Author: Lamar Austin

I've graduated from Citadel Bible College in Ozark, Arkansas, with a B. A. Then got my M. Div. and Th. M. at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, MD. I finished with a D. Min. degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, but keep on learning. I pastored at Chinese Christian Church of Greater Washington, D. C., was on staff at East Evangelical Free Church in Wichita, KS, tried to plant an EFC in Little Rock, before moving back home to Mena, where I now pastor my home church, Grace Bible Church

Could You Pass the Ultimate Test? part 1 (Hebrews 11:17-19)

Over the last couple of months we’ve been looking at the life of Abraham as recorded in Hebrews 11 and today we come to that part of his story which revealed a mature faith, a faith that believed God for the impossible without question or hesitation.  Our passage today is Hebrews 11:17-19.

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

This presents briefly the greatest act of Abraham’s faith—his trusting in the absolutely unseen, and that at a time when he was bidden to do what seemed to conflict directly with God’s own promise. (R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews & James, 400)

When the grizzled, old patriarch Abraham was just a year shy of a century, God came down and made himself known to Abraham in a way like never before.  He used a name never before heard by a human being.  He said, “I am El Shaddai, I am God Almighty” (Genesis 17:1).

When God reveals a new name it is usually because He has just performed or is about to perform some significant act that will reveal a vitally important aspect of His nature or purpose.  So what is God about to do to justify this fresh revelation of Himself, that He is, in fact, the God of infinite might?

He says, “I want you to change your wife’s name.  You’ve known here as Sarai, now I want you to call her Sarah, Princess, because she is going to be the mother of many nations.  Kings of people will come from her.”  Do you remember how Abraham responded?  He fell to the ground in rip-roaring laughter!

At an earlier stage he had responded with more sobriety.  He believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).  But here, at a later stage, he reckons himself “as good as dead” so that he can’t help but laugh.  But why did he laugh?  Because what God said was such a cause of joy, but also genuine amusement as he tries to wrap his head around how this might come to pass.  “What will people think?  They’ll know we’ve been watching those Viagra commercials!” he laughed (Genesis 17:17). 

However, his incredulous laughter was only momentary, for when God explained that the birth would take place the following year, Abraham believed with all his heart, as 11:11 has made so clear: “By faith he [Abraham] also, together with Sarah, received power to beget a child when he was past age, since he counted him faithful who had promised” (literal translation).

A short time later, within a few weeks, three mysterious visitors appear on Abraham’s doorstep and promise him “a year from now Sarah will have a son.”  She, listening in (having seen a lightness in Abraham’s step lately and wondering why he was now calling her “Princess,” but thinking that maybe it was just because he had read the last Dobson book on cultivating intimacy in marriage), she hears this message and she, too, responds with laughter.  “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” (Genesis 18:12).

She laughs.  But it was El Shaddai who had the last laugh because He said, “Name this son Isaac,” which means laughter.  God would make his covenant with Laughter.  After his birth, Sarah would say, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:6).  El Shaddai has displayed his power.  He has kept His promise.  The outcome: exuberant joy all around—Abraham laughs, Sarah laughs, everyone laughs, heaven laughs.  We’re supposed to laugh too!

Kent Hughes explains:

Isaac’s name was a sure prophecy of what he brought to life.  The old couple would take baby Isaac in their age-spotted hands and hold him close before their wrinkled visages, and their eyes would light as the smile lines drew taut—they would chuckle—and baby Isaac would laugh.  If there ever were doting parents, Abraham and Sarah were surely prime examples.  The boy was everything to them—the amalgam of their bodies and souls, the miraculous fulfillment of prophecy, the hope of the world.  Isaac’s every move was lovingly chronicled—his first word, the first step, his likes and dislikes, his tendencies.  And as he grew to boyhood and on toward manhood, Abraham and Sarah would see aspects of their younger selves in their son—perhaps Abraham’s height and carriage and Sarah’s stride and grace. (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, Vol. 2, p. 106).

But then one fateful day God came to Abraham again (Genesis 22) and called out “Abraham.”  His immediate response was “Here I am, at your service, Lord.”  But his enthusiasm immediately fades away when he heard God’s charge, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (Genesis 22:2).

“Surely not, Lord.”  His soul would have been terrified and his heart broken.  God was calling him to put his beloved Isaac, the son of the covenant, to death by his own hand and then incinerate his remains as a burnt offering to God.

“This divine command was contrary to everything in Abraham—his common sense, his natural affections, his lifelong dream.  He had no natural interest and no natural sympathy for this word from God.  The only thing natural was his utter revulsion!” (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, Vol. 2, p. 107)

To put his own son to death as an act of worship to his God was barbaric—the most unthinkable, repulsive thing Abraham could think of.  Abraham was no backward, ignorant pagan.  He was a man of education and financial means.  More importantly, he had come to know a God that was different from all the pagan gods.

This puts the story into an entirely different light.  It’s one thing for God to command Abraham to offer up a human sacrifice.  But for God to command that he sacrifice Isaac, the one of whom God said “I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him” is something else altogether.  How can this be?

The sentence of death pronounced on Isaac seemed also to be the sentence of death on God’s promise!  There seem to be here two mutually exclusive declarations by God.  On the one hand, God says: “I will establish my covenant with Isaac.”  On the other hand, God says: “Kill Isaac.”  Can you now appreciate the seemingly insurmountable and illogical predicament in which Abraham finds himself?

All of a sudden his world goes berserk.  But one thing he knows: the originator of this word was the same Voice that had called him more than 35 years ago and the same Voice that had promised him a son.

So at the first gleam of dawn, without arguing or hesitating or questioning, without a word to poor old Sarah, Abraham saddled his donkey, summoned two trusted servants, split wood for the sacrificial pyre, roused Isaac, and began the three-day journey to Moriah. 

When they draw close enough to see the mountains in the distance, he leaves his servants behind (likely knowing that they would oppose him as they saw his plan unfold).  He and Isaac alone go to worship, but notice that he said they both “will return” (Genesis 22:5). He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Abraham then straps the wood to the back of his son, hides the dagger and trudges on.

