Join us as we embark on a spiritual journey reflecting on Abraham’s unwavering faith in God’s plan. This episode sheds light on the pivotal moments where faith dictated monumental life decisions, emphasizing the importance of trusting God blindly. Through Abraham’s story, listeners are encouraged to embark on their own journeys of faith, stepping away from comfort zones, and embracing the unknown with God’s guidance, reinforcing the resilient nature of spiritual growth.
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, January 8th. We can gain valuable insights from the men and women of the Bible, like Abraham, who trusted God’s guidance. In this podcast, we’ll explore how his faith-filled response to God offers inspiration for believers seeking to live a life of faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
Our God is a loving, kind, and good Heavenly Father who always desires the very, very best for us. In fact, not only does He desire it, He provides the very best for us every single time. That is, in every decision that we’re trying to make. in everything that we’re asking for, whatever God provides is His very, very best. Now, one of the questions we have to ask is, if that’s true, why do I not experience His best, and why is it that that doesn’t always work out that way in my life? Well, the primary reason is because we fail to use the key that unlocks the treasure house to God’s best, and that is the key of faith. And all through the Scriptures, He tells us again and again and again to trust Him, to believe Him, to follow Him, to obey Him. But it all boils down to trusting Him and believing Him. One of the ways that He teaches His faith is not only by what He does in our life. One of the ways He teaches His faith is in the Word. And one of the ways he teaches his faith in his word is how he works in the lives of others. And thinking back in the Old Testament, how he worked in the lives of Old Testament saints and purposing in my heart to go back and start reading how God worked in their lives to see, Lord, would you do the same thing in my life in your own way? And so I began to read Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel somehow became my favorite ones. And as I began to read and to search how God worked in their life, though we’re talking about several thousand years earlier, somehow the principles were always there. And I knew in my heart, God, if you would work that principle in my life, and I probably didn’t call it a principle then, but I said it was your way, then… Somehow I’ve got to believe that you’ll do the same for me in a different way because you’ve never changed. You’re the same yesterday, today, and forever. So I begin to just sort of saturate my mind and heart with those. Well, one of those is Abraham. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Genesis chapter 12. And in the life of Abraham, there are scores and scores of wonderful, vital things. practical principles of the word of God that will give direction for our life. And we’re in the series now on faith. And I want you to think about this theme that is forward by faith, because everything God calls us to do in our life, he calls us to move forward, never backwards. And that is always an act of faith on our part. And if you recall, the Bible says we’re saved by faith. We walk by faith. We die by faith. We pray by faith. Everything is the result of faith. And so as you think about the life of faith and how God works in your life, I want us to look at the life of Abraham just in one chapter, this 12th chapter of Genesis. And I want us to look at it under this title. And that is the call of faith. Because it’s just the way God works in your life and mine every day. He says, now the Lord said to Abraham, or Abram was his first name before his name was changed. Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house to the land which I will show you. And I will make you, he says, a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarah his wife and Lot his nephew and all their possessions which they had accumulated and the persons which they had acquired in Haran. And they set out for the land of Canaan. Thus they came to the land of Canaan. Now, I want you to jot down four things because this is the way God works in our life. And if you recall that the Bible says in the 103rd Psalm that God made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. What you and I want to know are the ways of God. How does God work? If you can just grasp that. In this message, these simple four simple truths, it will make a difference in your life if you will grasp them, believe them, and apply them to your life. Because God doesn’t really work differently today than He used to work in the lives of people in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We just live in a different environment and things around us are different and circumstances are different, but the principles are the same. And the truth is that God has called all of us. He called you to salvation. That’s the reason you’re saved. He calls you in your life’s work. Some of you may have chosen the right one, didn’t even know that it was God’s leading. And some of you chose to do what you chose to do. And you know that somehow things aren’t right, never dawned on you that God had a will and a purpose and a plan for your life. And if we’re to live according to His plan, we have to live by faith. And he always moves us forward in our Christian life, never backwards. Even when we are going through deep, dark valleys and everything around us seems to be so wrong and so absolutely out of sync, that doesn’t mean that you’re out of the will of God. Because oftentimes he leads us through those valleys for very specific reasons. But