(A)Introduction.

Abraham is an example to us so it will be instructive to look at the way faith affected his life.

(B) It gave him a spirit of adventure.

Abraham was not reckless. Faith is neither ignorant nor irrational and so it shouldn't lead to reckless behaviour. The three Swedes who tried to travel across the North Pole in 1896 by hot air balloon were reckless. They didn't have enough experience of ballooning in extreme conditions and consequently insufficient knowledge to make a successful flight. The Swedes set off and perished. We are not expected to serve God without being equipped for the task. Jesus did, after all, spend three years training the apostles for their ministry to the early church. Paul had to be sent back to Tarsus after his conversion for a time of meditation and then served for a year as an assistant to Barnabas at Antioch.

Abraham was well qualified for his trek from Ur of the Chaldees via Haran to Canaan. The word, 'Hebrew' may mean caravaneer in which case Abraham was from a trading family. He was certainly much richer and more influential than a wandering nomad would be. A nomadic farmer would not have a private army of 318 men - a caravaneer might. Genesis14v14

Abraham did, however, venture into unknown territory. He opened up new trade routes in unfamiliar territory and grazed fresh pastures. This involved making new alliances and agreements. Genesis14v13 He also encountered dangers and problems that he might have avoided if he had stopped in Ur of the Chaldees.Genesis12v10to13

I wonder whether we have the spirit of adventure. I have just read a piece by Stuart Briscoe in, 'It's High Time' a magazine that encourages Christians who are 50+ to give to God voluntary service locally, nationally or internationally. After ministering for thirty years at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin he has undertaken the task of training pastors and church leaders in places like Siberia and Ecuador, Jordan and Cambodia. He writes, 'Sure beats playing golf.' I haven't got Stuart's spirit of adventure. I am apprehensive about going to Japan for a fortnight - on holiday! It is a leap into the unknown. I don't like leaping into the unknown... That is just what Abraham did.

I think we can be too timid, cautious and conservative in what we read and think. I know a little seminary where all that the students are recommended to read is conservative, reformed, theology. What a mistake! Surely it is best to read a wide variety of authors from many different backgrounds to get a balanced view. Even writers that you profoundly disagree with may have some good ideas. C.H. Spurgeon's advice still holds good - when you eat a fish leave the bones. It is pretty silly to avoid fish altogether because they contain bones. How hard it is to change a belief of a Chrisian. Innate conservatism and pride will resist all appeals to Scripture or to reason.

It is important to have faith in people. Once again this involves taking risks. If we give Christians the opportunity to succeed we have to accept the possibility that they will fail. One of the essential qualities of good leadership is the ability to motivate and get the best out of others. There is a difference between being a fine teacher and a great leader. It is, of course, possible to be both - like Jesus. However the good teacher may be an enthusiast for his subject whereas the leader is more interested in people as individuals, has keener insight into their potential and the motivational skills to realise that potential.

Abraham did not play it safe. To stop with the old and familiar is comfortable. If Abraham had done so he would never have reached the Promised Land.

(C) It made him different

Abraham reached Canaan but he did not settle down. He could have done so. Lot bought a house in Sodom. Abraham was sufficiently rich and powerful to have built himself a city near one of the wells that he dug. Instead he dwelt in tents and was always on the move. He was a stranger in a foreign country and as such vulnerable. Twice he nearly lost his wife - once to Pharoah and then again to Ahimelech the Philistine King of Gerar.Genesis20v1to2

However Abraham retained his independence. He was essentially a free agent. He was set free by faith to be his own man - to be the man God wanted - reliant on, and beholden to, none.

Faith sets us free from the world - from the fashions and opinions of the day. As the great apostle says: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world , but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans12v2. Christians should not be tamed by political correctness, slavishly pursue worldly ambition and success or succumb to the tyranny of materialism. We are by faith citizens of heaven and its citizens travel light. Jesus and Paul had virtually no possessions but they did the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.