Thus lovable, talkative Isaac, happy to be alone with his father, and Abraham, preoccupied and wearier than he had ever felt, began the climb.  “So they went both of them together.  And Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’” (Genesis 22:6, 7a).  Isaac used the patronymic “Abi (Abba),” which could well be translated, “Daddy” or “Dearest Father.”  “Abi?” “[Abraham] said, ‘Here I am, my son.’  He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’  Abraham said, ‘God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’  So they went both of them together” (Genesis 22:7b, 8). (R. Kent Hughes Preaching the Word: Hebrews, Vol. 2, p. 107)

At this point Abraham felt older than any man who had ever lived.  How he managed the ascent, only God knows!

After arriving at the top of the mountain, Mount Moriah (which would play such an important part in subsequent history), we can assume that Laughter begins to shudder.  Of course, no one knows exactly how old Isaac was at this point.  Given his naivety on the journey my guess is that he is a pre-teen.

He submits as his father begins to bind him to the altar.  When the binding is finished, the pumping rhythm of Abraham’s heart begins to intensify in speed and force as he struggles to draw another breath.  He finally closes his eyes, raises the dagger and readies it for the final plunge.

Finally, out of nowhere, the deafening silence is shattered by the voice of the Angel of the Lord, likely a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.  He calls out to Abraham from heaven, “Abraham!  Abraham!” to which Abraham characteristically replies, “Here I am.”

And God says, “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said.  “Do not do anything to him.  Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Gen. 22:12)

The text moves on to indicate that Abraham saw a ram caught in the thicket, captured it and offered it as a burnt offering to God.

So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided” (Genesis 22:14)

God reveals Himself here as Jehovah-Jireh, the “Lord who provides.”  What a relief!  Isaac is saved and the covenant is secure.

What a joy this must have been to Abraham, to find a substitute in place of his one and only Son Isaac!  It reminds us that we have a Substitute who died in our place.

And it also reminds us that God never asks us to sacrifice something without promising us a much greater reward.  Thus, A. W. Pink said, “The bounty of God should encourage us to surrender freely whatever He calls for, for none ever lose by giving up anything to God” (Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 745).  And, of course, Jim Eliot taught us, “He is no fool who gives us what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

Now, this story terrifies us, then it leaves us with hope.  But let’s be honest.  It is not an easy story to live with.  We could wish that it never appeared in the Bible.  Yes, Abraham comes off as a man of faith, but it poses some extremely uncomfortable questions about God.  It paints the picture of a God that is very difficult for such self-centered, self-important Americans to digest.

What kind of God would demand such obedience?  What kind of God would put any father through such mind-numbing, heart-breaking pain, only to prove that that father loved God more than he loved his son?

And then we have to ask ourselves, “Could I have been as obedient as Abraham?”  What if God had come to me with that request?  Am I that strong in my faith?  Would I have the same unhesitating, unquestioning obedience to a command that seemed so wrong?

But with Abraham there was no hesitation, no negotiation, no procrastination.  He didn’t remind God how long he and Sarah had waited for a son or how God had promised that this son was the “son of promise.”  He obeyed God to the letter, right away.  In fact, notice what Hebrews 11:17 says, “By faith, Abraham…offered Isaac as a sacrifice.”  God considered Abraham’s obedience complete, even though He stopped it from happening.  He saw Abraham’s heart of faith-filled obedience.  The perfect tense indicates that it was a completed action, in God’s eyes.

Abraham … offered Isaac as a sacrifice.  The command was to “offer him as a burnt-offering,” which first had to be killed and then consumed by fire.  So the apostle affirms that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice, whereas we know how he was delivered.  But this means that Abraham fully obeyed God’s command here.  He did it in his will, heart, and affections, although it was never eventually carried out.  The will is accepted for the deed.  The correct meaning is that Abraham fully obeyed God’s command. (John Owen, Hebrews, 227)

It shows that Abraham’s obedience was not only immediate and unquestioning, but that his resolve was firm to the end.  Abraham obeyed immediately and completely.  And we ask, “How does a father do such a thing?”

How can you exercise such faith in God that when confronted with a test that calls for the most extreme level of personal sacrifice, you do it without question or hesitation?

Your sacrifice may not be the sacrifice of a child, but it may involve the sacrifice of a distinguished career, a 4.0 grade point average, a starting spot on the basketball team, a long-standing relationship or a new relationship.  It may be the sacrifice of a dream house.

Is God asking you to sacrifice anything right now?  What is your response.  “No, Lord, you can’t take that away from me.”  Is that your response?  It may be our natural response.  It wasn’t Abraham’s.

So that brings up the question:  How can you and I exercise faithful obedience to God when confronted with a test that calls for some kind of extreme sacrifice on our part?

The answer, in part, is by casting yourself upon two important truths:

The first is this: recognize that God Himself is the author of this test.

Here that reality is implied, “when he was tested.”  “God” is not mentioned in the text, but this is what is called a “divine passive.”  The ESV is right in assigning God as the author of this test, which is exactly how Genesis 22:1 reads, “Some time later…” or “after these things God tested Abraham.”

Now remember the distinction, God never tempts us to sin.  James 1 is emphatic on this point: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;” (James 1:13).

When God takes us through difficult and trying circumstances (trials), it is not for the purpose of causing us to sin.  When God does test us, it is to prove that we can stand the test.  Trials are not designed to induce us to sin, but to reveal our real character—not so much to God, but to ourselves and others.

You’ve seen this happen before, maybe in your own life or in the life of someone else.  You see a woman who remains faithful to Jesus after being abandoned by her husband.  You see a man who remains faithful to Jesus when his wife has just died from leukemia.

You have watched them go through a very trying situation and you see their trust, their hope, their loving responses, their compassion.

Here’s the thing.  God and Satan can use the same situation but have different goals in mind.  God brings difficult situations into our lives to build us up, while Satan uses those same situations to trip us up.  As my beloved Bible College professor, Dr. Charles Willoughby used to say, “God sends trials into our lives as stepping stones; Satan sends trials into our lives as stumbling stones.”

God has a totally opposite purpose in our trials.  As A. W. Tozer has said” The God we love may sometimes chasten us, it is true. But even this He does with a smile—the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is. (A. W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship, 29)

We don’t have to stumble.  Abraham didn’t.  He grew stronger in his faith by showing faith-filled obedience when God tested him.

