We’ve been talking about the faith of Abram, a faith that first obeyed.
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Secondly, we see from this passage about Abram’s faith that it was a faith that endures.
Abram had been told that he had “an inheritance” (Heb. 11:8) in this land that he was going to. It was a “land of promise,” promised to him by God himself. God had said: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
Now, the promise that Abram’s descendants would inherit this land didn’t come until Abram was already in this Promised Land. Because Abram had responded to God’s Word with believing obedience, God tells him in Genesis 13:14-15, The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.” It was reaffirmed to him along with the promise of an heir (Gen. 15:18-21), and again after the bestowal of the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17:8). The divine bidding was sufficient for him at his first call, and he went out, “not knowing where he was going.”
But that was never fulfilled in Abram’s lifetime. He waited all his life for God’s land promise to be fulfilled and it never was. He waited twenty five years for a son, and that promise was finally fulfilled. The point is, Abram waited, a long time, for God to fulfill His promise.
Waiting is never easy. We don’t like to wait. We don’t like slow lines or traffic. We don’t like waiting for appointments. I don’t like waiting. I find, however, that no matter how short the line I choose for check out, it always takes longer than I wanted.
But I’ve never had to wait 25 years, or never to have received something I waited for. Some of you have. Some of you have prayed and hoped and waited for healing of some sickness for a long time, or have prayed and hoped and waited for a mate, and it never happened.
I hope you can find something in Abram’s example to encourage you.
Isaiah, in writing to a nation in exile, who may have thought the day of relief would never come, gave them these encouraging words: “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31).
So, Abram enters the Promised Land armed with this promise from God. But do all the pagan Canaanites show up at Abram’s doorstep once he settles in and offer him the keys to their cities? Absolutely not.
There was…
- No “Welcome Abram” sign.
- No discount coupons from the merchants.
- No housewarming party.
- No visit from the Welcome Wagon. Is that even a thing anymore?
- No mayor offering the key to the city.
- No band playing “Happy Days are Here Again.”
- No ticker-tape parade.
Nobody expected him. Nobody cared that he had come. Nobody gave him anything. Instead,
9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
By divine right this land was his, but he lived in it “as in a foreign land.”
Notice that “by faith” Abram turned his back on Ur and left his homeland. But faith didn’t stop the moment he stepped into the land of promise. Like our lives after the faith that receives salvation, we still need faith as we await the fulfillment of all God’s promises.
In fact, going to the promised land thrust Abram into more severe tests than he had experienced just from leaving Ur. It was going to be harder to live in the land of promise, to live in anticipation of a dream that wouldn’t come true right away. Somehow, when you know that something is yours, waiting for it becomes even harder.
Imagine that God has promised to you the land of Guatemala. So you pack up your camper and head south. But when you arrive there you receive no reception. You can’t speak the language, use your currency, or eat the food. All you have is your camper. That’s where you have to live. And in this camper you have to move from one place to another. Your children and your grandchildren also have to buy and live in their own campers too.
But this is your land. God has promised it to you.
You read Genesis and you see that Abram is always on the move. “He lived in tents,” symbolizing the transitory, impermeant lifestyle of Abram. Isaac and Jacob lived the same way, even though they were “heirs of the promise.”
I know lots of people who like to camp out on vacation, but I don’t know anyone who likes to live in a tent as a permanent resident. All of us have a natural desire to settle down someplace and create a nest of our own.
But 5-10-15, 20, 30 years later, Abram is still living in a camper.
In many ways this is even more remarkable than him leaving Ur in the first place. As long as he was on the road traveling across the desert, he could dream about his future ranch and his palace. When he actually got to Canaan, all those illusions disappeared.
Had Abram misheard or misunderstood God?
John Calvin asks, “Where was the inheritance which he had expected? It might have indeed occurred instantly to his mind, that he had been deceived by God” (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], Hebrews, p. 279).
This is quite a natural response that we have when we step out in faith and then don’t receive what we thought we would—when deciding to follow Christ makes life harder than it was before, or not receiving the answers to our prayers for months and even years.
Some of the promises God eventually did fulfill in Abram’s lifetime, but not this one. This promise for a place to call his own never happened. When Abraham died, all he owned was a little plot on which he buried Sarah.
Stephen, in Acts 7:4-5 says “Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.”
Still, Abram held on to the hope that it would one day be his, that it would one day be enjoyed by his children. Jacob and Joseph, at their deaths were so sure that this land would one day be theirs, that they told their descendants to take their bones back to that land to be buried. It wasn’t theirs yet, but they were assured of it.
