Abraham Friend of God

Jesus said, greater love has no one than this that He laid down His life for His friends. And then He went on to say, you are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know His master's business. Instead I call you friends for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you. So God calls us His friends and demonstrates His great love for us and giving His life for us. Now you know what it's like to drop names, right? I'm sure no one in this room has ever done that but you know someone or heard someone who's dropped names before, right? To drop a name is to indicate that someone is a good friend of yours or you know them well when in reality they may be just an acquaintance or you may have heard their name before. But you drop their name, you mentioned their name or pick up on their name in a conversation and indicate that they are closer to you than they really are. That's called name dropping. Well, we have a tendency to do that by indicating that someone is a friend to impress people with the kind of friends that we have. You know someone who's more important than maybe the most of other people or at least seem to be that way. Well there is no real claim to friendship that is legitimate unless the other person claims to be your friend as well. There is a man in the Bible that is called the friend of God and it was not His claim. This man's name is Abraham. He did not go around dropping names like God, He's my friend. No. Abraham never makes that claim but God makes that claim about Abraham three times in the word of God. God says that Abraham was my friend. I want to begin this evening a series of messages on the life of Abraham. He is a pivotal character in biblical history. He is the father of the Jewish nation. He is the greatest example of faith to us in the New Testament. The greatest Old Testament illustration is Abraham. He's used a number of times as the illustration of what it means to have faith in God. He is also a pivotal character in history itself being the father of the Jews. Christians claim him and even Muslims claim him as an important character in their religion. So in three of the major world religions Abraham is seen as being a very important character. What I would like to do this evening is basically introduce you to Abraham and his life and the story about him in the word of God. We will be in Genesis chapter 11 this evening. So I invite your attention to that passage. We will be looking at Abraham's life which basically takes up chapters 12 through 25 of the book of Genesis. But tonight we're going to introduce Abraham's life at the end of chapter 11. So let's begin with an introduction to the characters and the story. Let's first of all be introduced to the cast. The cast of characters in Genesis chapter 11 let's begin reading in verse 27. This is the account of Tara. Tara became the father of Abraham, Nehore and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. Now his father Tara was still alive. Haran died in the earth of the Caldeans in the land of his birth. Abraham and Nehore both married. The name of Abraham's wife was Sarah. And the name of Nehore's wife was Milka. She was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milka and Iska. Now Sarah was barren and she had no children. In these verses, especially verses 27 to 29, we're introduced to the cast of characters. The main characters in the story, there are a number of names mentioned. And obviously we're not going to try to trace all of them. But the major players in this story are as follows. Besides Abram. And by the way, his name is not yet Abraham. It is Abram, which means exalted father. His name will be changed in chapter 17 to Abraham, which means father of many or father of a multitude. Not changed his name when he was reaffirming his covenant to Abraham and reaffirming the fact that he would be the father of a great nation, of a multitude of people. That's when he changed his name from father, exalted father to father of a multitude, father of many. But for a while, we will struggle to remember to call him Abram rather than Abraham. His wife is named Sarah. We know her more commonly as Sarah. Her name was also changed at the same time in chapter 17. There's really no difference in the meaning of the names Sarah and Sarah, both of them mean princess. So it's not real clear why her name, the spelling, was changed. But her name will become Sarah. Some of the other main players in the story are Tara. Tara is the father of Abram. And we will see. He plays an important part in what we'll look at tonight. And then he is off the scene, the rest of the time. But he does play an important part in the beginning of the story. Nehore, one of Abram's brothers is mentioned. And Nehore comes up later in the story right at the end of Abram's life. He is the father of Rebecca. Actually the grandfather of Rebecca who will marry Abraham's son Isaac. And so the family kind of comes back together later in Abraham's life. So you've got Abram, you've got Tara, you've got Nehore. And then you've got Lot who has mentioned also in verse 27. Lot is a major character in the story. He is the nephew of Abram and he will travel with Abram on the first part of his journey and on into the land of Canaan. And we will find him appearing in the story right up through chapter 19. He does play an important part in the early life of the story of Abraham. Well those are the main characters in the story. That's the cast. Now let's look at the opening scene that is described for us in verses 30 through 32. Verse 30 we've already seen. Sarah was barren, she had no children. Verse 31, Tara took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarah, the wife of his son Abram. And together they set out from her of the Caldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran they settled there. Tara lived 205 years and he died in Haran. Now the