Faith that Holds on for God’s Best, part 3 (Hebrews 11:16)

We are in Hebrews 11, verse 16.  Let me read this whole passage about Abraham’s forward-looking faith.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

We have noticed throughout this passage that it is faith produced by grace that redirects our affections from this world to the next, from earth to heaven, from now to them.

This is basically one way we can determine whether we are practical atheists.  I’m not talking about theological atheists, who argue that there is no god, but rather Christians who live like there is no god.  They value man’s authority over God’s authority, they believe more in the material world than the spiritual world, and they value this life more than eternity.

Abraham wasn’t like that.  He took God at His word, by faith saw the rewards of heaven, and lived his life for eternity.

And this leads us to our second point in this text.  First, faith produced by grace redirects our affections.  Second, faith produced by grace also arouses God’s affection for us.

Look at verse 16b, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

“Therefore,” on the basis of this kind of faith that focuses our hearts and minds on God’s future, heavenly rewards, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.”

This is so incredible!  To think that God not ashamed to be referred to as my God.  It doesn’t bother him that I claim him as my God, rather it delights him!

When I served as a hospice chaplain I would sing hymns to my hospice patients.  Over the years I sang many of the hymns in The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration.  I found six hymns, and I never would have expected this, that talked about God’s smiling face.

For example, the hymn Jesus, I Am Resting Resting by Jean Pigott, begins the fourth verse with “Ever lift Thy face upon me As I work and wait for Thee; Resting ‘neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus, Earth’s dark shadows flee.”  Yes, when we see His smile all the pain and heartache of life begins to disappear.

Or take the hymn He Keeps Me Singing, by Luther B. Bridgers, where the third verse joyfully exclaims: “Feasting on the riches of His grace, Resting ‘neath His shelt’ring wing, Always looking on His smiling face—That is why I shout and sing.”  You can shout and sing and claim the sweetest name of Jesus because you keep your eyes focused on “His smiling face.”

In the hymn O That Will Be Glory by Charles H. Gabriel, he talks about the joys of heaven: friends will be there, joy will overflow, “Yet, just a smile from my Savior, I know, Will through the ages be glory for me.”  That smile will be our joy and delight throughout eternity.

Other hymns that have that concept—the smile of God—are Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts, Sunshine in My Soul and Trust and Obey.  Look them up and let these songs edify your heart.

Far too many Christians feel that God’s countenance towards them is a frown, not a smile, laboring under the false supposition that God in his wrath is about to rain down lightning bolts of anger toward them.  Nothing could be further from the truth as a Christian.

There’s no doubt that God’s heart must be grieved by sin and evil in our world but that is not the main headline!  God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son for us!

The image of God’s smiling face first appears in the priestly blessing of Aaron mentioned in Numbers 6:24-26: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

The image of God’s face shining upon someone paints a picture that signifies God’s divine favor.  Like warm rays from the sun, God’s favor is shining upon his people.  When we read “the Lord make his face shine upon you” it shows God’s radiance warming our lives with love, grace, compassion, guidance, joy, and all other attributes that flow from him. Again, we see the abundance in which God blesses his people. 

To “be gracious to you” shows that this isn’t something we deserve; rather it’s unmerited grace that God is giving us. Because God loves us, he gives us what we need and not what we deserve. That’s grace. 

God was not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, even though Abraham faltered and failed numerous times.  In fact, God later proclaimed to Moses, “I am [present tense] . . . the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6).  The most notorious weasel of them all was Jacob, and God delighted in calling Himself Jacob’s God.  And did you know that God refers to himself three times more often as the “God of Jacob” than of Abraham or Isaac?

“Not ashamed” (cf. 2:11) is a litotes implying that God is willing and happy to be called their God.  Our author uses this figure of speech in the negative “not ashamed” to emphasize the more positive: God is proud to be my God.  He delights in associating His name with mine.

No higher tribute could be paid to any mortal.  But God proudly claims whoever trusts and obeys him, and they can humbly insert their name in the divine proclamation, “I am the God of __________!”

We all have seen or heard of family members who turn their backs on a member of the family that is erring and rebellious and who has caused them shame.  Do you realize that Jesus would never, never do that of you?  He would NEVER do that to you.

Jesus said to Mary, after his disciples had all abandoned him, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Did you hear it?  “Go to my brothers…”  My brothers!  Even though they had abandoned Him in His greatest time of need, he still regards them as brothers.  Back in Heb. 2:11 we read that Jesus Christ was “not ashamed to call us brothers.”

It is faith, not perfect obedience, that brings pleasure to God.  It is our dependence upon Him, recognizing that we are weak and needy and powerless.  It is trust that does manifest itself in obedience and endurance, but it is primarily the faith that pleases God.  Remember Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].”  So the reverse is also true: God is pleased with our faith.  That is what delights his heart.

On what basis does God delight in calling himself my God, or Jesus calling himself my brother?  The answer is right there in v. 16.   Notice that God “has prepared for them [and for us] a city” (v. 16b).  This is the New Jerusalem that will come down upon the New Earth. This is a reference to our eternal home.

And what was their response to this marvelous promise of a New and Glorified City that would be established on the New and Glorified Earth?  They “desired” it!  The word “therefore” in the middle of v. 16 points back to the first half of the verse.  In other words, it is because these OT patriarchs “desired” a better country that God is not ashamed of them.  Faith focuses the heart and the mind on those future promises of God.

So how is it that God is not ashamed of us when we are so often ashamed of ourselves?  It has to do entirely with His grace!  I remember reading a few years ago about a pastor in his early 30s who was diagnosed with cancer.  After many tests, the doctors gave him the worst possible news.  He was dying of cancer—sooner rather than later.  It turned out exactly as the doctors predicted.  He lived for a few more years and then he died.  But as long as he was able to preach, he spoke to his people about what he was learning.  The young pastor was given an insight that he shared with his congregation.  It went something like this.

Twenty seconds—and the clock is running!

When you begin your Christian life, you realize that you have a long way to go, but you think to yourself, “I’ve got a lifetime to grow in grace.”  Even though you know that you’ll never reach perfection in this life, you assume that over the years, you will grow much closer to God.  And while you struggle with various sins, bad habits, and a long list of negative tendencies, you think, “Someday I’m going to be a better person.”  After all, when someone points out a weakness to us, what do we usually say?  “I’m working on that,” which means, “Give me time and I’ll get better.”

