S2Ep3 - Abraham: Faith That Walks

Faith doesn’t always get a clear map — sometimes it just gets the next step. This episode looks at Abraham’s obedience and trust in God’s promises, a steady kind of faith that keeps moving even when the road ahead feels like a weak brew.

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Transcript

Welcome And The GPS Problem

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to Coffee Break Theology, a King of Kings podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hey, welcome back. Episode three of season two, Coffee Break Theology. Uh, and we're really diving into godly man masculinity. I'm Greg. And I'm Marcus. Today we're gonna talk about Abraham.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Yeah. And he's the man that told God, or the man God told, yeah, go to a land I will show you. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And he had no idea where that was. Man, sounds like uh my GPS when it says like recalculating, recalculating over and over. Um, have you ever like been going and like your GPS goes out and you just have no idea where to go?

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Uh that has happened to me before, but it's been a while. It's pretty scary. Yeah, well, I feel like people they just have no idea where they're going right now. Unless you have your phone, you can't get to where you're going. Right. And it's like you're going to Cresttown. Right. Uh I'm probably in that boat too. I'm in that boat. I do remember the days of using landmarks to get around before GPS. Like turn left at the big red barn and then turn right where the tree is cut down in half, and yeah, there's a hospital over here. Uh, I don't know how we got around there. Oh, and then map quest, right? Yeah, print out all the directions if you were on a trip. I remember that. Man, those are directions were poor too. But GPS is the norm now. But if the signal is lost, you're lost.

Abraham’s Call And The Promise

SPEAKER_01 1:27

You're lost, yeah. Well, we could talk about the old school map days all day long, but that would not be what we're supposed to do. So here's where we're gonna start. Abram's story starts in Genesis 12, and it says, Now the Lord says to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great. So you will be a blessing. See, God gave Abraham a promise of blessing with his calling. Right. And uh in Hebrews 11 8. Oh, I see what he did there. Hebrews, coffee, Hebrews, I didn't do masculinity, Hebrews.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Yeah, true. There we go. I like that. Hebrews. Hebrews 11 8 says, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place, not knowing where he was going. He was more certain of the promise from God than he was uncertain of where he was going.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, Luther talks a lot about a living faith, um, daring in confidence with God's grace. So, so sure and certain, as he says, that a man would stake his own life on it a thousand times. That's pretty cool. That's that's God's promise.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, Abraham did not just agree with God in theory. He just he packed up, he literally packed up his stuff and said, All right, everybody, we're leaving. He went, he believed God's promise for a future he couldn't see and didn't cling to the visible, comfortable present that he was in.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah. You see, when we think about like why we can stake our life upon God, it's because he's the only one that gives grace, and he's the only one that keeps all his promises, and he makes all his promises true. Exactly.

Ancient Covenants Explained Simply

SPEAKER_02 3:16

What he says comes to fruition. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Later we see God making a covenant with Abraham. Uh, we talked about this last week. Greg and I are gonna lobby for this, but we'll get there in a minute. Um, or right now, let's get to it right now. Sure. Some background on ancient covenants. When two people were about to enter an agreement, they would go through this process, uh, whether it's a land deal, a marriage, yeah, proposal, anything like that. Um, they would sacrifice an animal or animals multiple, they cut it in half and then they'd lay it on the ground. They leave an aisle between the two pieces. And what's significant about that is they would then walk together through the aisle between the half animals.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Um, vowing each other, I'm not gonna break this covenant.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Basically saying, be it done to me as these animals if I break this covenant. So they're saying to each other, as long as I live, I won't break this. And so they were held accountable to that. Um, I'm gonna live up to my end of the bargain.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah, or were you a hunter? Are you a hunter? I'm not. You hunt? I don't I don't hunt either. Not either. I think if this would was the way it was today, I would just probably make zero covenants for sure. I don't like I don't like messiness. Like, I don't I eat boneless chicken wings because I don't want my fingers to be messy.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

This would this would be hard for you.

God Walks The Covenant Alone

SPEAKER_01 4:35

This would be really hard. Like, yeah, I I like the I like the the common way today in our culture of a handshake. Handshaking handshaking now. I'm even fist bump. Like I feel like a fist bump, like again, less germs. All right, let's get back to Genesis 15. So, so God makes a covenant with Abraham, but notice what he does. They cut the animal into pieces, and then God makes Abraham go into a deep sleep. Uh, the fire, God's presence, right? Probably a kind of a foreshadowing of what we later know as the Holy Spirit, sure, right? Or possibly even the pre-incarnate Christ, because those kind of intermix um passes between the two pieces alone. I think this is super significant. So, so God takes on the burden of the covenant, um, that if it's broken already. So, God, God kind of says, like, this covenant can't be broken. Right. Um, Abraham's passive, sleeping beneficiary of God's promise. Yep. So God takes all the responsibility, foreshadowing what happens when we break the covenant with God. Yeah, um, Abraham believed God and his promise for him. And so what what an absolute blessing that this is that that God actually was saying, I'm gonna make with you a covenant, Abraham, for all time, for all people. Um, that's not breakable.

