This week, Pastor Luke continued on with our Hebrews 11 series with verses 17-19 and the story of Abraham.
Abraham is a huge character throughout the narrative of Scripture, and Pastor Luke used his story to make three primary points about testing and growing in faith:
1. God tests His people
God works more like a crock-pot than a microwave. The testing of God is good and necessary for us to become more like Jesus. The goal of spiritual maturity is to look, act, and respond like Jesus in each and every situation.
We need to make a distinction between tests, temptations, and trials. God tests us to grow our faith, Satan tempts us to destroy our faith, and trials exist because of the poor decisions of ourselves or other people.
Maturity comes when we turn our focus away from consuming and complaining and move it towards serving, loving and helping others.
There is a proving in what we profess, and that is shown and developed through testing.
2. The necessary parts of testing.
There were many times within Scripture that Abraham failed – he lied twice about Sarah being his wife, and he became impatient with waiting on God for a son (which resulted in him sleeping with Hagar, and having Ishmael).
In each of these situations Abraham essentially became a functional atheist. He tried to control the situation, and forgot his reliance on God.
There are two necessary parts to God’s test: He’s going to confront your need to control, and it’s going to be hard. It’s simple, but it’s hard, and we grow through our hardships.
Anxiety is temporary atheism – a suspension of our faith in God.
3. The key to passing the test
Abraham obeyed even when he did not know what would happen. The key for us also is to surrender to God’s goodness and obey the last thing that he told us to do.
Trusting God and following Jesus is not easy, but it’s worth it. We want to be people who are both faithful and full of faith. We need to surrender control, trust in the goodness of God, and obey what He has spoken.