But what if you don’t live long enough to make even the elementary progress that you planned on making?  That’s the dilemma this young pastor faced, knowing that he didn’t have much longer to live.  And it was precisely at this point that he gained wisdom from God.

He realized, “I’m not going to live long enough to get any better.  I’m going to have to die the way I am right now.”  That’s a shocking and sobering truth!  Suddenly you look up at the scoreboard and where you thought you were in the middle of the second quarter, with plenty of time left in the game, to your dismay the clock shows 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter.  And the clock is running!

What do you do then?  It’s either the grace of God or it’s nothing at all.  The young pastor shared with his congregation a fresh insight from Romans 5:8, a verse we normally use in our evangelistic efforts with the unsaved, the Romans Road: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Did you notice the word “still”?  “Still sinners.”  Jesus gladly gave His life for us while we were “still sinners.”  That word “still” comes from a tiny Greek word—eti.  Christ died for us while we were “still sinners.”  You and I, we were and still are “sinners.”  The dying pastor got up and said something like this: “I realize for the first time that I’m going to heaven because of that little Greek word eti.  I am still a sinner, and I don’t have any time left to get better, and when I die, I’m resting my hope on the fact that Christ died for me while I was still a sinner.”

Near the end, William Jay visited his friend John Newton (the composer of Amazing Grace), who was then barely able to speak.  He wanted some advice on being a pastor, a successful pastor.  But Newton said: ‘My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.’”

That is the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is what “being saved” really means.  That is our entire hope of heaven.

All of us who believe in Jesus Christ, even the very best among us, have so far to go that we’ll never live long enough to measure up on our own.  Someone else has to do the work for us.  And the good news is that Jesus Christ did.  He lived a perfectly obedient life and then died a sacrificial death in the place of those who did not and could never live that perfectly obedient life.

That is why Paul says, in Philippians 3:4-8, that all those things he had counted on and depended upon for righteous standing before God before, he now counted “as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [and then notice verse 9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith… (Phil. 3:7-9)

That is what pleases God, our faith, our total dependence upon His grace and goodness towards us.  It is this kind of total dependence that brings a smile to God’s face.

And why is God smiling?  What makes God proud to be called my God?  He gives two reasons, one at the beginning of verse 16 and the other at the end.  We’re going to look at the latter one first.

“God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he has prepared for them a city.”  As John Piper says, “The first reason he gives why he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has done something for them.  He made them a city—the heavenly city “whose architect and builder is God” (verse 10).  So the first reason he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has worked for them.  Not the other way around.  He did not say: “I am not ashamed to be called their God, because they made for me a city.” He made something for them.  That’s the starting point.  The pride of God in being our God is rooted first in something he has done for us, not vice versa” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-unashamed-god)

We also called that “city” heaven, or the New Jerusalem.  God has prepared it, but not for everyone, only for “them” who live and die in faith.  All preparations have already been made, as Jesus promised His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3)  It’s a “prepared” room in a “prepared” city” in a “prepared kingdom” (Matthew 25:34).  It’s just like C. S. Lewis said, in The Last Battle, everything prior is but the title page.  From the time of death or the rapture everything will just get better and better from this time forward.

But such is not the case for all people.  For those who refuse to believe a different prepared ending occurs:  “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41)

And that brings us back to the first reason why God delights in being called our God.

It goes like this: “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.”  “Therefore” signals that a reason has just been given for why he is not ashamed.  The reason is their desire.  They desire a better country—that is, a better country than the earthly one they live in, namely a heavenly one.  This is the same as saying they desire heaven, or they desire the city God has made for them.

So two things make God unashamed to be called our God: he has prepared something great for us, and we desire it above all that is on the earth.  So why is he proud to be the God of people who desire his city more than all the world?  Because their desire calls attention to the superior worth of what God offers over what the world offers.

In other words, the reason God is proud to be our God is not because we have accomplished something so great.  But because he has accomplished something great and we desire it. (John Piper, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-unashamed-god)

Heaven has been prepared for you and God delights in being your God IF you believe that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is sufficient for your forgiveness.  If you go back to trusting in yourself and your own goodness, then it is not heaven that is prepared for you and God will say, “I never knew you.”  If you don’t possess this kind of faith, then cry out “Help my unbelief.”

Let me summarize four lessons from this paragraph in Hebrews 11:13-16: First, see God’s promises fulfilled in the future tense.  Bank on them.  Second, embrace your foreignness on this earth.  Remind yourself that this is NOT YOUR HOME.  Third, redirect your conscious thoughts and yearning desires toward heaven.  And fourth, revel in God’s delight in you…and delight in Him.

Each example of faith that the writer has cited so far is a positive one involving a believer who kept on trusting God and His promises in spite of the temptation to stop trusting.  That is what the writer was urging his readers to do throughout this epistle: Keep on trusting and do not turn back.  In every case God approved and rewarded the continuing faith of the faithful.

Faith that Holds on for God’s Best, part 2 (Hebrews 11:13-16)

We’ve been talking about this faith that Abraham possessed, a faith that obeyed, endured, anticipated God’s greater reward, upheld in spite of impossibilities and hung on for God’s very best.  We noted last week that Abraham realized that God’s promises were not being fulfilled in this life, in Canaan, but in the future, in heaven and instead of living in anxiety and fear, or in bitterness and resentment, he died believing that God would fulfill those promises—in an even better way.  We read this in Hebrews 11:13-16.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

So why did they go to their graves joyfully anticipating the fulfillment of promises they would never see fulfilled in their lifetime?  Because of an all-encompassing perspective that shaped everything else: they “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (v. 13b).

The earth is not my home.  This world is not my ultimate destiny.  We might sing about that, but Abraham lived that way.  Abraham told the inhabitants of Hebron: “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight” (Gen. 23:4).  I am “a sojourner and foreigner.”

When Isaac blessed Jacob he said: “May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” (Gen. 28:4)  This land, Canaan, was “the land of your sojournings.”  It wasn’t home.

Then Jacob referred to the “years of my sojourning” to Pharoah in Genesis 47:9.  As verse 9 had introduced to us: “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.”

