Wednesday, April 26, 2006

By Faith... Abraham - Part I, Part 27 of 56

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

IDEA: God's voice can be heard by people steeped in paganism.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand that God's voice can be heard even in pagan settings.

Do you think that Abraham's faith was that sudden? In an instant he turned from being an idolater and left his home based on God's promise?

Do you think that coming to faith in Jesus Christ is an event or a process?

I. Faith is usually a process.

Events take place in a person's life that open them to faith. They are part of a conversion experience.

Conversion is not salvation. It is the process in which salvation takes place.

We do not know what events were going on in Abraham's life before this encounter with God.

II. Faith in Jesus Christ is also an event.

At some point you do cross a line where in one moment you did not trust God and in the next moment, you do.

Imagine someone who has been asleep and when he awakens in the morning and the room is still dark. He opens the curtain and the light floods in. Some people's story of conversion is like that: they can point to a time, a place when they trusted Jesus Christ. These people are often unaware of any process that brought them to faith.

Imagine someone who is asleep out of doors; she opens her eyes and gradually the night becomes day. There are other people who cannot point to a definite time and place. They simply know that once they were not trusting Christ and now they are.

Imagine someone who is asleep and he wakes up and discovers that the light has flooded the room. There are people who have become Christians in whom a process was going on and then they recognized that they were people of faith.

All of these are different experiences.

Is any one of these experiences better than the others?

What matters is that you know that it is light. What matters is that you know that you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ.

In Abraham's case, there was an instant when he crossed the line and committed himself to the God who confronted him. The Bible is interested in the event, but undoubtedly it came as the result of a process.