Abraham's heart. This is all for Abraham and those who are looking at Abraham's life.

He says to him, "Abraham." Abraham says, "Yeah, what? Here I am." God says, "Hey, take your son, your only son, Isaac. Yeah, that one, the one that you love." What are you doing? This is an amazing way to set this up. Take your son, the only one he's got, the one he waited for for 25 years. Your only son, yeah, we know. Isaac, got that one. The one you love. Couldn't love him anymore, and that was part of the problem perhaps, part of the test.

And go to the region of Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. That son that you waited for for 25 years and I finally came through with, you're over a hundred now, you've got your cane, you're changing diapers, you've done all that, now he's a teenager, you're watching your boy grow, you couldn't be prouder, you couldn't love him more. Oh, by the way, I'd like you to take that son, the son of promise, the one I said through whom I bless the world, kill him.

Amazing. What? Now again, maybe it's too soon to make the connection, but have there not been times in your Christian life where God has led you down a path that seemed completely antithetical to the path you thought you should go down if God was going to have you follow his plan for your life? I can tell you stories. It's amazing. God says, "Yeah, I know it looks like this is the way to go, but I'm going to tell you to go that way, and I know it looks like you're going to go in the complete opposite direction of what I told you to do, but I want you to go there. Trust me." See, that's the whole point. Trust me.

Here's what makes Abraham a hero, verse number 3. Early the next morning, Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place that God had told him about. That's why he is the father of faith. Because when his faith was tested, he said okay. Did it take faith to leave Ur of the Chaldees, Haran in southern Iraq? It took a lot of faith to do that. Did it take faith to wait on God and continue to trust him when you were getting older every year and you still thought you were going to have a baby because God told you? Yeah, that took faith.

But this took more faith than anything else. It was the leap into an area that seemed completely illogical. But he said okay, I'll go. Which, by the way, there was rational things going on in his mind. I hate to breakaway, but breakaway. Keep your finger here. We're coming back to this. Go to Hebrews chapter 11. Man, I shouldn't do this, but let's do it. Hebrews chapter 11. Look at what was going on in his mind. His faith drove him through this with spectacular thoughts of God's going to do something amazing here.

Look at what the text says, verse 17. Hebrews 11:17. Heroes of faith, right? By faith, Abraham, this comes in a laundry list of the great heroes of faith, when God tested him, he offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. It didn't make any sense, even though God had said it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. Not Ishmael, but Isaac. Now, here's the logic. Abraham's doing something in his mind. Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from the dead. I'm not revealing anything. You know how the story goes.

But the point is, isn't that amazing? He's thinking if I trust God and do this, who knows? Maybe it's going to be some spectacular story of Isaac rising from the dead. Guess how many people Abraham had seen rise from the dead? I'm thinking zero. Same number as you. That seemed highly unlikely. That took an amazing amount of faith. Still got your finger in Genesis 22? On the third day, verse 4, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He says to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then come back to you." Was he wimping out? No, insert Hebrews 11. He thought I'm going to do it, but maybe God's going to raise him from the dead. I don't know. God promised, and if God promised, I know he's going to do it even if he's going to lead me down a path that seems antithetical to the promise.

Verse 6. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, and he placed it on his son Isaac. And he said to his father, "Abraham, Father?" "Yes, my son," Abraham replied. "The fire, the wood, got all that," Isaac said, "but missing the sacrifice, where's the lamb?" Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." Can you imagine saying that? You know what's coming. You don't know what's coming after that, but you know what's coming. And the two of them went on together. When he reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there, he arranged the wood on it, he bound his son Isaac. Can you imagine that? Laid him on the altar on top of the wood. He reached out his hand, he took the knife to slay his son.

I'm following you. I think you're going to bless me. You promised you'd bless me. I trust you're going to bless me. You promised a nation to come through this kid. Okay. I'll do whatever you say. God is going to bring you to a place of letting go of something that you thought was part of his plan to bless your life and utilize you for the kingdom, and he's going to tear it out of your hand. He's done it to me multiple times. I go back to one that was so poignant and obvious at the beginning of my Christian life. I was dating Carlene. We'd been dating all through high school or half of it at least, dating in college.