These patriarchs all continued to live by faith to the very end of their lives, and they died believing that God would eventually fulfill His promises to them.  They looked forward to possessing a land that God had promised to give them.  They did not turn back to what they had left, which might have encouraged them to apostatize.  This is how the author of Hebrews wants to encourage his first-century readers, by showing them that, like their forefathers in the faith, they would not receive all the benefits of salvation now, and that they would not be exempt from trials, but that if they hang on, they too will experience the fulfillment of God’s promises to them.

As we’ve seen, the first readers of this epistle were tempted, under the threat of persecution, to go back to their Jewish religion.  The implication of our text in its context is that to go back to Judaism would be like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob going back to settle permanently in Mesopotamia.  God had promised them a new country, the land of Canaan.  But, being men of faith, they looked beyond that piece of real estate to the heavenly country that God had prepared for them.

These all “died in faith.”  They endured to the end even though they did not experience all that God had promised.  Under the New Covenant we have been promised and receive so much more, but still not everything that God has promised.  Glory awaits us.  The redemption of our bodies is still future. 

But they didn’t give up and neither should we.  They unhesitatingly acknowledged that they were not really at home here.  You say, “Of course, it is obvious that they had not yet inherited the land of promise.”  It’s not that Canaan was their home and they just didn’t have all of it yet.  It’s not that Canaan was their home but they weren’t running the show.  Rather, it’s that the entire world system was not their home.

God is saying that they confessed themselves aliens and strangers even while living in the promised land because they realized that it wasn’t the total and best fulfillment of that promise.  They “admitted themselves as aliens and strangers on the earth.”  They were aliens and strangers while experiencing life as we now know it.  They knew that life at its best here in this world is always shadowy and temporary and never really satisfies.  Even David, as king, still referred to himself as a “stranger on the earth” (Psalm 119).

Such a declaration reveals something about these folks and the next verse tells us what that is.  Hebrews 11:14 begins with the word “for,” telling us that this verse is the reason why they continued to believing in far-off promises and lived as “strangers and exiles,” and that is because “people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland” (Heb. 11:14).

They were looking for a place to call home, but it wasn’t Canaan and it wasn’t Ur. 

Do you know what an ex-patriot is?  An ex-patriot is someone who has left their “fatherland,” the place of their birth, either willingly or by force.  And while he lives as an alien in a foreign country, he longs for his homeland.  His joys and affections are set on that place.  When Abraham, Isaac and Jacob confessed that they were aliens, it revealed something about their values, what they held most dear.  Their affections were riveted on another country—not the one they came from, but the one they knew that were going to.

True, Abraham did send his servant back to the old country to get a bride for Isaac.  But he sternly warned him not to take Isaac back there (Gen. 24:6, 8).  Jacob fled to the old country for 20 years to escape from Esau’s murderous intentions.  But it was never his true homeland. He told Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country” (Gen. 30:25).

Why didn’t they go back to Ur?  Because the country they were really longing for was not of this world’s order.  Hebrews 11:15 says, “If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.”  If, in fact, their hearts had been longing for their “homeland” (Gk. patris refers to a place of one’s fathers).  The “if” in this clause is contrary to the fact; that is, it was not true that they wanted to go back to their homeland (second class condition).  They were not “thinking” of Ur, even though Ur had the best that this world could offer at that time in history.

The reason is, they had a “desire [for] a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16a).  And it is this spiritual longing that enabled them to persevere in faith.  Faith enabled them to “see” that better place and as a result they thought about it (v. 15) and desired it (v. 16).  Faith redirects our affections away from this world and sets our aspirations on a better reward.

When Abraham was just a garden variety pagan, everything in life revolved around Ur—his financial, relational and social life.  Even his spiritual life.  But when the Voice invaded his life he chose to abandon that life for the next 100 years.  In the eyes of the world, it appears that Abram gave up everything for nothing.  But from our transformed vantage point (because we “see” by faith), it’s as though we give up nothing for everything.

Why does a gifted young man like Jim Elliot turn his back on worldly success to take the gospel to the Ecuadorian Indians who would take his life?  It is because he saw himself as a spiritual ex-patriot!  Although he lived here, he longed for there.  In his own words he said it best:  “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Or as Jesus said, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).  Randy Alcorn, in his book The Treasure Principle, highlights a truth that I think will bring us all up short.  He says, “Many Christians dread the thought of leaving this world.  Why?  Because so many have stored up their treasures on earth, not in heaven.  Each day brings us closer to death.  If your treasures are on earth, that means each day brings you closer to losing your treasures” (Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle, p. 40).

We tend to look for and expect the “good life” here and now.  As Americans, we believe it is our entitlement, our birthright to pursue and experience ultimate happiness here and now.  But God hasn’t promised us “the good life” here and now.  He has promised us “the best life” in the future.  Are you willing to hold out for the “best life” ahead?

I’m not saying that spiritually minded people give no thought for the world, that we become as odd as we possibly can.  That is not the muscular Christianity of the Bible, but the distortion of fundamentalism.  We are to remain in the world, engaging and addressing the world, but we are not to allow the world’s values to direct our thinking and desiring.  It is the heavenly reward that should occupy our thinking and drive our desiring.  We don’t live “for” the world—it’s pleasures, advantages and preoccupations.  We are “in the world but not of it.”  We are not consumed with its benefits.

If you are really a child of Abraham (by faith in Jesus Christ) then listen to how the New Testament describes you:

Peter wrote: “…To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet. 1:1).  Later he says, “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” (1 Pet. 1:17).  In 1 Peter 2:11 he says, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”

And Paul, in Colossians 3:1-2 encourages us that our thoughts and desires should be directed to heaven.

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.

Paul tells us in Philippians that “our citizenship [politeuma] is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).  In Ephesians he says, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens [sumpolitai] with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

It all boils down to this:  One of two dominating influences expresses itself in your life—either affections for heaven or affections for this world; either we are thinking about heaven and heavenly rewards, or we are fixated on this world and its rewards.

None of us can escape this fact.  One of two dominating influences drives your decisions, fashions your perspectives, determines the things that are of real importance to you—heaven or this world.  How do we know?  Well, when the circumstances of life bring you to a fork in the road; when your affection for the world and affection for heaven are at cross purposes—which path will you take—career?  Immorality?  Materialism?  When Jesus and this world diverge, what do you choose?  That is how you know where your allegiance and affections lie.

