Thursday, September 21, 2006

By Faith... Abraham - Part II, Part 18 of 79

TEXT: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would afterward receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8).

IDEA: Sometimes to wait is harder than to adventure.

PURPOSE: To help listeners be patient in waiting for God to act on our behalf.

How do you handle waiting – at an airport, or for Christmas, or waiting for someone you love to die?

Can you empathize with Phillips Brooks who observed, "I have spent a good part of my life waiting for God to catch up with me"?

I. Sometimes to wait is harder than to adventure.

We are thrilled at the moment of decision and at the moment of achievement, but in between we plod and wait and work and watch when nothing seems to be happening.

We have the promise of the Second Coming, but Jesus doesn't come. What can happen when we have that?

II. A person of faith waits with patience that what God has promised He will do.

Abraham is characterized as someone who had to wait.

Abraham was called to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to a land which God would show him. Did that happen right away?

He had to wait 15 years until his father died before he left Haran for Canaan.

For 100 years after leaving Haran he never possessed the land but wandered in it.

All he had to show for his years in Canaan was a field in which his wife Sarah was buried.

III. How do you explain Abraham's ability to wait patiently for what God had promised him?

God promised him that he would make of him a great nation.

God had promised that he would give the land to his offspring, but he didn't see his children or his grandchildren inheriting the land.

We are in danger of making up our own timetable for God to keep his promises. But God runs His own train at his own time. We can be patient if we can believe that God will do what He says—in His own way, in His own time, according to His own purposes.