first important element in the story is described for us in verse 30. And that is that Sarah was barren, she had no children. That's a very important part of the story. If you know anything about Abraham you know that one of the most intriguing features of his story is that they are childless and seemingly unable to have children, at least humanly speaking, unable to have children until they are well past childbearing years. And God promises a son and through that son a great nation. And it is one of the greatest tests of Abraham's faith that humanly speaking that's an impossibility. But with God and his power miraculously he is able to provide them a son. One of the greatest tests of faith in Abraham's life will be. The test concerning the barrenness of his wife and the ability to have children at all. The next interesting part of scene one is in verses 31, verse 31, where Abram's father, Tara, takes the family and leaves Err to go to Canaan but they stop about halfway. Now I really should have put a map on the screen and didn't think about it until tonight. That's too late. So if I can just draw you a little map here. Err of the Caldeans is in the fertile crescent in the Tigris Euphrates Valley, just south between Baghdad, current day Baghdad, and Kuwait on the sea. And so it's in a very fertile area of land with the two rivers going through it. It was more fertile back in Bible times than it is now. But Err of the Caldeans was one of the most prosperous cities of the ancient world. Excavations have been done there by archaeologists which have discovered this was quite a place. It was a very cosmopolitan city, a very advanced city, a very modern city if you will for its time. One of the most advanced cities of the day. And God calls Abram out of that city and his comfort zone, his home, to go to Canaan. Now if Err of the Caldeans is over here, Canaan is over here. Now I'm trying to do this backwards from my perspective so that you can see it correctly. This is Err, this is Canaan. Now the land of Canaan, the land that would become Israel. Now Haran is up here. And so it would look like, why don't you just go straight across? The problem is that's Baren Desert. Nobody traveled that way. The only routes, trade routes, were from Err of the Caldeans up kind of north to Haran. And then from Haran kind of over in a boomerang shape down into the land of Canaan. And so they get as far as Haran and they stop there. And the Bible says that Abram's father, Tara, died in Haran. Now it's clear that God had already told Abram to leave his home and his family. If you look at chapter 12, verse 1, the Lord had said to Abram, leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land. I will show you and then he gives him the further promise that we'll look at later about making him the father of a great nation. But you notice the tents of the verb there, the Lord had said. In other words, previous to his leaving Err, to go to Canaan, the Lord had already told him. And the Lord had told him, previous to leaving home. Want you to leave home. Want you to leave your people. Want you to leave your father's household. Verse 7 makes it very clear that God had told him this while he was living in Err. Look at these verses. This is the beginning of Stephen's sermon, kind of summarizing Old Testament history. To this he replied, brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abram while he was still in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. Leave your country and your people, God said, go to the land. I will show you so he left the land of the Caldeans and so forth. But it's clear from Acts and also from Genesis that the timing of this is that God while Abraham was in Err had said, get out of your land, away from your father's household, away from your people and go to Canaan. And then we go back to chapter 11 where this is described that he left. God had already told him that, chapter 11 is describing his leaving. Interesting thing is, why did he take his family with him? If God had said, take, you know, go away from your people, away from your fathers household and go to Canaan, why did his family go with him? Secondly, why did they stop in Haran? Now this has been a subject of much discussion and a lot of sermons over the years which are very critical of Abraham. Most people think Abraham was guilty of disobedience to the Lord or at best only partial obedience in leaving the land. He took his family, took his father, took a lot and didn't go all the way to Canaan. And for that reason, because he was not completely obedient, God had to kill his father and in Haran before he would let him go on. Now that's the way the scene is often painted. I think that may do Abraham and injustice. I think that's probably just not really honest with what Scripture is saying. God never criticizes Abraham for what he did here. There is never a word against what Abraham did. So maybe we ought to look for some other reason or some other possibility of what is happening here. In Genesis 12, God never rebukes Abraham for what he did. In Acts 7, we saw he never rebukes him. Just after his father died, the text says God sent him onto the land where he was living, where the people of Israel are living in Stevens' day. Hebrews 11, verse 8, describes it this way. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive his inheritance, obeyed and went. And he did not know where he was going. There is no indication that Abraham did not believe at first and really didn't obey very well at first, but eventually he got where he was supposed to go. No, the Bible just says in faith, he went, he obeyed. So God never mentions anything critical of Abraham's decision here which leads us to a couple of other possibilities as to what was going on here with Abraham taking his family and not going all the way to Canaan to start with. I think there are two other possibilities for explaining what Abraham did. One of them is maybe Abraham was not at fault at all. And God did not hold him responsible for the fact that his family went with him and he stopped in Haran. Several things in the passage may indicate this. If you look at verse 31, you notice the Bible says, Tara took his son, Abraham, his grandson, son of Haran, daughter-in-law Sarah and together they set out from her the Caldeans to go to Canaan. Who initiated the action here? Who was leading this move? Not Abraham, Tara. You'll say, well wait a second, God had spoken to Abraham telling him to get out of his country. We have to remember this was a very patriarchal society. This was a society that honored the role of the father. The role of the father in the society. No matter how old the father was and how many generations below him were alive, that didn't matter the father. As long as he was alive was considered the head of the family. We can see this later, even in Abraham's life. Isaac will not choose a bride unless his father Abraham approves. And later on, Abraham's grandson Jacob, you remember the story of Jacob's 12 sons when they went down into Egypt to get grain because of the famine? They would not go unless Jacob gave them permission. Now most of those sons, practically all of them were fully grown, had their own families. Some of them were in their 50s or 60s. They say they're old enough to make their own decisions. Yeah, but they had a tremendous respect for their father Jacob and they would not go without Jacob's consent. That's the way things worked in those days. And so I would suggest that probably something like this happened. God appears to Abraham. Abraham out of deference to his father goes to him to explain that God has told him to leave and go to Canaan. And his father says, where is Canaan? Abraham says, I don't know. Can you imagine? Tara saying, what do you mean you don't know? You're leaving home? You don't know where you're going. That's what the Bible says. He didn't know where he was going. Well, I just know it's a place called Canaan. What direction is it? Well, I think it's kind of this way. Well, he can't persuade his father evidently of the value and the validity of this plan. So his father insists that he go along. He cannot persuade Abraham to stay and so he insists on going to. What's Abraham to do? Run off in the middle of the night without his father? Not in that society you didn't. And in what was really a biblical honor to his father, his father went along. It was Tara who actually took the family and began the journey. They set out for Canaan in verse 31, something evidently happened which caused them to stay in Haran. What was it? Well quite possibly because of verse 32. They came to Haran, settled there at the end of verse 31. Tara lived 205 years and he died in Haran. Quite possibly, Tara gets sick. He's an old man. He gets sick. Maybe the journey was too much. We don't know. But he evidently got sick so they stopped there to take care of him. That's probably what happened. At least it's a possibility. And then he dies in verse 32. There is nothing to suggest. His death was a direct judgment of God. He was 205 years old. That was a pretty normal age in that day to die. So there's nothing to suggest. This is a premature death. This is a stroke of God's judgment. At least nothing in the Bible to suggest that. So I think it's a possibility that Abram is not at fault in his family going with him simply because he was being respectful to his father. His father really was responsible to move the family if they moved. And God simply took care of things before they got to Canaan. Now a lot will go on with them. He will become a very important part of the story. By the way, a lot probably went because Tara had become his surrogate father, if you will, his grandfather because his father had died. The Bible tells us here that his father, Haran, had died. And so a lot regards Tara as his father. So there's a very real family, a close family dynamic going on here that I think is a possibility for what happened. And God never holds Abram at fault because Abram was simply honoring his father. I think there may be a second possibility to explain this story that is a little different than what we may often hear. And that is that if Abram is at fault, if he did only partially obey, if this really wasn't complete obedience, God never mentions it. Which tells me God deals with us in grace. This shows God's grace. If Abram was at fault, there's a tremendous lesson here in the fact that God never mentions it. He doesn't bring up his failure. He only talks about his great faith in going. And Hebrews 11, the only thing that's mentioned is his faith. Not maybe the fact that it was halting faith or not really strong faith in the beginning. And if Abram is to be held at fault for what happened here, it's a wonderful demonstration of the grace of God. And by the way, we ought to all be thankful that that's the way God deals with us because not a one of us in this room is perfectly obedient to God. But a one of us in this room has an unfaltering faith we never disbelieve or mistrust God. Not a one of us in this room could say that. And so it's a great comfort to know that God deals with us in grace. None of us has perfectly obeyed, but God still loves us and accepts us. One of my favorite passages I think bears a mention in this regard. You know what to turn there? Let me just read it for you in Psalm 103, beginning in verse 8. The Lord is compassionate and gracious. Slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse. Nor will he harbor his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our inequities. Or as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. God is certainly gracious to us. He knows that we are weak. He knows that we are not perfect. He knows that we will sometimes fail even though we have our heart to obey him. And by the way, what I'm