Thank you for listening to Cultivated Growth. John and I are back at it. We're gonna spend second week, week number two, kind of taking a look at the life of Abraham. Last week we talked about the super important passage in Genesis chapter 12 of the promises that God makes to Abraham, and certainly the impact that it had not just on Abraham and and his life, but the impact that it had ultimately on all of this.

And we're gonna. Kind of transition, even staying in Genesis chapter 12 a bit into the life of Abraham. And this week we're gonna talk about Abraham and the movement that he makes without faith. And the next week we'll talk about the movements that he makes with faith, and we'll contrast those two things.

I'm looking forward to today's discussion. Let's get to it.

Well, so Jeremy, we spent all of last week talking about the promises that God made to Abraham, and not only how those promises affected him and his life from that point forward, but how those promises still affect us today. And Abraham obviously, and rightfully so, is known as a man of great faith. And we're gonna talk a lot about that next week in particular.

But it, it is worth pointing out and spending some time talking about the fact that there are moments in Abraham's life where. He really struggles with faith and he struggles with fully trusting God, and, and those moments can't be overlooked. They can't be ignored. And actually I think it's really important for us to acknowledge the fact that some of the great men and women of faith throughout history and certainly throughout the Bible, they struggled at certain points in their lives.

We, we spent a whole month talking about David recently and, and he had moments in his life. Where he struggled with his faith and, and being honest about how we talk about those things and spending some time reading through those moments in the lives of those men, I think is really important to build out our full understanding of, of those men, most certainly, but also to build out their relationship with God and how God viewed them and how he handled those moments in their lives and what we're to learn from that.

And so I think the next few minutes are really important, not just to fully understanding the life of Abraham and who he was. But, but also our relationship with God is we have moments of weak faith in our lives as well as at times too. Yeah. And he really, kind of going back to a couple months ago when we were spending time talking about David, we really, really centered in a lot of ways about, you know, not just the mistakes that he made and the sin that.

Occurred, but how he handled that and and, and there'll be a little bit of that certainly with Abraham as well. And I think also what God does is, is even these in these men of great faith and Abraham was that, I mean, ultimately he is a man of incredible faith. But yet he is still a man and he's has weaknesses and he is imperfect, and he has struggles.

And that helps us, I think, to relate to him in a lot of ways that, you know, I, I'm, I am a, I'm a man. I have weaknesses, I have struggles. I'm, I'm prone to to, you know, bouts of you know, struggle and trouble and, you know, to be able to know that I'm not alone in that. Mm-hmm. But yet also to see how to rebound, you know, from those missteps, I think is, is really important.

There's a few specific examples that we see throughout the story of Abraham. Two of them involve him lying about his relationship with his wife and doing so in an effort to protect the safety of both he and his wife as they were traveling through different places. One of those in Genesis chapter 12 is they traveled to Egypt and then another in Genesis.

Chapter 20 as he encounters ab bialek, the king of the region that they're in at that point in time. And then obviously, perhaps the most well known of these moments is, is the one with Hagar that leads to the his son, Ishmael, being born. Each of these moments are, are certainly times in Abraham's life where he is waiting.

He's waiting on God to fulfill promises to him. Not yet seeing the fulfillment of those. And it's a moment in time in which Abraham is being asked to wait on God. And, and those times I can only imagine how difficult they would've been as not just, we're not talking about hours or days or weeks going by, but years and years.

Go by and, and Abraham is continuing to have to wait for God to act in his time. And I think that's a really important lesson to us as we talked last week about how God makes promises to us today. And, and our faith has to be such that we are willing to wait on the fulfillment of those promises in God's time.

And it's in those moments where. Perhaps we are gonna find ourselves to be most vulnerable as, as we wait on God and our trust has to remain strong in, in those times. And that's where Abraham was at his weakest when God asked him to wait. And Abraham and his wife Sarah too, they, they found themselves wanting to.

Do things in their time and see the fulfillment of those things in their own way. Yeah, most certainly. With the story surrounding him and his wife Sarah, and then Hagar in Genesis chapter 16. You know, in a lot of ways, I mean, you, you really take a look at that and, and you see. The, the, certainly the lack of trust in God, but it's almost as if they lose sight of who God is and you know that he isn't held by parameters, because that's really in a lot of ways what they're working off of.

Right. I mean, we talked, you know, several months back now about God and who he is and you know, the all, everything, whether that is his power or his knowledge or his presence, and I think sometimes we lose sight of. Even though we are held by boundaries and parameters, God is not held by boundaries and parameters.

And so you get to Genesis chapter 16 and you have Sarah, she was certainly involved in this decision that took place. You have Sarah and Abraham are looking at themselves and they know that God has promised them children descendants, and that just hasn't happened yet. And they look at both of them and they're like, well, we're kind of getting up in age.

And if, if it. If it doesn't happen now, it's not going to happen. Mm-hmm. Because of these physical parameters. And now they're presuming on God that he has parameters and, and they lose sight that he doesn't have parameters. And so they're now basing everything off of these boundaries. That God doesn't have.

And so I think in a lot of ways, you know, the, the danger of what happens in Genesis chapter 16 is Abraham and Sarah placing boundaries upon God and his ability to act. And I think a lot of ways we do that. Mm-hmm. I, I is we lose sight of the fact God doesn't operate in boundaries and so. Usually we'll have a impact on our patients or our ability to wait on God or our ability to deal with, you know, things in his way.

Because we then are trying now to presume upon God and place boundaries upon him. Someone who has no boundaries. And that's exactly what's happening here, and that, that's such a, a good point, an important one. And it really goes to the, the idea of. Of wisdom and, and how we interpret God's wisdom compared to man's wisdom and understanding.