Surrender As Godly Masculinity

SPEAKER_02 5:56

And what's cool about it is he he like we talked about last week, he took on the responsibility. Yeah, God says, Yeah, it's it's up to me. It's up to me to make this happen. Yeah, and and God doesn't break promises, God doesn't break covenants, god is faithful and true all the way.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

And I think I think right, like sometimes God mass godly masculinity is for us to give up control. Yeah, like yield your life to where God's pattern of living and and calling, even if you don't have all the answers, and even if it doesn't always make sense, godly masculinity is yielding our control to the higher power.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

I like the word surrender. Oh, surrender's good. Submit is good, but I think surrender takes it to that next step.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

That's really good. I like it. Yeah, so the the first commandment um in the explanation of it, the the commentary says, Whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your God. And it's a reminder for us that that that heart needs to be set upon God and his promises, not our comfort zones, not the things that we want or we desire. Yeah. Um, and so that's that's a good reminder for us.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Absolutely. Uh Tim Keller said it this way Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out, trusting, and believing what truth is, despite what you feel.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Oh, that's good. Keller, Keller's so wise that we just miss him greatly in our world today, I think. So yeah, it's huge, right? So um for a guy that kind of wants to always know where we're going, um, this is a reminder for me, like as I think about masculinity. Masculinity isn't necessarily that I have to have all the details. Um, it's not that that I need to know and approve of whatever's happening, it's really trusting in the one uh who does have the details and who has set a plan that's actually for the good and a purpose of his way and his world. Um, Psalm 119, 105 says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, right? And so um again, since we're coffee break theology, Hebrews, the Hebrew word here implies that there's enough light for even just a couple steps. So we don't have to see where the path leads, just like Abraham didn't. Right. Um, it forces us to trust in God and his leadership and know that he's already way out ahead of us, even when we can't see him.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Absolutely. And and what we have to do then is kind of what we talked about before in yielding and surrender. Yeah. Uh for us to lead well, we have to be led well. We have to walk with God. He's the one leading us. Uh, Patrick Morley, who wrote the book Um How God Makes a Man, it's a great book, but he does the same thing. He takes, I don't think it's 10, but 12 or 15 men of the Bible and just kind of goes through different things.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Um, but his quote is the advantage of walking with God in faith over the years is that you actually come to a place where it's harder to doubt than believe because you've seen him act so many times before. When he comes through, it's just that becomes your second nature when you step out in faith. Um that's what God calls us to do. Submit to him, surrender to him, yield to him, obey his will, yeah, let him lead you, and then you can lead out of that.

Abraham Tested With Isaac

SPEAKER_01 9:13

And that's complete trust, right? Like that's that's it. Um, it's it's that uh we trust in him because he is faithful. Um, he fulfills a covenant when we can't, right? Uh, and he prays the price for our breaking it, which is is the grace and the love of God. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Um Abraham's faith wasn't one and done either. It wasn't a hey, I did this one thing. It was a consist like last week, consistently over time, he kept doing this. Um God tested him in waiting in a waiting period for a son that was promised. Him and Sarah waited a long time to have a son. Um part of that blessing was to be a great nation, to have many descendants, and they waited a long time for even it for it to start. Um they believed it, they believed he would do the impossible. They were of old age, they should have never had a kid that at that age, but they did.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, and later God tested Abraham, right? Um, he told him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, right, who he waited for.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

And um the one thing that Abraham probably would have wanted to keep most in life, would have, in all other situations, given up his own life for. Right. Um, this son promised and miraculously given is now being called to give him back to the Lord. Right. And Abraham still trusted. I one of my favorite passages in that is um where they're going up to the mountain, and now they need to leave the servants behind with the donkeys, and they're gonna carry the the wood. And Abraham says, it says uh to the servants, stay here, and the boy and I will return. Well, the Hebrew word for that actually is we we can't translate it easily in English. The Hebrew there is actually stay here, and as as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, both the boy and I will physically return. So he trusted in some way that God was gonna provide uh uh him and his son returning.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

And what what I think is pretty incredible about that is it's not necessarily that he knew that God wasn't gonna allow him to kill him. Right. I think it it's he thought, I'm gonna kill my son and God will restore him back to life. Yeah, and we'll come back down. Yeah. And I think, I mean, that's even more wild to me to think about that. Totally wild. Uh Luther says this about faith. Faith is a matter of holding on to God's word, even when everything seems to be against it.

One Action Of Faith Challenge

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Oh man, that's so good. That's so good. That's the Job story, too, right? Absolutely. Just holding there. So here's what I think a good challenge for us as we wrap up um today is what's one action of faith that you can do that you don't see an outcome for? Yeah. Um, and and a conversation, maybe, maybe it's a decision, maybe it's a step forward, and and work that faith muscle. Yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Cliff Graham, one of my favorite authors, uh, he says this to learn trust, real trust, you must place yourself in the position where you have to depend on God to come through. You have to.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

So he's saying not only do you not see the path ahead of you, you don't hardly see the next thing that you're supposed to do. Yeah. But take that step in faith, trust in God, yeah, and and obey his will.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Lean into his promise, lean into that. God's word is true. Lean into that, have trust, have faith.

Next Week Preview And Closing

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, so good. I and I think that's a reminder for us, right? Like, like, are you having a God-sized dream that you actually need God to fulfill? Right. Right. If it's like, well, here's my big dream, but I actually can do this on my own, it's not big enough. Right. Um, so so faith walks, it just doesn't. I'm sorry, faith walks, it doesn't just talk. Right. Right. I like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

All right. Well, that's it for this week. Next week, we're gonna go to Joseph. We're gonna learn about him. We're gonna learn what not to do when your little brother has a more colorful colorful coat than you do. That's why I'm an only child. I have all the colorful coats. I bet you did. See you next week.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Thanks for listening to Coffee Break Theology. Be sure to tune in next time and remember to check out our other podcast series available on every major podcast listening service.