Again, it proves Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
John Calvin points out that just after Abraham arrived in the land of promise, there was a famine that drove him from the land. But later he returned and lived in the land by faith alone.
Abram could have thrown up his hands and said, “Why don’t we move back to Ur? All our friends are there. We loved the food. Our money bought things. They have so much more in the city.”
But when faith is the product of God’s grace, it is willing to endure any inconvenience and wait for God to fulfill His promises.
If the decision had been made on the basis of economics, he would have stayed at home. If the decision had been made to secure a better quality of life, Ur would have won hands down. But if the decision was being made on the basis of what was best for Abram’s eternal wellbeing, the Promised Land proved to be the best option.
Faith says, “though I cannot see it now, I stake my destiny and its fullness upon God’s Word.” Elisha Coles once said, “Faith is your spiritual optic.” In other words, faith allows you see something that isn’t there yet as if it already exists.
A faith that is the product of God’s grace endures when obedience to the Word of God requires persevering.
- Faithfully persevering in a difficult marriage when other options become attractive occurs only because we believe God’s promises.
- Faithfully enduring as a Christian single when men entice you into sexual relationships is only possible because you hold on to God’s promises.
- Faithfully holding on as a Christian student when the academic world seeks to undermine your faith demands that you must have a firm grip on God’s promises.
- Having a resilient faith as a Christian businessman when opportunities to make more money by compromising your integrity, is only possible by holding out for the better promises of God.
A faith that is the product of grace endures when obedience to the Word of God requires persevering.
How do you know if you’ve experienced God’s saving grace? How do you know if you’ve been transformed by the sovereign grace of God? Because you will have faith that obeys and obeys enduringly.
Kent Hughes summarizes:
The word for Abraham’s existence was dissonance —he never fit in. His religion was different and far above that of the land. He was a monotheist, and his neighbors were polytheistic pagans. His standards of morality were rooted in the character of God, while theirs came from the gods they themselves had created. His worldview invited repeated collisions with that of the inhabitants. He was always living in conscious dissonance.
What a lesson for us! The life of faith demands that we live in dissonance with the unbelieving world. A life of faith is not anti-cultural, but countercultural. Thus, a vibrant faith is always matched with a sense of dis-ease, a pervasive in-betweenness, a sense of being a camper. This does not mean, of course, that Abraham was separate from culture. To the contrary, the Genesis record reveals he was deeply involved in the politics of the land. But there was always that dissonance. He was never at home!
The parallels between Abraham’s experience and that of the Christian are easy to see, because the Christian has the promise of an ultimate land. In fact, every believer is called to step out in faithful obedience and to follow Christ as he leads on to that land. All of us are, by faith, to obey and go as God directs, though we do not know where the path will take us. All of us are, by faith, to become willing sojourners, living in constant dissonance with the world as we await our final inheritance. It is a dangerous thing when a Christian begins to feel permanently settled in this world.
Have we stepped out in obedience to our individual call? Are we living in such a way in this world that there is the discomfort of dissonance?
As Peter says, we are “sojourners and exiles” in this world. We will not easily “fit in.” Oh, we might try to live like the world, but we won’t be comfortable doing it, not if we are true followers of Jesus Christ.
Actually, Lot did choose to go out and live like the world. It didn’t really work out for him, though, did it?
As believers, our homeland is in heaven, and our thoughts and affections should be regularly directed there, as Paul says in Colossians 3.
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Like Abram, we need to keep our eyes on the heavenly city and allow these future promises to produce in us the holiness that pleases God. Several of the New Testament writers speak of the impact our belief in future promises have upon our current life.
11 Since all these things [heavenly bodies and the earth, creating the new heavens and earth] are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be [today] in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God [like Abram we wait], because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3)
Or think of what the apostle John said in 1 John 2 and 3. At the end of chapter 2 John encourages us to live righteous lives…
28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
Who wants to shrink back from Jesus in shame at his coming? Wouldn’t we rather be excited at His coming and welcome Him with open arms? If we prefer not to shrink back in shame, we better watch over our lives now and live in a way that he would be pleased to catch us doing what is right and good and loving when He comes.
Then in chapter 3 John says…
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
When Jesus Christ appears we will be suddenly transformed and become like him in righteousness and purity. But having that hope means that we will purify ourselves now, today.
So let your future hope of being someday with Christ excite your heart to become more and more like Him today.
Grace Still Amazes 