The Story of God: Tests of Faith

Faith is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised; it needs to be stretched and to be built up. So if you’ve ever struggled to live by faith, been tempted to compromise your faith, or even failed at faith, then what God’s Word has to say for us today will help us get a better handle on the tests of faith we face everyday, and will help us see how the obstacles you face become the opportunities God uses to grow your faith.

Now, Abram is often called a man of great faith. But he didn’t start that way. In fact, God had to grow his faith, just as he has to grow ours. So as we begin Abram’s journey we’re going to see three tests of faith God used to begin this faith building process. And the first of these tests is found in Genesis 12:4-9, with Abram arriving in the promised land.  So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.  He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

Here’s The First Test: Compromise  Here is the temptation: “The Canaanites were in the land.” Abram arrived in a land that was full of people who did not know his God. Abram was a stranger in a strange land: a land full of strange people with strange customs and strange religious practices. And now, here is Abram at the great tree of Moreh, the very place where these Canaanites came to seek a fertility blessing from their pagan gods. Right out of the gate Abram is faced with the temptation to compromise his faith. Would he trust the promise of God, or would he cave to the pagan practices of the culture he now found himself?

What happens next is telling. Look at verse 7, The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. What happens is that God Himself meets with Abram and reaffirms His promise: “To your offspring I will give this land.” A how does Abram respond? In the midst of a culture that does not know God, He builds an altar to his God. The purpose of building an altar is to make a sacrifice to His Lord. He does this right in the midst of their religious center. He lets everyone know where he stands. He makes his faith public. He takes God at His Word and worships Him. He passes the test.

We today, live in a culture that no longer follows God. Our culture worships at the altar moral relevance. Tolerance is the religious creed of the day. Everything and anything goes. There is no moral authority to which we bow. The Canaanites are in the land. And they want you to worship just like them. Like Abram, we are faced with the constant temptation to compromise how we live. Will we live by faith in God or by the ways of the world? So how do we keep from compromising our faith?

Like Abram, we need to hear God’s Word. The Bible is very clear on this. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17  Like Abram, we need to hear truth. We need to hear that God is good, loving, kind, compassionate and gracious to all who call on him in faith. We need to hear that our God is unchanging in His perfections.   We need to hear that He will never leave us nor forsake us. We need to hear that He is always with us and always for us. And we need to hear that He is coming again to restore His Kingdom once and for through Jesus.. For when we hear His Word… whether its here on a Sunday morning, in your own personal reading of His word, or as you are hearing it while following Jesus with others in a journey group… Hearing His Word will give you the faith to stand in a culture that calls us to compromise everything.

The Second Test: Crisis Look now at verse 10, Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.  For Abram, this season of hunger represented a major test. Would he trust in the Lord or would he take matters into his own hands? Rather than trust God to meet his needs, Abram went to where he knew he could find food: Egypt. And just a little sidebar about Egypt: In the figurative language of Scripture, Egypt stands for an alliance with the world. Abram acted simply on his own judgment. He didn’t stop and build an altar in the Negev. He didn’t call on the Lord. He didn’t wait on God to provide help. He looked at the difficulties facing him and the grasped at the first means of escape. He went to down to Egypt. He fails the test!

How often we do the same. We all face famines in life. And when we do our faith is tested. It’s easy to worship God and be thankful when all is going well. But what when heartache strikes, when health fails, your bank account dries up, when your family’s in danger, what do you do? Here I think that most of us are like Abram. We take matters into our own hands. In fact, if we were to give counsel to Abram in the midst of this famine, we might even say, “To stay is foolish.” We might even applaud Abram for leaving. We might even say, “To leave is the best thing for your family. You’ve done the right thing.” And maybe he did. We really can’t know for sure.

But what we do know is what the Bible teaches us about times of crisis. Here’s what God’s Word says about the “famines” we all face: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4

This Scripture says we will face “famines,” “trials of many kinds,” and that these trials are a testing of our faith; and that God allow us to be tested by crisis so He can grow our faith…  But like Abram, we don’t like to suffer and we don’t like uncertainty. We want safety, we want security. We want out of our predicament. In fact, as soon as hardship comes, we want to fix it as soon as possible. We don’t want to let perseverance finish its work. That’s too hard. And so like Abram, we do the same thing. More often than not, we fail the test, rather than let God work.

Are you trying to fix what your facing or are you willing to wait on God to work? This is hard. It’s not fun. You will be tempted to quit. But if you choose to take matters into your own hands, you may miss out on what God is trying to do in you or even through you. God will use crisis to mature you. It’s a test we all face. And sometimes we will fail that test… which leads us to the third test

The Third Test: Cowardice Let’s pick up the story in verse 11, As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

Fear is the enemy of faith. And when we let fear control us rather than trust, it can lead us to do some pretty questionable things. Here Abram’s fear of man leads him to make a very strange request of his wife. Rather than trust in God for protection, Abram concocts a lie to save his hide. How ironic. Because as soon as he puts his deceptive scheme into play, it backfires. Look at verse 14 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. Oops!… Yeah! Abram’s ingenious plan worked! He saved his hide. He is being treated very well. As Verse 16 tells us, this king treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. But what about God’s promise? God promised him an offspring. Through this offspring God will build a great nation. Through this offspring all the nations of the world will be blessed… Now how’s that going to work?

Abram’s lie has really screwed things up. Abram’s fear led him to abandon faith in God. But just as things seem the darkest, we see that God doesn’t abandon Abram: Despite Abram’s cowardice God comes to the rescue: Verse 17, But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.  Where Abram failed to protect his wife, the Lord overwhelmingly succeeded in doing so. He afflicted Pharaoh and his household with serious diseases. These diseases swept through all of Pharaoh’s household: He, his harem and even his servants.. Everyone was striken. And in the midst of this wave of sickness the king discovers the truth that Sarai already has a husband. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

Amazing! Some people have a hard time seeing God’s grace in the Old Testament, but here I would say God’s grace is crystal clear. Abram failed this test of faith. But God never failed him.