Our discussion today revolves around Abraham, often regarded as a hero of faith, and the pivotal shift in God's focus from all humanity to one individual, marking the founding of the Jewish nation. We explore how Abraham’s journey illustrates that the true hero of faith in the Bible is not humanity but God Himself, who orchestrates all salvation through grace. This episode emphasizes the importance of recognizing that while we admire biblical figures, our ultimate admiration should be directed towards God and His grace. We unpack the complexities of Abraham's faith, highlighting that his story is not merely about his actions but about how he responded to God’s calling amidst his imperfections. Understanding this balance between grace and effort is crucial as we navigate our own spiritual journeys and strive to embody our faith in meaningful actions. Abraham stands as a pivotal figure in the narrative of faith, marking a significant transition in God's relationship with humanity. This episode explores how God’s calling of Abraham represents a shift from a universal focus to the establishment of a nation through one man. We delve into the complexities of Abraham's faith journey, highlighting that while he is revered as a hero, the true hero of the biblical story is God Himself. It is essential to recognize that our admiration should be directed to God, who crafts our lives through grace. As we examine Abraham's life, we consider the balance between grace and effort in our own spiritual growth, emphasizing that while salvation is a gift, our response involves active participation in God's purposes.

Takeaways:

1. This podcast examines Abraham's role as a pivotal figure in biblical history, highlighting God's unique relationship with him.
2. The focus of faith in the Bible is ultimately directed towards God, not human figures like Abraham.
3. Abraham's story illustrates the significance of trusting in God's promises despite life's challenges and uncertainties.
4. The narrative emphasizes that God's grace is foundational to our understanding of faith and obedience.
5. We learn that genuine faith is demonstrated through our actions, as shown by Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac.
6. The podcast reminds us that our spiritual journey involves both receiving grace and responding with effort towards discipleship.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. www.bible805.com

Takeaways:

1. This podcast discusses the life of Abraham as a pivotal point in God's plan for humanity, marking a transition from a focus on all people to a specific individual.
2. We emphasize that while Abraham is called a hero of faith, the true hero of the Bible is God, whose grace shapes our lives and stories.
3. The relationship between grace and effort is explored, highlighting that although we are saved by grace, we are expected to respond with action in our spiritual growth.
4. Abraham's journey illustrates the importance of trusting God, especially during challenging times, and waiting on His promises despite our impatience and doubts.
5. The podcast underscores that God's calling often leads us into new and challenging territories, requiring faith and courage to follow Him.
6. Ultimately, we are reminded that our actions in faith, woven together with our trust in God, define our relationship with Him and our role in His plans.

PLEASE NOTE: the system that creates the transcript is having issues currently. I am trying to get it fixed with the company, but until then--please forgive the very odd breaks into 2 speakers. I hope to replace this with a better one, but I thought it was important to get the podcast published.

Abraham, Hero of the Faith How God chooses and crafts his people in Genesis with the life of Abraham, we have a big shift. God moves from working with all of humanity to a focus on one man, Abraham, who will become the founder of the Jewish nation.

Ultimately, three major religions in our world today claim him as their the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions. As such, he's held in great veneration by all and in Christianity, referred to as one of the first heroes of the faith.

And though we do want to honor him, we also need to clarify that description of him. And here's why. In reality, there's only one true hero of the faith throughout the Bible and it isn't human.

The only true hero of the faith in the Bible is our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Lion and the Lamb.

It is so important that we understand this so that our admiration and praise is in the right place, directed to our God and not inappropriately to any human. Also, the Bible tells us some rather reprehensible stories about how humans, even supposedly godly humans, act.

And if we focus on them, we can wonder why this is in the Bible and what it's all about. But what people do is not the main focus of the Bible. It's what God does.

It is all God's grace that saves and crafts the lives of biblical characters and ours into what he's planned for us. As Ephesians 2, 8, 10 tells us, God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we've done, so none of us can boast about it, for we are God's masterpiece. He's created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Romans 4 applies this to Abraham when it says if Abraham, by what he did for God got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God's story, not an Abraham's story.

What we read in Scripture is Abraham entered into what God was doing for him and that was the turning point.

He trusted God to set him right Instead of trying to be right on his own, we call Abraham father, not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture? God saying to Abraham, I set you up as father of many peoples.

Abraham was first named father and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do. Raise the dead to life with a word, make something out of nothing.

When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do, but on what he what God said he, he would do.

Though God is the primary hero of.

The Bible, he has expectations of us.

It's important from the start to remember that all we are, all we've been given, all we are in the process of growing into as followers of Jesus, is totally a gift of grace from God. It was for Abraham and it will be for every Bible character we read about. As it is for us, grace means undeserved favor.

Though we can't do anything for our salvation, we we must remember that God has expectations of us after our salvation.

