Crisis of Faith

Texts: Genesis 15:1-6, 16:1-4, Galatians 3:6-9

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah

January 19, 2025

It has now been several years since God made a promise to Abram that he would be the father of many nations, and that this would come through his very own offspring. One Bible commentator calls chapter 15 the most important chapter, theologically, in the Abraham story. It asks the question, how does one trust the promise when evidence against the promise is all around?

God promises to be with us always. He promises to love us. But sometimes don’t we find that hard to hold?

Faith doesn’t come easy. If anyone has told you faith is all Christian sunshine don’t believe them. They are wrong. Faith often times struggles.

The author and farmer, Wendell Berry said that faith implies skepticism. To have faith means there is also such a thing as doubt. Berry said that he would think that “people of faith would always be involved in some kind of maintenance to shore it up. Sometimes it’s easy to have faith, and sometimes it isn’t…The world, as it operates today, isn’t made to preserve [faith].”

Yes, to live by faith in Christ in this world, under these circumstances, under these conditions, takes some maintenance to strengthen our faith.

Abram becomes skeptical. His faith needs some maintenance. Maybe your faith needs shoring up.

Two different times it says the word of the Lord came to Abram. The first time it says it came in a vision. God spoke to Isaiah and Jeremiah in visions. He spoke to John in a vision giving us the book of Revelation. He spoke to Peter through a vision when the disciple was on the rooftop in prayer one day.

But whether through visions or speaking, whether audibly or in his heart, Abram heard a voice. What did Abram hear?

We can be very skeptical of people who hear voices today. We often medicate or institutionalize them. “Oh, you are hearing voices??!” And sometimes people have done incredibly terrible things claiming to hear a voice.

Sometimes people in church circles say the Lord spoke to them, and they do it with such frequency and casualness that it seems empty. When it is too common and too obvious, get suspicious! Or they say the Lord told them something, and it is so contradictory to the love and grace of Christ that we become skeptical. Just because someone says they hear a voice doesn’t mean it is the Lord. And just because someone closes their mind to the possibility of the Lord speaking doesn’t mean he doesn’t.

Abram hears a Voice. He would not have left his people, place and family if he did not. Israel would not be a people if he did not. There would be no gospel if he had not. Jesus would not have spoken of Abraham. People have acted on this voice in the Bible and throughout history and have done mighty things for God.

No journey of faith can take place until there is a hearing of that Voice. It might not be like Abram heard it. But we sense God speaking to us to leave, to act, to follow, to believe, to pray, to love.

We are not told how Abram heard God’s voice. He did and he acted. For those who think there is a rational answer to every question in the universe and in our lives this idea of God speaking is difficult. Even people who claim to walk by faith often can’t accept the mysterious workings of the Almighty.

God spoke through prophets. He speaks through his Word. He has spoken and continues to speak most clearly in the life of his Son, Jesus Christ. God speaks through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

That is still true for us. The Holy Spirit speaks to those who have ears and lives to hear. We get it as we are able to receive it, and as God wants us to know it. God still speaks. He speaks in circumstances, in whispers, in other people. But he can speak very quietly and our lives can be very noisy. The world is so restless that it is that it is difficult to determine when He addresses us, and what He says.

But Abram was not so loud and restless, and he hears God. And this time the Lord says to him, “Do not be afraid…” Why would the Lord say that? Because Abram was afraid? Journeying by faith can be scary.

And the Lord tells Abram, “I am your shield.” Phil’s modern translation: “Abram, I’ve got your back.” The Lord is Abram’s protection, his shield of faith, perhaps of his heart as well as his life. It’s interesting that in Paul’s writing on the armor of God in Ephesians 6, he speaks of the shield of faith. He links shield and faith together.

As I said before, faith doesn’t come easy. We get attacked by doubts, skepticism, the Adversary, our own irrational imaginings. But the Lord is a shield and surrounds us from those attacks. He tells Abram that he is Abram’s reward, or it might mean that Abram’s reward will be vey great.

But Abram wonders about this and takes it up with the Lord. The Lord has promised him offspring and he is still childless. The Lord has not lived up to his word and so a slave boy is the closest thing Abram has to a son. “How can I know?” Abram asks. Isn’t that the question of faith? How can I know? It is not coming easy for Abram. He is experiencing a crisis of faith.

That’s when the Voice speaks again and renews the promise that Abram will have a son that comes from his own body. And that if he can count the stars that is how vast his children will be. And it says, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” He believed God and was set right with God.

Believe and faith are the same word in the biblical Hebrew language. And this is the only time the word faith or believe is used in the story of Abraham’s life.

Now Abram is married. His wife is Sarai. And skipping to chapter 16, it has been ten years since Abram first heard the Voice and they left for Canaan. Sarai thinks the Lord is taking too long. She takes matters into her own hands. Does Sarai have a sense of responsibility? Is she losing patience?

