Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Update on ministry staff searches
Vision drip: Attractive vs. Attractional
Vision Q&A Nights
Subject
In , the Apostle
What does it mean to walk by faith?
What does a life of trust in God look like?
Stephen’s Set Up
Acts 6:8-7:
The Story of Abraham
Scene 1 (): God calls the 75-year-old Abram to leave his home and his family, but doesn’t tell him where to go or how long he’ll be gone.
He promises to make him into a great nation, to bless him, and to bless all the peoples on earth through him.
So Abram went, as the LORD had told him (v.
4).
God promises to give Canaan to Abram’s offspring.
The only problem is, Abram doesn’t have any offspring.
His wife, Sarai is infertile.
Scene 2: In spite of his faith, Abram makes some boneheaded decisions out of fear.
He goes to Egypt during a famine and pretends that Sarai is his sister because he’s afraid they’ll kill him if they find out she’s his wife.
Pharoah thinks she’s fair game and makes a play for her… this could’ve been very bad!
Scene 3 (): God came to Abram in a vision and told him not to be afraid.
Abram asked how God would fulfill the promise since Abram is childless.
God tells him his descendents will be as numerous as the stars.
Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness (v. 6).
Scene 4: When Abram is 86 years old, he and Sarai try to take matters into their own hands to produce offspring.
Sarai gives Abram her servant, Hagar.
Abram sleeps with Hagar and she has Ishmael, who is the father of all the Arabic peoples in the world today.
Scene 5 (, ): When Abram is 99 (24 years after God’s initial promise), God renews His promise to Abram.
God changes his name to Abraham, which means “father of multitudes”.
He also changes Sarai’s name to Sarah, and promises that the promise of a descendent who will bless the nations will come through Sarah.
Scene 6 (): The LORD did what He had promised (v. 1).
When Isaac was born, Abraham was 100 years old, and he’d waited 25 years for God to keep this promise.
Big Idea
We can walk by faith or by fear, but not by both.
Our lives can be directed by either trust in God or by being afraid, but we can’t be directed by both.
This doesn’t mean you don’t have fear at all, or that if you do have fear you must not have faith.
Abraham is known as the pioneer of faith, the father of all who have faith in Jesus.
He’s the encyclopedia entry on faith, the dictionary definition of someone who has faith in God.
Every time examples of faith are talked about in the NT, Abraham’s name is thrown in.
And yet, he had fear, he had doubt, he had worry, he had anxiety.
Sometimes he let his fear get the upper hand, and when he did, he stopped walking by faith, made decisions out of fear, and screwed things up.
Faith is not the absence of all fear and doubt.
Faith is trusting God in spite of your fears and doubts.
The real question is: What’s going to have the upper hand in your life, faith or fear?
We have to decide if we’re going to live by faith or live by fear.
Implications (credit to Pastor Jeff Kapusta)
Walking by faith means trusting Who more than knowing how.
A life of trust in God means believing Him, even when we can’t see how things are going to work out.
Explanation
When God called Abram to leave everything at the age of 75, Abram went.
Imagine Sarai’s conversation with him as they were packing up…
When God promised Abram his descendents would be as numerous as the stars, even though his infertile wife was past her childbearing years, Abram believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
At age 99, after waiting 24 years on a promise never fulfilled, Abraham still trusted in God.
Rom 4:18-
Illustration: Carol prayed for her neighbor’s salvation for 19 years before her neighbor came to faith in Jesus…
Application
“God is accomplishing a thousand tiny purposes at any given moment around us.
There is only so much we can know, but we can leave the stuff we can’t know to God and believe He has it all worked out.
It may feel quiet, and we possibly even feel forgotten, but God is moving to work out His plans all around us.
What is our part?
Trust.”
(Jennie Allen)
Don’t let the lack of knowing how keep you from trusting Who it is that is calling you.
Walking by faith means being faithful what what God has given you while you wait for what God will give you.
A life of trust in God is being faithful in what’s now while you wait for what’s next.
Explanation
Abraham struggled with this.
He often tried to “help God out” by taking matters into his own hands and trying to make it happen himself.
When he did, he made a mess of things.
Illustration: How God brought us to LakeView…
Application
Application
“Stop asking God what His plan for your life is, and start asking Him what His plan for your day is.”
(Francis Chan)
Sometimes people ask God what’s next, and God says, “How about you be faithful with what’s now?”
Conclusion
Conclusion
Conclusion
We can walk by faith or by fear, but not by both.
Explanation
This doesn’t mean you don’t have fear at all, or that if you do have fear you must not have faith.
Fear of the unknown is a natural thing, but the real question is, what’s going to have the upper hand in your life?
Will you be controlled by fear or by faith?
Application: A lot of people are afraid to put their faith in Jesus because they fear what others will think about them…
Communion is an opportunity to recommit our hearts and our lives to faith in Jesus…
Application: We have to decide if we’re going to live out of fear or live out of faith.
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