Dallas Willard, in his excellent book on the imperative as discipleship and the lack of it in Christianity Today, his books entitled the Great Omission reminds us that grace is opposed to earning, but not to effort. We've been saved by grace. We didn't earn it, but we still need to take action to grow in grace and disciple and that takes effort.

The Bible gives us examples of this. Look carefully for and be aware of this balance of grace and effort as.

We study the life of Abraham. And after we go over the facts.

Of his life, I'll have some concluding applications. Understanding this balance of grace and effort and acting accordingly is incredibly important for your Christian growth.

With that as background, let's start our study of Abraham. Abraham's story did not take place in a galaxy far far our faith and the life of the Father of our faith.

Abraham does not have a mythological foundation. It began in an identifiable place you can visit today Ur of the Chaldees. Please note I've done another lesson that is available on YouTube.

There's a link to the video on there will be on the Bible805 website and it will show you in detail the archaeology of the land that he was called out of. It's really a very fun lesson to look at, so please do take time to check it out. It's quite a story.

It involves a real life Indiana Jones type archaeologist. His name was Leonard Woolley. Lawrence of Arabia enters in Agatha Christie this. It's really a true story.

It's quite fascinating and I actually had it as part of this lesson. But then I realized that obviously doing a podcast, you couldn't see the images.

So I've made that a completely separate lesson, just doing a video on it. So please do check that out. But for now there are four areas that are important to our story and I'll just describe them.

Picture a map of the Middle east and if you look at where the Persian Gulf enters into the land, right at the base of that you have Ur of the Chaldees. Then Harran, you go straight, well, you go, you just go straight up the.

Euphrates river, you follow that north and.

To the west and you come to Haran where they stopped and of course where Terah died. Then Abraham is called to leave there into Canaan, which directly south and to the coast we have Canaan and the modern day Israel.

And then the other place that does figure in is Egypt. Now remember as always, the importance that our Bible has real maps of real places. These are not mythological.

Biblical history took place in verifiable places. And this is so important to keep in mind. But moving right along, we need more than maps.

Now I assumed, and this is just ignorance on my part when I first started studying this, I have assumed that all the areas were pretty much the same. That Abraham moved from one desert tent living area to another that was similar.

They didn't look that far apart on the map and you know, one deserty place to another. But when I started studying the archaeology, I could not have been more incorrect.

The two places that he was called out of, Ur, the Chaldees, as archaeology.

Shows, very, very, very different.

Again, the pictures are in the other lesson. But in summary, Ur, the city that he, Terah's family, whatever was called out of, was large, sophisticated and very rich.

A modern day equivalent for Abraham would be like moving in. Moving from Ur to Canaan would be really a lot like moving from the.

Big city environment of Los Angeles and.

Then God asking you to pitch a tent in the Mojave Desert. That's really the difference that it would have been back in those days. Now let me tell you a little.

Bit more about Ur.

The city was dominated by this huge.

Temple and the whole life of the.

City and society was dominated by a polytheistic religion. But it was a religion that was based on servitude and fear, where one had duties and obligations, but little personal.

Relationship with any kind of God or deity.

They did believe in an afterlife, but it was one of dust, darkness, no hope or joy. Now, not only did Leonard Woolley, the archaeologist, uncover the huge ziggurat, or temple that dominated the whole city, but he.

And many buildings and just, oh, just so much stuff that he was able.

To excavate, but the royal tombs that were associated with it. And not everything was beautiful there, though.

The city yielded just immense treasures of gold and jewels and all that sort of thing.

His journals described the royal tombs.

And in the tombs, along with the king and queen, many other people were buried. Warriors, attendants, male and female slaves, all.

Richly dressed with gold and weapons, presumably.

To serve their royalty in the afterlife.

Animals were hitched to carts. They were also found lined up in specific places there.

What struck Woolley as unusual, and he documented it in detail and you can.

Look at his journals online, they're just.

Fascinating, was the order arrangement of the bodies. It suggested, he said, that they walked.

Into caves voluntarily and died where they stood, possibly poisoned. Each one of them held a little cup in their hands, although some were found with their heads bashed in. Perhaps they were not willing to drink.

The Kool aid, sort of literally.

But all in all, Woolley found it absolutely horrifying.

And as I was thinking about that, I remembered that in addition to God calling Abraham to a new place, he also called him to a new kind of relationship.

As I was reading about the religion of ER and the overwhelming sense of fear and dread in it, I remembered in James 2:23, it tells us Abraham was called the friend of God. He is also referred to as God's friend in other places that talk about him.

How different than any other images of.

A relationship with God in the ancient world and with many religions today, where the religion is defined primarily by fear that Abraham, the disciples and all of us who follow Jesus are called to friendship with God. We have the location of the story. Now let's get back to the main plot line of Abraham's life.