We see this struggle in Psalm 73, where Asaph looks around in this world and sees that the wicked are experiencing the good life.  They are healthy, wealthy, influential, without a care in the world.  But eventually Asaph enters the temple to worship and there he gains a heavenly, future perspective, one which shows him that the wicked will be destroyed in judgment while he will experience glory.  That changes his perspective and moves him to choose God over the “good life.”

Look at the progression in Abraham’s life:  First, Abraham was “looking forward” to this city.  In 11:14 we find that people like Abraham continually “seek” after this.  Then verb 16 becomes even stronger, they “never cease their longing for a better country.”  In Hebrews 10:34 this was called “a better and lasting possession.”

This life can be good…for a little while.  We experience joyful moments but those are interrupted by irritations and aggravations.  We experience the “good life” of houses and cars and vacation homes but even these break down over time and we lose our joy in them.

Abraham chose something better and lasting.  Qualitatively it is “better” and it lasts longer than any joys we experience now.

Remember to whom this epistle is written.  It is written to Hebrews.  That is why it is called the epistle to the Hebrews.  These Jewish people view Israel as their home country.  They are people of the land.  The land is very important to them.  But they need to be reminded that the country for which Abraham and the other patriarchs were waiting was no earthly country like Israel or Judea, but rather a heavenly country.

Here is the point.  They were so used to the visible elements of their religion – the rituals of circumcision, the sacrifices in the temple, the ceremonies – that when they came to know the One to whom all of those visual elements pointed, they were tempted to leave Him and to go back to the earthly ceremonies.  When it came time to choose between the rituals that pointed to Jesus versus choosing Jesus Himself, they were tempted to choose the rituals.  If offered a heavenly kingdom versus an earthly kingdom, they were inclined to choose the earthly.

But God’s kingdom is not of this world.  Jesus made that very clear when He stood before Pilate. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

But what does this mean for you and me today?  It means that we shouldn’t be so overly concerned about building our own little earthly kingdoms, kingdoms that will one day pass away.  It means that we ought to be laying up treasures in heaven.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

Back in verse 14, our author said, “For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.”  To “speak thus” must mean to verbally profess that our thoughts and desires are for heaven.

Since we come from a different country, we talk and act differently than the natives of this world do.  When they observe that we are different, we should be ready to tell them why (1 Pet. 3:15).  Tell them about God’s promise of heaven for all that believe in Christ, so that they can join us as pilgrims journeying toward our new country in heaven.

C. H. Spurgeon said, “The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the world.  He is like a traveler in an inn, perfectly satisfied with the inn and its accommodation, considering it as an inn, but putting quite out of all consideration the idea of making it his home.”

Our biggest danger is to become comfortable with this world and to think of it as our true home, to invest all our energies into making the best life in the here and how.  This is what the biblical writers call worldliness.

James tells us that we cannot be friends of God and friends of the world.  They are mutually exclusive.  Jesus told us we cannot have two masters.  We must make a choice.

“[James 4:3-5] pictures the church as the wife of God. God has made us for Himself and has given Himself to us for our enjoyment.  Therefore it is adultery when we try to be “friends” with the world.  If we seek from the world the pleasures we should seek in God, we are unfaithful to our marriage vows.  And, what’s worse, when we go to our Heavenly Husband and actually pray for the resources with which to commit adultery with the world, it is a very wicked thing.  It is as though we should ask our husband for money to hire male prostitutes to provide the pleasure we don’t find in Him!” (John Piper, Desiring God, p.141).

The problem is that if we don’t really love God, we will default to loving the world.  In other words, if we don’t “follow hard” after God (Psalm 63:8), then we will easily follow the world.  John Piper says it like this: “When you become so blind that the maker of galaxies and ruler of nations and knower of all mysteries and lover of our souls becomes boring, then only one thing is left — the love of the world.  For the heart is always restless.  It must have its treasure: if not in heaven, then on the earth” (Sermon: Malachi 1:6-14, November 1, 1987, http://www.DesiringGod.org).

Faith that Holds on for God’s Best, part 1 (Hebrews 11:13-16)

Do you remember how C. S. Lewis brings his masterful children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia to a close in The Last Battle?  After recording all the exhilarating adventures the Pevensie children with Aslan, the lion, Lewis concludes:

“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

This was Lewis’ provocative way of drawing our attention and affections towards heaven.  All the joys and all the pains of this life are but the cover and title page of our story.  That story for those who have believed in Jesus Christ will never end but just keeps getting better and better.  For us, after death there is destiny.  Earth is but the robing room for eternity.  Our lives should be shaped by our fixed attention and affection for heaven.

Matthew 6:10 tells us that we are to direct our prayers to “our Father in heaven.”  If you are a Christian, your father is in heaven.  Every blessing we receive comes from our Father in heaven.

Jesus is now in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.

Hebrews 12:23 indicates that the “spirits of righteous men made perfect” are also there in heaven.  All those in Christ whom we have lost to death are there waiting for us.

Jesus said that our names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20).  We each have a title deed to that place.  In fact, Jesus said he is preparing a place for us there (John 14:1-4).

We are strangers and aliens here, because “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).  That is where our “glorious inheritance” is (1 Pet. 1:4).

In Matthew 5:10-12 Jesus tells us that our reward “in heaven” is great for those who are persecuted here on earth.

So our Father, Jesus Himself, our loved ones in Christ, and one day we will be there to hear “Well, done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:23)

So Paul tells us to “set your minds on things above” (Col. 3:2) and “seek the things that are above” (Col. 3:1).

And Psalm 16:11b says, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

This is why, for the Christian, anything short of heaven is not really home yet.  All this is merely the foretaste of the joys in heaven.  Everything that is really precious to us is awaiting us in that place.

Isaac Watts wrote:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

The second-century Letter to Diognetus described the Christians’ lifestyle in the following way:  They live in their own countries, but only as aliens.  They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners.  Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. . .It is true that they are “in the flesh,” but they do not live “according to the flesh.”  They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.  They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require.  They love all [people], and by all [people] are persecuted.  They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life.  They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance.  They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated.  They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. . . Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world.  (Simon Guillebaud, Choose Life, 365 Readings for Radical Disciples, 5-19)

Abraham knew this to be true and that is the perspective that our author is communicating in Hebrews 11:13-16.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

From his calling at age 75 to the day of his death at age 175, Abraham knew that everything in this life—including the trials and inconveniences are merely the cover and title page of a story that will get better and better throughout the ages.