in the life of Abraham, just in this chapter, I want us to see four things primarily. First one is this, and you’ll be wise to jot this down. The call of faith oftentimes is a call to step out into the unknown. The call of faith oftentimes is a call to step out into the unknown. To go where we are unfamiliar to some area and some direction that is untried and that is unknown to us. Now let me say very quickly. The call of faith is oftentimes a call to step out to the unknown. Listen, unknown to me? Yes. Unknown to those about me? Yes. Unknown to God? No. God has never asked you and me to step out in anything that is unknown to Him. And whatever he calls you to step out into, he’s going to see to it that he gets you there. All of heaven’s power is behind God to see to it that he gets you where he’s called you to go. Your response and my response is to trust him. And if I trust him, I will obey him. When I cease to trust him, I cease to obey him. And thank God, these saints of old, in whose lives God has given us so many wonderful principles to live by, these men not only were successful, they were equally failures. They succeeded here. They failed there. They obeyed God here. They didn’t trust Him here. And so it’s because we can identify with both sides of their life that you and I can ask the question, God, if you work that way in their life, how will you work in my life the same way? And the first thing here is that God oftentimes, most of the time, when He issues us a command, it is a step to go into that which is unknown. We don’t know how it’s going to work out. But remember this. that he does not call us to follow him by reason. He calls us to follow him by faith. Reason usually interferes with faith. It is a call to the unknown, the unfamiliar, the things that are untried to us. And I believe one of the reasons that many people go through their life never quite satisfied and never fulfilled is they were never willing to take that first step. Every time God leads you and challenges you in some area, it is a step of faith. It is a step that appears to be a step into the unknown. But listen, since God knows everything absolutely perfectly, He sees the darkness and the light the same. He can see just as well in the dark as He can in the light. Nothing is unknown to Him. So remember, you can’t go by reasoning. And please don’t listen to all the advice of your friends. Because oftentimes what God tells you to do, he’s not going to ask someone else to do that. if you listen to your friends to make your decisions more than likely you’ll never find God’s will you’ll never follow what he wants you to do because oftentimes your friends will be threatened by your faith and your courage if you say to them that here’s what I believe God’s calling me to do well deep down inside sometime it’s something that they would like to do or they wish they had the courage to do or they wish God would do something like that in their life and some people can’t handle watching other people grow, and so they try to drag them down a little bit. Don’t tell your friends what God tells you until God gives you permission to share it. If you do, most of the time, you’re going to be sorry. So, if you’ll notice what God said to Abraham here. He says, I want you to go forth from your country, from your relatives, from your father’s house to the land which I will show you. He didn’t have any idea where he was going at first. And if you’ll turn to Hebrews chapter 11, and the writer of Hebrews, speaking of this very incident, makes this extremely clear in this 11th chapter. He’s talking about Abraham’s call. He says in the eighth verse of the 11th chapter of Hebrews, he says, by faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. He didn’t wait for God to say, all right, I’m going to give you a roadmap. Here’s where I want you to go. Here’s how I want you to get there. And this is the destination. So no problem. He called him to go out knowing that he had to face robbers, thieves on the way, that his family, that is his close family that he would carry with him, that his flocks, his herds, and he would be subject to all kinds of problems. And he was asking him to leave a very, very fertile land in the Euphrates River area there and the fertile lands there, the kind of climate they had. And as he went along, he knew it wouldn’t take him very long because any distance he went from there, he’d have to face a desert, which is exactly what he did. And to leave all these fertile lands and everything that was so securing and going out, he said to a land that I will show thee. Now let me ask you a question. Are you willing to follow the leadership of the Lord when you don’t know where he’s going to lead you? When God says, this is what I want you to do, this is the next step. Are you willing to do that without being able to reason it out? Without being able to figure out how it’s going to work out. You see, if I am following Christ, that is a walk of faith. And if I’m going to follow him, I have to follow him by faith. You see, he’s under no obligation to tell me what the end result is. He’s under no obligation to tell me why. He’s under no obligation to make me any promises. He’s under no obligation to give us any details. He’s under no obligation to do anything wrong. but to tell me what to do next and then to guide me step by step. And you see, every parent, listen to me parents, every parent should instill within the mind and the spirit and the emotions of your children to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, to obey Him, to learn very early in life how to listen to God. And how to know that it’s the voice of God that you’re hearing. And while God doesn’t speak audibly, I don’t believe he needs to speak