She orders Abram to go and sleep with her servant, Hagar, thinking that perhaps Sarai can build a family through her. Kind of an early-day surrogate thing. Sarai is very much in control. It says she took Hagar and gave her to Abram.

Well, her plan works. Hagar gets pregnant. And then Sarai gets mad at Abram. And she gets angry at Hagar. It says,

“Then Sarai said to Abram, You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.’”

Whose idea was this in the first place? “Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

How dare Sarai. But don’t start pointing the finger at Sarai. When we get frustrated in the life of faith can’t we become angry and often irritable? It isn’t going our way so we just start taking it out on everyone and everything around us. We blame this and that taking no responsibility for our own anger.

Abram and Sarai can no longer wait in faith and they take matters into their own hands. God helps those who help themselves, right? No. God helps those who have faith in him.

There is an interesting comment in Mark’s gospel about the interaction of some people with Jesus. It says he could not do any miracles (in his hometown) except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. “And he was amazed at their lack of faith.” Are there times we block Jesus from doing something in our life or our church because of lack of faith?

In Galatians 3 the Apostle Paul comments on Genesis 15:6, where it says Abraham believed the Lord and he was set right with God. Paul writes that when we have faith and believe in the Lord, we become descendants of Abraham and are blessed along with him. And then in Romans 4 he quotes something from Genesis 15 directly.

He writes,

“What does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” Righteousness means to be right with God.

Instead of working for it God wanted Abraham to trust him. That’s what he wants from us. Doesn’t mean effort isn’t involved, but that effort is God-led. And that’s what sets us right with God.

Now Abram wasn’t trusting the Lord when he gave in to Sarai’s plan. But he is still considered right with God. Why? Because he believed. It wasn’t perfect belief. I don’t know that belief will ever be perfect. We are like the man who came to Jesus asking if he could heal his son. Jesus said that everything is possible for the one who believes. And the father responded, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

Abram’s faith is not without struggle or disturbance. His faith is, as one person put it, a “hard-fought and deeply argued conviction.”

Belief in God doesn’t mean “everything will work out all right.” It doesn’t mean you will always have spiritual peace, or comfort, or that everything will add up just right in your life. People who believe that are believing an illusion, not God. Then when they mature and difficulties come, they find they really had faith in themselves and their own ideas, instead of faith in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord tells us he loves us, that he wants to bring good into our lives, and that he cares for us. But when health fails, when death steals, when struggles come, when the car breaks down, it is hard to have faith. And we wonder.

If your faith is going through a mini-crisis, or even a large crisis, right now, I’m not going to tell you to try harder. I’m going to tell you to let go and let God. Leave it to him. That in itself is an act of faith. Sometimes the crisis comes because we are trying too hard or trying to control.

The good news is that God will do it. It isn’t up to you or me. We can never do it for ourselves no matter how long or how hard we work.

There is the Sarai option, “We can do this ourselves.” There is the Romans 4 option, “only God can do it.” Remember the Lord’s original call to Abram where he says over and over again, “I will…I will”. “I will make you.” “I will bless you.” God is responsible. He asks us to trust.

Paul connects Abram’s walk of faith with ours when he writes,

“The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

This was written for our sake, too. Our experience is not to have a child in old age and become a great nation. What we are asked to believe in is God’s forgiveness of us…

…that he has saved us in the cross and resurrection of Christ,

…that he accepts us and that we are made right with him, and we have nothing to prove to him,

…that he is with us,

…that we are to love others,

…and that the purpose for our lives is found in a relationship with him.

Some days those are hard things to believe in, right? As Wendell Berry said, our faith needs shoring up. It needs maintenance. Because we easily lose sight of the promises of God, and that he is in control, and that he is leading our lives.

Our faith needs shoring up and maintenance with worship on Sundays.

It needs the word of God read and preached.

It needs the body of Christ.

It needs challenges so it can be exercised and built.

It needs songs, times of prayer, and sacraments.

Abram received the Voice and the vision. But we now have Christ – the Word of God - and we have all the things that pertain to him. We have all the benefits I just mentioned, which is what the Holy Spirit uses to stir, strengthen and grow our faith.

So keep walking. Keep journeying by faith. Believe God. That’s what he wants of us. God will credit it to us by declaring that we are right with him.

(Moment of silent reflection to listen to how God might be addressing you right now)

Prayer: God of Abraham and Sarai, we long for a faith that withstands the doubts, uncertainties and difficulties we all face. We can’t do it ourselves, so we ask that you would help us.

We know the place to put our faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. In his life for us, his cross for us, his resurrection for us, his purposes for us, his coming again for us.

Give us faith to see beyond touch and sight, to a place and time yet to come – your kingdom – and where our vision fails, help us to trust your love which never fails.

Amen.