Remember, Abram had been born a pagan.  He was comfortable with the polytheism of his culture until one day a Voice called out to him, made him unimaginable promises, and by grace Abram believed God.

This grace-produced faith distinguished itself through obedience, endurance, anticipation and total dependence upon the character of a promise-making, promise-keeping God.  One author had defined faith: “Faith is not a fixation or obsession, but a rational commitment.  It is characterized not by ecstatic intoxication but by sober reflection and critical searching.”

Abraham didn’t shut down his mind and stop assessing the facts, but rather he focused on the character of God and put his faith in that.  Hebrews 11:11 said that Abraham and Sarah “considered him faithful who had promised.”

Despite the obstacles of advanced age and persistent barrenness, they weighed this against the divine impossibility that God would not keep His promise.  Since “God cannot lie” then the only option open is that the laws of normal reproduction must be overturned.  Faith produced by grace also redirects and arouses our affections.

First, faith produced by grace redirects our affections.

How often are our affections directed towards the things of this earth!  “I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home,” we love to sing, but in life’s reality it’s often so different.  Eyes that should be raised heavenward are riveted on earth.  Feet that should be tramping toward Canaan’s shores are mired in earth’s swamps.  Hands that should be reaching for eternal treasures are wrapped around gaudy marbles.  Backs that should be straining in kingdom effort are bent over in valueless pursuit.  (Richard E. Lauersdorf, The People’s Bible: Hebrews, 137)

John Piper reminds us:  “Jesus is not against investment.  He is against bad investment—namely, setting your heart on the comforts and securities that money can afford in this world.  Money is to be invested for eternal yields in heaven— “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven!”  (John Piper; Desiring God, 165)

In our day, our emphasis is far too much on the good life here and now, and not enough on the promised joys of heaven.  Thus, many that profess Christ as Savior live with their minds on the things on earth, rather than setting their minds on the things above (Col. 3:1-4).  They are motivated more by collecting treasures on earth than by storing up treasures in heaven.  Our focus is on what Christ can do for us here and now.  Heaven is a nice extra, but it does not govern how we live day to day. (https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-37-desiring-better-country-hebrews-1113-16)

It is a dangerous thing when a Christian begins to feel permanently settled in this world.  (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, vol. 2, 98)

But for Abraham it was different.  Watch how this unfolds in Hebrews 11.

In Hebrews 11:13 we have already been told that Abraham and Sarah finished well.  He says “These all,” he says, “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar” (v. 13a).

“All these people” include all those who have been discussed so far and all those who will follow.  All of these people lived by faith in the promises of God yet it always involved something that they never fully realized.

And this prefigures you and me.  We also have been given glorious promises, some of which are yet unfulfilled.  Our faith should imitate theirs.

All these “died in faith.”  I hope all of us want to “die in faith,” to go on believing both now and until our final breath, to hang on to God’s promises to the very end.  But those who “died in faith” also lived in faith.  Faith was the dominant characteristic of their lives, right up to the moment of death.

Many years ago, a ship known as Empress of Ireland went down with 130 Salvation Army officers on board, along with many other passengers.  Only 21 of the Salvation Army people survived.  Of the 109 that drowned, not one had a life preserver.  Many of the survivors told how these brave people, seeing that there were not enough life preservers, took off their own and gave them to others, saying, “I know Jesus, so I can die better than you can!”  NOW THAT IS DYING IN FAITH TO THE VERY LAST BREATH!

The Greek text here is somewhat difficult: “in accordance with faith” or “in accordance with the principle of faith” they all died.  Vine comments that the idea is that they died “in keeping with their life of faith.”  Death is the final test of faith, and they all passed with flying colors, living by faith right up to the last breath.  The beauty of their dying was that they died in faith though never receiving the fullness of the universal blessing that had been promised.  Their experience of death did not undercut their conviction that those promises would come to pass.

This is so difficult.  It requires not only great faith, but patient endurance as well.  Their faith “in death” was just as vibrant as it was throughout the totality of their lives.  In fact, isn’t in in death that many times the quality of our faith is made most evident?

One commentator puts it this way: “It is in death that hope in things which are future and invisible shines most brightly.”  The reason that they hung on to their belief in God’s promises is because they saw the unseen, they were certain of what they never could lay their eyes upon.  But they could see through the eyes of faith the ultimate fulfillment of those promises, “like sailors who become content they can see their final destination on the horizon.  Land ahoy!” (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, Volume 2, p. 100).

Now watch how the author builds his case.  He says, “having seen them and greeted them from afar.”  Faith had supplied them with a kind of seeing that transcends physical eyesight, giving them a certitude that allowed them to gladly “welcome” them.  “From afar” or “from a distance” signifies a long stretch of time.

Do you remember the final scene in the life of Moses?  Forbidden to enter the land because of his sin, God told him to climb to Mt. Nebo where God showed him the whole land.  God said, “This is the land I promised…you will not cross over into it.”

In Moses’ case, God physically showed him the land He had promised to give to Abraham’s descendants.  He didn’t get to experience it, but got to see it.  In the case of these “hall of faith” people in Hebrews 11, they so took God at His word that they could spiritually see the fulfillment of promises.

God opens our eyes to see.  This happens to us in salvation.  Because we are Adam’s seed, we are born dead in sin (Eph. 2:1), blind to the glory of God (2 Cor. 4:4-6), with ears deaf to the gospel (1 Cor. 2:9) and our wills are bound by Satan (2 Tim 2:26).  In 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 Paul says,

4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The difference between us in the New Covenant and those under the Old Covenant, God opens our eyes to see spiritual promises that are currently being fulfilled for us (although there are still some future promises yet to be fulfilled).  For Abraham, physical promises such as his land and his son, he could not see except by faith for a long time.

But it was so real to these Old Testament exemplars of faith that they joyfully welcomed them, anticipating the pleasure of the fulfillment of these promises.  Their faith so concretized these promises that they “saw” them and “welcomed” them with joy, they saluted them from a distance.