We're introduced to Abraham's genealogy following the tower of BABEL In Genesis 11, after God confuses the language of humanity and scatters the people. Verse 11 transitions from the broad genealogy of many peoples into one specific family.

And it begins with, this is the account of Shem.

Now, Shem was one of the three sons of Noah and His lineage of begots goes all the way through know.

He begot this and begot this.

And then we get to nahor, who was 29 years old at the birth of his son terah. He lived 119 years afterwards and had sons and daughters. It continues. By the time Terah was 70 years old, he had three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran.

Now let me talk just briefly about Terah before we continue on with Abraham. Or he's called Abram early on, so don't let that confuse you. Anyway, it Genesis 11 goes on to tell us a little bit more about Tara.

And let me just read this to you and then I'll make some comments on it. This is the account of Terah's family. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran, and Haran was the father of Lot.

But Haran died in Ur, the Chaldees, the land of his birth, while his father Terah was still living. Meanwhile, Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abraham's wife was Sarai and the name of Nahor was Milcah.

But Sarai was unable to become pregnant and had no children. One day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter in law Sarai and his grandson Lot and moved away from Ur, the Chaldees.

He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran. Now wait. It appears, was Tara the one first called to leave? What happened?

What's going on here? Now Pete Gregg has an idea and other people have voiced this also. We don't know for sure what's happening, but it's very thought provoking.

He says that yes, Tara was probably the one that had the call, but his son Haran died. And perhaps he called the place that he stopped, which was about halfway to Canaan, Haran, because of his son and after his son.

Not only though did he stop there, he settled there. And Greg cautions us, don't get stuck in Haran. How easy that is to stop for so many reasons, because of grief, because of.

We're overwhelmed because of so many things. He continues, if it was for grief, he says there is a time to grieve, but there's a time to leave. Terah didn't and he died there.

Now, regardless of Terah's place, the call comes again. Now, again, note that the names for Abraham and Sarah in this passage are Abram and Sarai. God will change them later. We'll get to that.

But for now, God told Abram, leave your own country behind you and your own people and go to the land I will give you. If you do, I will cause you to become the father of a great nation.

I will bless you and make your name famous, and you will be a blessing to many others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And the entire world will be blessed because of you.

So Abram departed, as the Lord had instructed him, and Lot went too. Abram was 75 years old at that time.

He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth, the cattle and slaves he'd gotten in Haran and finally arrived in Canaan. Then Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, I am going to give this land to your descendants.

But before the promise is fulfilled, many years of life would pass. Abraham gets to Canaan, and not long after that, there's a famine in the land, as will be a pattern with Israel.

They go to Egypt whenever there's trouble. The Sphinx, the great pyramids, and much of the greatness of Egypt is in place at this time.

Abram heads down there and perhaps he might have been just a little bit excited because he's going back to a sophisticated urban area with many of the luxuries he probably hadn't seen since, er. Now when he gets there, though, there's a truly ugly incident in Abram's life where he asked Sarai to say she's his sister and not his wife.

So in Genesis 12, it tells us when Abram came to Egypt. The Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.

And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram required sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants and camels.

Abraham may have forsaken his wife, but God did not. God severely judges Pharaoh for taking her. Pharaoh confronts Abram and sends him back to Canaan.

Now, back home in Canaan, Abram has a dream and great fear. God appears and Abram challenges God, who has promised him a son and reminds God that he still doesn't have one.

God repeats the promise that he will, but God also tells him his descendants will be enslaved for 400 years in Egypt. In Genesis 15:6, it says Abram believed God and he credited it to him as righteousness. This was his response of faith. But it didn't last.

Abram and Sarai get impatient. They decide to help God out to Give them a son. Sarai comes up with the idea for her maidservant Hagar to provide Abram with a son.

Hagar becomes pregnant, and Ishmael is born when Abram was 86. But life was not peaceful for the family after that.

And the descendants of Ishmael are still fighting the descendants of the promised son of Abraham, who is Isaac, even to this day. The obvious challenge here is a danger of not waiting on God, of deciding to help God out. If we don't think he's acting fast enough.

We can make a very big mess of life that has unimaginable consequences if we do that. The years pass. Abram is now 99, and God says to him, walk before me and be perfect. In Hebrew, the word perfect means complete.

So God is saying, you've got some things to do to be complete. Just because we mess up, get impatient and do stupid things, these actions do not cancel God's love or his plan for us.

We may not wait for God, but He often waits for us. Abram is then given the covenant of circumcision, and both he and his wife's names are changed.

Abram, exalted father, becomes Abraham, father of multitudes. Sarai, contentious, becomes Sarah, Princess.

Isaac is finally born. Ishmael is cast out but promised a legacy.

And many of the peoples who will cause problems for Israel are the result of that.

One might assume now that a time of peace and rest in life would be due to Abraham, as we often assume for ourselves when we get to a certain age, that we deserve to.