I thought for sure God is blessing me with a wife. I mean, I saw all the passages. I'd studied all the texts. Here's a wonderful person. This is God's choice for me. This is a wonderful gift. We hit a crisis. Going through a missions study, thinking about God's calling, we talked about where we were headed. I said I think God's calling me to the mission field. I think I'm going to end up in a hut with big insects and cockroaches and no dishwashers. Are you ready? And suburban girl who grew up in the same city I did said, "I don't think God's calling me to that."

And I said I didn't think so either, but I think that's where he's taking me. Now, I'm thinking to myself, God, we invested in this relationship for years. This is the gal. I think this is it. I didn't have any text messages from God, but this, I think, is the gal. And right now, I remember at the bottom lounge of that dorm, I said this is it, then. We're done. I guess that's all. It was nice knowing you. And I took the knife to kill the relationship because I was trusting God that God would work something out. My heart was set on this. I'd felt the confirmation of God's spirit. I had all the confirmation of the pastors in my life. I had everybody saying this is the girl for you, and God said okay, are you ready to give it up? Have you been there before?

Sometimes God wants to change the plan, and maybe you misunderstood him on the way or whatever. But maybe like Isaac and Abraham or me and my girlfriend, God's saying I just want to see, are you trusting me? It didn't take too long until God turned some hearts around. There we were sitting there going okay. She says great, I'm ready for the cockroaches in the hut in Africa. And I said well, I think Orange County is more likely where God is taking me. I didn't know that then. We were both surprised at God's plan for our lives. But sometimes God just wants to bring you to that place of crisis. Have you been there? God will keep you there. You'll hit those times. Just remember this text: 1 Peter chapter 1. We don't have time to look at it. But 1 Peter chapter 1, just jot it down and study it. Start in verse 3 and read until the topic is over, verse 9 and 10 is about where it ends.

God is doing this to test your faith, and when your faith is tested, it will come out resilient. It will come out stronger. It won't make a lot of sense at first, but in the end, it will be something that brings glory to God and confirms the path that you're on and ultimately brings you to the place of saying God is good, God keeps his promises, God is faithful. Number 3. Power through God's tests of your faith. Power through them. Put your head down and trust him and go wherever that trust and godly biblical counsel takes you, no matter what it costs. That's a tough place to live, but it's the right place to live. Power through God's tests of your faith.

We don't have time for this either, but the bottom of chapter 22 in Genesis, echoing the sentiment of the writer of Hebrews in verse 15 and Hebrews chapter 6, Abraham received what was promised. What did he receive? Well, he received Isaac back, as though from the dead. Oh, he didn't die on that altar, but he thought he was going to die. But he got him back. And God said, "No, I'll give that back to you. I just want to see if you really trusted me." That may sound cruel, but it's not because God lacked the knowledge. It was because Abraham needed the resilient faith even to face the things that he and his son would face in the future.

Was this the promise? It's one kid. He didn't even live to see his grandkids, Esau and Jacob. Didn't even live to see that. Was it a nation? No, but it was a foretaste. It was a down payment. It was what I like to call it was the divine appetizer before the meal. The real meal would come from heaven's perspective as Abraham looked down and watched the nation develop, watch Joshua occupy the land, watch Moses give the law, watched Elijah and Elisha establish the revelation of the mini-monarchy and the early monarchy and receive the revelation through the prophets.

It came through the rebuilding of the temple. It came through the coming of John the Baptist. It came through the birth of Christ through a virgin named Mary in a little dusty place called Bethlehem. Abraham watched. As a matter of fact, Jesus put it this way: Abraham long to see my day. He rejoiced to see my day. And he did. He saw the King be born and even yet what God had promised that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. He hadn't even quite seen that yet. The day when we all gather from every tongue, tribe, and nation, and we stand in the presence of the great King, Jesus Christ, the God-man, and we worship him that day. Abraham says wow, you fulfilled Genesis chapter 12. It's coming. It's going to happen.