saying is not an excuse for disobedience. It's not an excuse for saying flippantly, well, God understands I'm not perfect. I'll just do what I want to do. No, not that at all. What I'm talking about is the kind of person who, as we will see Abraham, becomes the kind of person who has a real heart to follow God. A real desire and a passion whose overall direction of life is obedience. Who really lives to please God, but sometimes fails. That's the kind of person Abraham was. That's the kind of people a lot of you are. You really have a heart to please God. You want to live for him. But there are times when we disobey. There are times when we fail. A person whose general direction of life is obedience and trust. In those moments of weakness and failure, I'm so glad that God does not just kick us out and say, you failed. Forget it. Even though you may have had a lifelong history since you've known Christ of really having a heart to follow him. God, God as Genesis or as Psalms 103 says, is not angry with us forever. Does not hold his anger against us. He's compassionate. He knows we're just dust. He knows we're weak. So he loves us even when we fail. God is gracious. And when we come back to him, he does not hold against us what we have confessed to him. Isn't it good to know that God is gracious? So even if Abraham was at fault here, even if we could say he did not obey fully, I'm so thankful. God never brings it up. He never mentions it. And in that great hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, all he mentions about Abraham's decision to leave is that he by faith obeyed and went. That's all he mentions. God is gracious in regard to us. Well this passage really is just the introduction to the characters and the story, the opening scene of Abram leaving his home and beginning his trek toward Canaan. When summarizing some of the great lessons from Abraham's life, there are four or five lessons I would like to just review with you, lessons that really come out of his life, things that we can learn about life and life of faith from Abraham's life. There are five of them that I'd like to briefly give you. Number one, salvation is by grace through faith. It's a great lesson that we learn through Abraham. Salvation is by grace through faith. In other words, God graciously saves us. Nothing that we deserve, nothing that we merit, we do not earn it in any way. God by His grace gives us salvation. It is received by us. It becomes our own personal possession by faith. Okay, now there's a wonderful picture of that in Abram's life. Here's the grace part. Abram is a wonderful example of salvation by grace when we realize where he came from. It's very easy for us to think that, well, you know, Abram must have been kind of a cut above the rest of them. Maybe he was the real good guy of the three brothers. Or maybe in that pagan city of Err, he was a real good moral man who really wanted to follow God. And so that's the reason God picked him out. The Bible doesn't paint it that way. Look at this verse. We'll put it on the screen for you. Joshua 24 verse two. Joshua said to all the people, this is what the Lord the God of Israel says, long ago your forefathers, including Tara, the father of Abraham, and they horror, lived beyond the river and worshipped other gods. You say Abraham included? Yeah, you see the phrase there, your forefathers? Who was the first forefather? Abraham. He was the father of the Jewish nation. And so Abraham is included in this designation of people who were called out, but when they were called out to follow God, notice they worship other gods. Which means Abraham was an idolater when God by grace reached down in safety. He was not a man who was different than anyone else around him. There was nothing to commend him to God. He was no better than any of the others. It's not like Abraham was up here so God could save him, but not someone else. No, God saved him by his grace, just like he saved you and me by his grace. We have nothing to commend ourselves to God, no matter what your background may be. We are all sinners and we have nothing to commend ourselves to God that he would look down and say, now there's a pretty good one. I think we could let him into heaven. I think she deserves a little extra credit, don't you? No, all of us if we are saved are saved by grace. It is only because of God's good pleasure and his love for us that any of us are saved. Abraham was saved by grace, but he was also saved through faith. By grace, through faith. Look at Genesis chapter 15. If you have your place still there in chapter 11, you can turn over to chapter 15. Chapter 15 is one of those instances where God reaffirms the covenant with Abraham that he had made to him in chapter 12. We'll see that covenant next week. But in chapter 15, he reaffirms the promise and he's telling you know, Abraham's kind of debating with God in verse 2, sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless? And the one who will inherit my state is, oh, the Asus of Damascus. Abraham said, you've given me no children. So a servant in my household will be my heir and in verse 4, in the word of the Lord came to him. This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, look up at the heavens and count the stars. If indeed you can count them, then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. Now look at verse 6. Abraham believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness. That is a powerful statement. It's one of the clearest statements in all of the Old Testament, in all of the Bible, about the way of salvation. When we believe God, he credits righteousness to our account. This is the New Testament doctrine of justification. That's described for us so thoroughly in the book of Romans. In fact, in the book of Romans, this very account is mentioned by Paul as an example of his doctrine of justification in Romans chapter 4. He mentions