audibly today, he does speak very silently, sometimes so silently and so absolutely pure that it’s as if he has shouted in your ear. You can’t teach your children a greater lesson than to learn to listen to God and to trust him. Not to try to figure it out, just trust him. Just do what he says and don’t try to reason it out. And where that will lead you is into and through situations and circumstances that oftentimes will be very difficult. Ultimately, absolutely fantastic. Through deep valleys, dark valleys, trials, tribulations, heartaches. All kinds of things. All kinds of circumstances. He doesn’t say, just follow me and I’ll just put you on a cloud and we’ll just float you right on across this desert. No. He took him through it. And he took him in a way that he had to listen and follow him. Second principle I want you to notice here, not only in the life of Abraham is this walk of faith a step into the unknown, but it is also a call to separation. Listen to what he said to him. The call of faith is a call to separation. Now listen. He says, “‘Abraham, go forth from your country.'” from your relatives, from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you. Now, what he was saying to Abraham is this. I want you to get up and leave the things that are dearest to you, the things that are most valuable to you. I want you to leave where your heart’s been. There and there are the Chaldees and later into Haran before he left, finally his father died there. He says, I want you to get up and leave all of this. Leave your family, leave everything and follow me. Listen carefully. Most people never follow the will of God because they camp on the doorstep of home base until God gives them all the details and they have perfect assurance that everything is going to be all right. That’s not even faith. What I want you to see is that faith doesn’t guarantee me, listen, faith doesn’t guarantee me the details. Faith says, I’m willing to trust this God in whom I have trusted my eternal salvation. I’m willing to trust Him a step at a time if I don’t know where it’s going to lead me. And usually that will require some separation. This is where oftentimes we falter. He said to Abraham, you to leave your homeland, your relatives, your father, He says, your father’s house. He said you to leave all of this and go where I tell you to go. Now, do you know what the biggest problem is? Listen, all of us have a comfort zone. The comfort zone is where faith goes to sleep. Because you see, as long as you’re in your comfort zone, you don’t have to trust God. Sometimes we miss out on God’s best because we won’t let go. And some things are very, very difficult to let go in life. We don’t like to let go the security of our finances. We don’t like to let go the security of… friends and our hometown where we grow up and all of these things. But God said to Abraham, Abraham, get up and leave them. Now listen, listen carefully. Whatever God calls you to is better than what you have. Whatever God calls you to is better than what you presently have. You say, well, now wait a minute. No, I don’t have to wait. I know better. Whatever God calls you to is better than what you have. The reason I know that is because the call of faith is always a call forward. That is, He is building something into our life. And if he’s building something into my life, what is he doing? He is getting me ready for something better in my life. And he’s moving me toward the fulfillment of his will for my life. And so if I am walking in the will of God, moving in the direction of the will of God, then it’s always going to be better than what it was back here. And if I wait till I can make it look better, and if I wait till I can manipulate it till I am persuaded, well, now things are going to work out the way I want them. I’ll never be obedient to God. You see, it is a walk of faith. I must trust him. And trusting him sometimes means that I have to tear myself away from something that I love dearly. And so once in a while, somebody gets this all been out of shape and God’s called me and I’m to leave everything and I’m to sacrifice for God. Listen, you know what I’ve discovered? How do you sacrifice for God? Is it not true that he says, given it shall be given to you, good measure pressed down? And we limit that to money. Listen, the most important things in life are not money. Cannot be bought with it, cannot be purchased, cannot be bartered, cannot be traded. Contentment. peace and a sense of satisfaction that you’re in the will of God, doing what God wants you to do. Your life’s counting, at least with somebody, and your life isn’t just being spent. You’re just not living your life to make money. You’re living your life to make a difference in somebody else’s life. And you’re not just leaving footprints in the sand, but in stone and concrete and steel. It’s eternal because of the consequence. All of you, every single one of you can be making eternal steps, steps in your life every day that leave an eternal consequence and an eternal impact. But you can’t do it unless you’re willing to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And sometimes that means pulling me away from things that I love and things that give me security and giving up circumstances and situations and opportunities and Oftentimes, someone will give up an opportunity that looks like their world is wrapped up in it. And what happens? And they choose to step out into the unknown, untried, unfamiliar, and a little scary. And what does God do before long? They look back and they say, Hallelujah. Thank God I didn’t hold on to that because, wow, look at this.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Call of Faith. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