We tend to think ourselves to be so smart and so complex and so high on the food chain that, you know, if we can't figure it out. That nobody can. And the reality is, is God operates on such a different plane than we do, and he knows what's best for us. He knows what's right. He knows what's wrong. He knows what's gonna happen, and he, he is able to see things that we don't see that.

That's why we are called to put our trust in him, right? But our faith in him, and that becomes so difficult when we can't see. Where things are headed or we don't think they're headed the way that we think they should, and so we seek to course correct as opposed to following God. And that takes us all the way back.

I mean, the very first promise that God made to Abraham was, Hey, follow me and I'm gonna take you to a country that I'm gonna give to you. And what really is interesting about the host scenario is. It, it, this one decision that he makes without faith causes big problems moving forward. Yeah. I, I mean, really for a long time.

Mm-hmm. And, and, you know, he, he can look back probably after all these issues that I've raised and, and you know, it's very easy then to say, Hey, you know, if I would've operated in a different way. Mm-hmm. But that really sets him up for moving forward and he has incredible opportunities to showcase his faith moving forward from this moment.

And, and I'd like to think that he's able. Now to look back and to say, you know, I operated without faith, and it went this way. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now operating with faith, I'm move, you know, moving this way. Yeah. That's what, that's what all of us should strive for, is to learn from those times in our lives where our faith is weak and we don't trust in God the way that we should.

How, how do we respond to that? How do we come back from that? What do we learn from those? Situations. And I think that's certainly, we see Abraham being a man of great faith, and again, we'll talk more about that next week. But he, he's not just in his time known as a man of great faith, but preserved throughout history as a man of great faith, right?

And, and so we know how he responds to these times and that's what really should ring true for us as well, is how am I gonna respond to those moments? What do I learn? From those times so that I don't make those same mistake again. And now Abraham, obviously he made the same mistake, at least twice that we're told of, right?

But how, what do I learn from those times so that I can make better decisions, more godly decisions when I'm faced with the same challenges and the next go around? And that's really what each of us should be thinking about when we stumble, when we, when we struggle, when we're weak. Okay, what can I learn from this?

How can I respond better next time? Yeah. You made mention of you know, the two instances in Genesis 12 and in Genesis 20 almost. Identical kind of you know, situations where he, he lies about his wife and, and who she is. And you know, although we may not find ourselves in that exact same circumstance, his reason for not telling the truth there mm-hmm.

Is a temptation that man has had for all time because it's simple. Self preservation. Right, right. I, if I tell the truth here, there, there could be some danger upon me or I could get into some trouble, or someone that I love could get into some trouble, and now it, it becomes that simple thing that every one of us fight fights against.

Mm-hmm. You know, it is maybe one of, if the. Most used reason that people skirt the truth or lie Yep. Is some sort of self preservation. I don't wanna get in trouble, I don't wanna get caught. I don't want something bad to happen to myself or someone that I, that I love. You know, it's all of those things, but yet the point is made over and over that it, it, this isn't the way that we need to go.

And you can, you know. Make your move throughout the entirety of, you know, biblical references to see the importance of God calling upon his people to speak the truth and to speak the truth at all times. Yep. Even in the times that may seem to be difficult. There's just no excuse or no reason ever not to speak the truth.

I think, you know, we, we talked a minute ago about how there's some similarities in, in David and Abraham mm-hmm. In terms of just kind of the God pointing out some of their shortcomings at different times in their lives. But one thing that I, when you were talking, it just made me think about this with, with both of those men.

They had moments in their lives where they struggled with the truth. They struggled with their faith, they struggled with taking accountability for their actions. They had those moments, they had those moments in lives that were defined and governed by faith. Mm-hmm. And that's the difference I think, between someone like David and Abraham compared to say someone like Saul a, a man who had moments in his life where he operated in obedience.

But it was a life largely governed by self and pride and disobedience and, and therein really lies the difference I think, between the two and why we see Abraham and David lifted up as these men of great faith when it's all said and done, is that their shortcomings didn't define them. Their faith and their trust defined them.

And within that life, they had periods of struggle. That that's what we should strive to be. We're, we're not gonna get out of this life without stumbling, but is it faith and trust that defines who we are and we have those moments that we learn from and that we grow through? Or are the times where our faith is strong gonna be the outlier in a life that's largely defined by pride and self preservation?

And I think. That's the difference when you see some of these characters in the Old Testament specifically and how God deals with them, he, he's looking at, okay, who, who is this individual and what is it that governs their life as a whole? And we see with Abraham specifically, it's a man who struggled at times, but a man whose life was governed by faith.

Yeah. I mean, next week we'll talk, you know all about that. I mean, it, it is. It is how he dealt with E, even in the shortcomings, you know, how he dealt with it. These are blips in his life that he's able to learn from and bounce back from very, very quickly. Very similar to David. In great contrast to Saul. I mean, that's a great, you know, a great contrast that who is governed by pride and self, but yet Abraham is able to continue to kind of pick himself up, dust himself off, and continue to move forward by faith.

Mm-hmm. And that ultimately is how his life is described. Well, let's end today in Hebrews chapter 11, maybe as a little bit of a bridge from the conversation today to the conversation next week. We will end in Hebrews chapter 11 in verse number six a passage that doesn't specifically reference Abraham, although he'll be mentioned multiple times in Hebrews chapter 11, but I think it summarizes what we've been talking about today and prepares us pretty well for next week.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse six, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Thank you for listening this week. If you haven't already done so, we'd appreciate it if you would take just a second to subscribe to the podcast, whatever platform you're listening, rate and review the show so we can continue to spread the good news of Jesus widely and effectively as possible.

Thanks again for joining us this week, and we'll talk again next week.