Abraham. He mentions this passage. How do we get saved? Well first of all, it's by God's grace that any of us are saved. He reaches down to sinners like us and is willing to save us. When we understand the gospel, we believe God. We trust that Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, is our only way of salvation. And when we believe God, you know what happens? God changes the record books in heaven. He takes sin off of our record book, our account book, our ledger. And he puts in its place the righteousness of Christ, he credits our account with righteousness. That's the New Testament doctrine of justification. Abraham was saved the same way. He believed God. Now in the context, he didn't hear everything about Jesus' death and didn't understand all of that. The full-blown gospel yet. But God made a promise to him that was humanly impossible and Abraham believed God. And chitching in heaven, a credit is put on his account and that credit is righteousness. Sin is taken off. And Abraham is a believer, a saved man because he believed the Lord. God was by grace through faith. For Abraham, just like it is for us. Same way for us today. Salvation is by grace. God graciously, lovingly offers us something we could never earn or merit in any way. But it is received by us through faith. As we believe God, credit is placed on our account. Christ's righteousness is put in the place of our sin. And we become the children of God. There's only one way to be saved. You know it well. I hope all of you in this room know it well tonight. Only one way to get to heaven to be saved. And that is through the blood of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross. We are saved by grace through faith. It's been that way since the beginning of time. Abraham is a good example of it and it continues to be that way today. There's only one key to heaven, only one way to heaven. The mission team came in this evening and I drove Missy's car out here, the car that she uses. Not really her car, but anyway the car she uses. I drove that out this evening and I brought her keys. We're going to leave those keys for her to take it back and we actually got the seer before she took off. But I'm amazed at the way teenagers do keys today. She only has three keys on there but she's got about 11 key chains. You know, have you seen, is that the way your teenagers do it? They've got 11, 12 key chains on there, all kinds of different key chains, different artistic designs and different kinds of things and we're all hooked together. Takes me two hands to carry the thing. You know, and but there's only one key. There's only one key that will start that car. And you've got to carry something you can't even put in your pocket. You know, you have to put in a suitcase to carry it around to use the one key that starts the car. Well, it doesn't matter what kind of baggage you try to put on the way of salvation. There's only one key. You can dress it up any way you want to but it doesn't change the fact there's only one way. And that is by grace through faith, that's the way we're saved. Only one way. Abraham is a beautiful example of that. Several other lessons and I'll just mention them quickly. Lesson number two that we can learn from Abraham's life. And that is faith simply takes God at his word. Throughout Abraham's life, we're going to find that God speaks and Abraham simply trusts fully in the promise of God and acts. Faith believes what God says and then lives it out. That's what faith is. Faith simply takes God at his word. Faith just is willing to say if God says it. There's a good reason for it in his mind. He has the power to do whatever he wants to do, whatever he says he can do. I believe him. I trust him and I'm going to live by that. I will stake my life on the fact that God is true to his word. That's faith. And really it's very simple. Faith is just saying, well God says it. I'm going to believe it. I believe it. And I will base my actions on what God says. That's living by faith. So faith is simply taking God at his word. Third lesson we can learn from Abraham is this. Faith trades the scene for the unseen. This is one of the most difficult lessons for any of us to learn, including myself. I love the biblical description of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1. Look at this verse. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Now in the context he's talking basically about the future and particularly about heaven and what God has promised for those of us who know him. Because the hope that he's talking about here is not just, well you know, I kind of hope something's going to happen. So I'll step out by faith and believe it will. You know, the hope in the Bible hope is a certain trusting in what God has promised for the future. So when God has promised something we know it will happen. When God promises heaven for those who know him we know that will happen. Faith is being sure of that of our hope. And it's also being certain of what we do not see. You've never seen Jesus Christ nor have I. We have never seen heaven but we know it's there. We are certain it's there and we're certain that Jesus exists. And chapter 11 goes on to describe all of these great heroes of faith throughout the Old Testament. You know he gets more ink than anybody in chapter 11 of Hebrews? Abraham. There are three entirely separate descriptions of his life. This in his life that are used as illustrations of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. The first one is that he went to Canaan and Hebrews 11 says he didn't know where it was. He didn't know where he was going. He just knew that he must travel a certain direction and when God told him to stop and would let him know this is the land. That's where he would stop. Now that's being certain about what you don't see. That's faith. And sometimes God calls us to live by that kind of faith. Here's something I want you