It is not easy to be like Abraham who was an alien and a stranger. We want to be accepted by those with whom we work or play. If we are Christians we are not quite one of them. The writer to the Hebrews writes something very wonderful and moving about the Patriarchs: They were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.v16. If we believe that God has prepared a city for us then we can live by the precepts of the kingdom and not by the mores of the world. How different we should be. After looking up the passage in Romans quoted above I continued to read and the words from Romans12v17to21: Do not repay anyone evil for evil......Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath...... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, spoke to my heart. I have thought so much recently about getting revenge on someone who has hurt me. That is the way of the world - but it is not the way of the kingdom. Jesus has set me free to do his will. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for me and for all those who follow him and suffer loss in this life.

When Abraham reached 100 he still had not had a son by Sarah. Sexually he was in the words of the writer, as good as dead v12 There is not much humour in the Epistle to the Hebrews - this is as close as the writer gets! I used to have a neighbour, Norman, who had outlived two wives. When he was in his nineties I asked him if he would like to marry again. His reply was always the same, "If anyone wanted sex with me now I should require three days notice in writing."

Well it is almost as if God gives Abraham and Sarah hormone replacement therapy. It took years off Sarah. This is how Sarah reacted when the LORD told Abraham that his wife would have a son: So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?" Gen18v12. Yet a little later Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her into his harem.

Abraham tried for a baby one more time. He had tried often enough in the past with no success. This time he tries by faith in God's word and he succeeds against all the odds.

We should never abandon hope particularly when it involves the promises of God. Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Mt7v7and8. A dear friend of our little church, Mr Ernest Oliver, hoped to be the first missionary into Nepal after the Second World War. He had to wait in India with his wife for many, many, years - asking, seeking, knocking. In God's time, the right time, they were allowed in and began a great work for the Lord.

We should be slow to abandon hope in people. I was very disappointed when a boy, we will call him Shane, opted to study Geography at the age of fourteen. He was a late arrival at the school and not the sort of youth that I naturally took to. He had a lot of charm, made a good impression, but continually let folk down. He was the sort of good looking, feckless, young man that foolish girls are besotted with. Shane proved to be an ongoing problem. Wherever he sat he would distract others. His idea of a good lesson was one he gossiped throughout to his female admirers. In the end I completely isolated him. He sat by himself at the front of the class with no one within easy gossip range. Shane hated it. He was just so resentful. He attempted long range gossiping but I was down on him like a ton of bricks. Shane whinged continuously about how unfair I was to him. He went into a prolonged mega-sulk. One day I said to him, "You have never given me a chance to treat you as you wish. Why don't you try to co-operate for two or three weeks and see what happens." He did. The whole situation changed. From the moment he decided to co-operate the classroom was a totally different place. I never expected it. I thought the strife would last to the bitter end. It didn't. Never abandon hope in person - by God's Grace they can change.

(E) It ensured he put God's will first in everything

The story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac is in many ways a very terrible one. Today Abraham would be imprisoned for child abuse and Isaac would be taken into care. It must have been traumatic for Isaac. Abraham tied him up before laying him on the altar.Genesis22v9to10 However it was also traumatic for Abraham. Yet in this hardest of testing he had confidence in God. He believed, according to the writer of this letter, that God could raise the dead.Heb11v19.

It is impossible to underestimate the importance of Abraham's faith. In Genesis15v6 we read, Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. In a way it made him worthy of the promises. It made the promises of God to Abraham the more binding. God reiterated and emphasised those promises after Abraham's faith passed the test. See Genesis22v15to18

It should not be forgotten how much the Israelites needed these gripping, dramatic, stories of God's dealings with Abraham and God's promises to Abraham during those four hundred years in Egypt. They were passed from one generation to another. They bound Abraham's descendents together as one people. The old stories were an enslaved people's inspiration and gave them hope.

We may be asked by God to make a real sacrifice by faith. It might help us to remember that God could use this personal sacrifice as an example and inspiration to others. We also need to remember that God has his own way of providing. There was a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. A sacrificed was offered and Abraham and Isaac came down the mountain together. When I gave up my job as a teacher in my forties to care for my father there were those who said I would never be able to get back into the profession. I believed that God would provide. He did. After my father died I was appointed to a small country school where the children were very affectionate and co-operative. They gave me a lot of happiness. I always considered it a particularly gracious providence.

There was a lamb sacrificed - not one caught in a thicket - not one entrapped by circumstances. The lamb that takes away the sin of the world voluntarily laid down his life for sinners. It is by his sacrifice that we shall by faith enter the Promised Land.