But what he got was his son, his teenager back. You can guarantee that these words in verses 11 through 18 ultimately left him with a sense of worship and gratitude that God had provided. He'd provided the lamb, the ram caught in the thicket. You know the story. It was a time to celebrate. The burnt offering had been sacrificed. They had worshiped, and they had returned. Number 4 on your outline, let's quickly jot this down. We need to celebrate every foretaste of God's ultimate fulfillment. Every foretaste of it. Every foretaste of God's ultimate fulfillment. None of us have seen the fulfillment of his promise. None of us. You've not even seen Jesus face-to-face yet.

What are you talking about? You're in his kingdom. Well, yeah, you're in his kingdom, but where's Christ? Seated at the right hand of the Father. He's waiting for all his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet. We haven't even seen him. We don't even know the color of his eyes. But we'll see him one day face-to-face. We'll bow down before him. We'll be a part of his kingdom. So what about the promises? Did Abraham get his nation? He did, but he had to see it from heaven's perspective. But you can guarantee that he celebrated the fact that he had a son named Isaac.

You know what? For all the many victories that we experience, just consider them divine appetizers. The main course is coming. But if we don't stop to celebrate every installment of God's fulfillment to the promises, then we're missing out. God wants to fuel our faith not just by the tests but by the celebrations that follow. God, much like Abraham sacrificing that ram on Mount Moriah, it was only a picture of the ultimate provision that would come through Isaac's lineage.

And yet it was a time of celebration. It was a time of thanksgiving. It was a time to say Yahweh, Yahweh Roha, he has provided. And God, we want to say here you've provided for us too. You provided for us by giving us your son to take away our sin, but the culmination, the fulfillment of the kingdom, it hasn't happened yet. We're looking forward to it. And God, it's poetic that this morning we study Abraham who brought his son Isaac as a willing sacrificial participant on a Mount Moriah that would one day become the site for Solomon's temple where sacrifices year after year would be made, looking forward to the ultimate sacrifice that took place just outside the city walls of Jerusalem, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. God, help us fortify our faith, bolster our confidence in you, even as we remember the payment that has been made that should always remind us that you've proven to us your covenant love. God, we love you very much, and I pray this would be a time when every Christian, as Paul had exhorted the Corinthians, would be a time for introspection and reflection. In Jesus's name, amen.

Guest (Male): Bolstering our trust in the promises of God even when we're called to wait. You're listening to Mike Fabarez on Focal Point and our message is titled "Abraham: A Fascinating Template of Promises and Faith." You can find today's lesson or request the complete study called "When God Makes a Promise" by going online to focalpointradio.org.

When life starts to spin out of control, it's difficult to maintain a grip on our faith. But when we can't seem to hang on to God, God hangs on to us. To encourage your confidence in the faithfulness of God, we've set aside a resource this month just for you. It's a book titled "All the Promises of the Bible" by Herbert Lockyer. This comprehensive resource catalogs every promise found in scripture, organizing them by theme and providing insight into their meaning and application for your life. Simply request the book "All the Promises of the Bible" when you stand with Focal Point with a generous gift today. Simply call 888-320-5885 or make your donation online at focalpointradio.org.

This program continues through supporters like you who value sound biblical teaching and want to share it with others. Your financial partnership with Focal Point connects you with fellow believers dedicated to advancing God's word through clear and practical instruction. Maybe you've thought about supporting this ministry but haven't taken that step yet. Well, now's the perfect time to join us. Even a small monthly gift makes such a huge impact for this ministry. And by the way, there's still time to sign up for Pastor Mike's teaching cruise to New England and Canada this September. Embark with us from September 19th through the 26th for concentrated Bible instruction, inspiring worship led by Grammy winners Keith and Kristyn Getty, all against the backdrop of stunning autumn colors as we visit historic locations like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. Staterooms are being reserved quickly, so book yours now online at focalpointradio.org. Well, tomorrow we'll pick up where we left off in our study about when God makes a promise. Hear more relevant and accurate Bible teaching with Mike Fabarez Tuesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know, we live in a culture where every point of view demands affirmation. It'd be easy to tell people what they want to hear. But we must teach the Bible accurately, unapologetically, and without compromising and without editing it. God's word is truth. If you want to send me a question, I encourage you to get in touch with us at focalpointradio.org.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Everyone, thanks for listening. Tune in again tomorrow. Same time, same station. Until then, have a blessed day. Goodbye.