to do. But Lord I don't see how that can be done. I didn't ask you to see how it could be done. This is what I want you to do. Or willing to trust him when he says that? The second example is the birth of Isaac in Hebrews 11. And we'll see that's a tremendous example of faith. And that's something that Abraham couldn't see. The natural eye could not see how Abraham could have a son. He gets to be 99 years old and he still doesn't have a son. You say, well people lived longer than well Abraham died at an age that would be equivalent to over 100 today. The time he was 99 it would probably be well into his 70s around 80. How many of you plan on having children when you're 80? You see it was humanly impossible, just unspeakable, unthinkable, maybe undesirable for most people. You know that I don't want any more kids. Give me grandkids yeah but no more kids. But Abraham that's something you couldn't see. But he knew God was going to do it. Now quite honestly he struggled some. We'll talk about that in just a moment. He struggled some but he traded the scene for the unseen. And then the third example that is used in Hebrews 11 is of the offering of Isaac. Wow you talk about something you can't see. You talk about something you can't humanly explain or understand. Finally after all these 25 years of waiting he has the son that God has promised. This is the son my last thread of hope that God's promises will be fulfilled and God will bring up a great nation through my siege. Only chance I've got and now God's telling me to sacrifice him. I don't see how that's going to work. But you know Hebrews 11 says that Abraham was convinced God would raise him from the dead. It's the only way he could figure it out. God's telling me to put my son to death. And yet this is the one he's promised me for 25 years would be the seed that would bring about a great nation. The only way I can put that together is that I'll put him to death and God will raise him back to life. You talk about faith in the unseen. That had never happened before. That never happened before in the Bible. Now we look back on it now. We know that God raised some people. You know we can see examples of that in the Old Testament New Testament. But Abraham hadn't seen that before. That is faith. Seeing the scene for the unseen. Believing that even though something is not possible humanly, God can do it. That's faith. Great lessons in faith. The fourth lesson about faith is that faith is often sorely tried. Oh, is that ever true of Abraham? You know it's easy for us to think that you start walking by faith and everything will fall into place. If you're having trouble, it's because you don't have enough faith. You know that's what a lot of people teach today. If something's going wrong with you, if you're not healthy, if you're not prosperous financially, if you don't have all you need materially, you just don't have enough faith. That's not what the Bible teaches. Not at all what the Bible teaches. In fact, the Bible teaches quite the opposite. You start walking by faith and you're in for trouble. You're going to have some difficulty. Because Satan does not want you to enjoy a life of faith. He'll do everything you can. He can to discourage you from a life of faith and get you to turn back and abandon it. Well Abraham had all kinds of trials. He gets to Canaan and there's a famine. God thought you wanted me to come to this land and there's a famine and he's immediately tested about whether or not he'll stay where God wants him to stay. Then the 25 years of waiting for a son, what a test that was. A test that Abraham did not always respond correctly to. It was a tremendous test of faith. And then when his son is born, there's tremendous family upheaval and discord and disputing and fighting in the family. I thought he was God's promise and all there is is trouble in my family now. Great test. And then to take him out and sacrifice, I mean Abraham has a lot of trouble in his life. A lot of testing. Faith is often sorely tried but we grow through those trials. We grow through those trials. Sometimes we grow more than we would any other way. The fifth lesson of faith that we can learn from Abraham is faith doesn't give up after failure. Abraham did fail. The Bible is very honest with us about his life. He was not always a man of faith. Even though he's the example in the New Testament, there were sometimes when he failed miserably. And the Bible is very honest about that. I'm glad for that too. He was not always strong. But one thing you can't say about Abraham is he did not quit when he failed. He got back up and went on trusting God. He came back to the Lord for strength. Faith. Faith. Faith doesn't give up after failure. Well, as we look at this man's life, we're going to see what it means to be the friend of God. What it means to be the friend of God is one who is willing to trust God, even when you can't understand what he's asking. Even when there's no way to humanly explain or figure out the way things will happen or the results of your actions if you obey God. That's what it means to be the friend of God. Are you his friend? Do you trust him? We're going to see the life of a man who did. See what it means to be the friend of God. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, thank you for this great man. Having said that, Lord, we recognize he was also a man just like us, not perfect, sometimes failing, sometimes weak, sometimes not trusting you. And yet you worked so mightily in his life, gives us encouragement that you can work in hours to. Thank you for the example he is of faith. Help us to trust you like he did. We learned a lessons of faith that made him the great New Testament example of faith in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's stand together and we'll close our service with this great song, Learning to Lean. That's really what faith is all about. Learning to Lean.