Coast the rest of the way easily into heaven.

But we forget we're an eternal people.

And God does not operate on an earthly schedule.

And so in Genesis 22:1, it says, after all this, God tested Abraham. Then God said, take your son, your.

Only son, whom you love, Isaac, and.

Go to the region of Moriah, sacrifice.

Him there as a burnt offering on a mountain. I will show you. He obeys.

But at the last minute, God stops him and provides a ram. Why?

Why did he have to go through all this? God knew, but Abraham did not, how.

Deep his trust in God truly was, or Isaac's, because, contrary to a lot.

Of the cute little illustrations, he was not a child when this took place. He was a man. He could have fought back.

In this, we see their faith expressed through their actions. As one commentator said, the purpose of.

Much testing is so we see our own hearts. You can't say God is all to you until God is all you have.

We also cannot forget the witness of heaven as it was with Job.

Though we aren't told the conversation that might have been going on between Satan and God all about Abraham, we can.

Be certain that Satan, the principalities and.

Powers were watching to see what Abraham would do.

You're never too old for God's testing.

Never in a place where you can coast until you meet Jesus. There is never the concept of retirement in the Bible.

After this test, God shares a new name of his with Abraham, Jehovah Jireh. Jehovah Jireh means the Lord will provide.

Now it doesn't mean goodies in this.

Life, though God graciously gives us so many. God first provided the ram as a substitute sacrifice for Isaac, but also as.

A picture of the coming sacrifice of Jesus.

Based on Abraham's actions, God again promises to bless him with many descendants, not only him, but through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. The ultimate fulfillment of that blessing will.

Be Abraham's offspring many years from then. Of course, we're talking about Jesus.

And Bible commentators have consistently said that this is an important principle for all of us. We are always blessed, not just for.

Ourselves, but to be a blessing.

And that takes us back to the reason God saves us by his grace and why we go through what we go through. It may not be easy for us, the trials God sends our way, as it wasn't for Abraham, all the things that he went through to become a blessing.

I love how, how C.S.

Lewis puts it in the Problem of Pain, the struggles that we go through.

And let me read this little passage to you.

He says we are not metaphorically, but in very truth, a divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which he will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the intolerable compliment over a sketch idly made to amuse a child.

An artist may not take much trouble. He may be content to let it.

Go, even though it's not exactly as he meant it to be.

But over the great picture of his life, the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother, a child, he will take endless trouble, and would doubtless thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient.

One can imagine a sentient picture after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the 10th time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was.

Over in a minute.

In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed us for a less glorious and less arduous destiny, but then were wishing not for more love, but for less. God's grace in his choosing has these implications. Sometimes God's calling may not seem like an honor.

Many people have more problems once they become a Christian than before. As God makes you into the masterpiece he created you to be, you may receive a calling you couldn't imagine, a task, a work.

You don't know how you will accomplish the Christ centered demands of everyday life and work. Be kind, be humble, be just.

Might seem excessive to truly act like Jesus every part of every day, everywhere we go because we're called to 247 discipleship.

There are many things in life you may be called to say no to that those around you will tell you you deserve that you're the most important person around. Demands that sound so true to today's world but you cannot listen to if Jesus is truly your Lord and you are his disciple.

We're called to the Christian life based on grace. But we need to put effort into what we do after we are saved to cooperate with God's purposes in our salvation.

God called Abraham out of er based totally on his grace. It was a decision of his heart and mind to trust God when he was asked to sacrifice his son.

In summary, here's what the New Testament tells us that Abraham's life teaches us.

In James 2, 14, 17 it says, Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this Christian life if you learn all the right words but never do anything?

Does merely talking about faith indicate that.

A person really has it?

For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half starved and say, good morning friend, be clothed in Christ, be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk off without providing so much as a coat or cup of soup. Where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God talk without God acts is outrageous nonsense.

Wasn't our ancestor Abraham made right with God when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn't it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners? That faith expresses itself in works, that the works are works of faith?

The full meaning of believe in the Scripture sentence Abraham believed God and was set right with God includes his action. It's that weave of believing and acting that got Abraham named God's friend.

Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith, but by faith fruitful in works? Finally, what makes you a true hero of the faith? It's that weaving together of faith and actions.

The actions we need to take will be different for each of us as we progress to become more like Jesus.

Chances are, however, that they will involve disciplines in our lives, sacrifice of some sort, times of believing God when we can't see the outcome, and waiting far longer than we want for his promises to come true. There will be tangible actions to be done, as well as difficult things to believe.

But keep weaving together, believing and acting, always believing in God's grace and acting in obedience to Him. That is how to become a true hero of the faith and even more significant and precious, how to be called and to become a friend of God.

That's all for now.

For notes from this lesson, related resources and links to teaching materials, go to www.bible805.com in closing, I'm Yvonne Prynn, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are on your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's Word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.