Paul uses similar language when speaking of the conversion of the Thessalonian believers.  He says, “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.  And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, (1 Thess. 1:4-6)

You “welcomed” the gospel with joy.  Why, because God had opened the eyes of their heart to see the sufficiency and the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.  He saw it and was glad.”  He “saw” it through the eyes of faith.  Likewise, Moses, in Hebrews 11:27 “endured as seeing him who is invisible.”  The prophets searched the Old Testament for that day (1 Pe 1:10-12).

Yet, these men and women of faith did not receive the things promised, but they were still trusting God to fulfill those promises until the day they died.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I would have likely been filled with resentment.  If God had made a promise to me and I lived in anticipation of that promise month after month, year after year, decade after decade and then died without ever having experienced the fulfillment of that promise, I think I would have been a little bitter.  At first, into the vacuum of uncertainty all kinds of fears and anxieties would rush in, but that would ultimately be followed by bitterness and resentment because I would have convinced myself that God really didn’t care about me or else He wasn’t powerful enough to fulfill his promises.

Abraham teaches us that when God’s promises are not fulfilled, when life gets worse rather than better, when the pain keeps on hurting, that instead of giving up on God or giving in to the temptation to doubt or fear or become bitter, we should hold on to those promises, even if we never see them fulfilled in this lifetime.  Why?  Because even more so than Abraham, we can foresee even better rewards in heaven.

Do don’t give up.  Keep on believing.

Faith for the Impossible, part 2 (Hebrews 11:11-12)

We were discussing Abram’s faith last week: a faith that obeyed, endured, looked to the future and believed the impossible.  God’s promises to Abram included land, that was never fulfilled in his lifetime, and a son, that Abram had to wait 25 years for God to provide.  It is obvious that God was trying to build faith in Abram.

Iain Duguid entitles his biographical study of Abraham Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality.  And that is what all of us do.  There is a gap between promise and reality.  God fulfills His promises, but we often have to wait.  God reveals Himself to us, and we respond to Him trustingly, taking Him at His Word.

Now two things were working against Abram: his age and Sarah’s barrenness.  Both made it biologically impossible for Abram to sire a son.

But God had made a promise to Abram and Abram had learned to trust those promises.  He was becoming a friend of God who knew God by experience.

Like men such as Abram and David, our theology needs to become biography.  We need to know God on an experiential level, one that comes only through implicitly obeying His commands and trusting His promises.  Often, trusting His promises results in having to act in obedience.

I don’t mean that our theology should come from our experiences.  That is dangerous ground.  Rather, I mean that our theology, what we believe, must become lived out in obedience.  That is when we really know God, we live with God.

When David said, “The Lord is my shepherd” that is different from saying, “The Lord is a shepherd.”  The latter is a theological statement, the first a lived-out reality.  David had experienced God being his shepherd and taking care of all of his needs.

R. Paul Stephens notes: “A careful study of the book of Job reveals that the only authentic theologian in the book was Job himself.  The reason is sublimely simple: while the friends talked about God, Job talked to God” (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/living-theologically-toward-a-theology-of-christian-practice/ )

Scott Hafemann writes: “Those who know God know that He is bound by his own promises and integrity, not by our wishes.  Moreover, unlike us, God never finds himself in the uncomfortable situation of having made a promise He no longer wants to or is able to keep.  God is never caught by surprise.  God’s promises are made in his infinite wisdom as part of His eternal plan and are backed by His matchless power.  What God says, He does.  God, because He is God, is a promise keeper” (The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, p. 94).

Abram therefore used this experience of waiting without receiving God’s promises to pray and worship and to get to know God better.

In Genesis 15:5 God told Abram:

5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

And notice Abram’s response: “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

[We can find] that it was one thing to “believe God and have it credited to [us] as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6) but quite another to move that belief from [our] head into [our] heart and trust God completely in the everyday decisions of life, to move our theology into biography.

Our passage is Hebrews 11:11-12.

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Although the ESV and some versions have Sarah as the subject of this sentence, most commentators believe Abram holds that spot and a better translation might be the NIV, “By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”

Regardless, it was obviously a team effort.  In order to have a son God would have to do a miracle in both of their bodies.  And eventually both of them expressed faith.

Thus, he became certain that God would do what he said—dynamic certitude! He had visual certitude as he saw that promised baby boy in his mind’s eye and future certitude as he saw it as present.  Genuine biblical faith doesn’t focus on my impossibilities, but on God’s power to keep His promises.

When God told Sarah he would give her a child within a year, he asked the question, “is anything too hard for the Lord?”  It is a rhetorical question:  Of course, nothing is too hard for God.  And that is what Abram hung onto, God’s ability.  Not his inability, but God’s ability.  Not his impotence, but God’s power.

Genuine faith doesn’t need to know “how,” just like Mary submitted to God even though she had no idea how she would bear her Messiah.  Martin Luther says, “If you would trust God, you must learn to crucify the question, ‘How?’”

When God makes a promise, the real issue is never HOW, but WHOM.  Faith is confidence in God’s character, His faithfulness and power.  God backs every promise with an unfailing character.

Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic due to a diving accident as a teenager, has learned to live with her disabilities and disappointments.  Many times she has wondered, ”Why?”  But she says, “Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding His character, in trusting in His promises, and in leaning on Him and resting in Him as the Sovereign who knows what He is doing and does all things well” (Is God Really in Control? p. 9).

Chuck Swindoll tells about a couple of nuns who worked as nurses in a hospital.  They ran out of gas while driving to work one morning.  A service station was nearby but had no container into which to put the needed gasoline.  One of the women remembered that she had a bedpan in the trunk of the car.  The gas was put in the pan and they carried it very carefully back to the car.  As the nuns were pouring the gasoline from the bedpan into the gas tank, two men were driving by.  They stared in disbelief.  Finally, one of them said to the other, “Now Fred, that is what I call faith.”

It reminds me of that metaphor “You can’t get blood from a turnip.”

Faith, however, never involves turning off our minds or checking them in at the door.  Kent Hughes says it like this: “Some people are under the impression that when a person has faith, he inwardly agrees to ignore the facts.  They see faith and facts as mutually exclusive.  But faith without reason is fideism, and reason without faith is rationalism.  In practice, there must be no reduction of faith to reason.  And likewise, there must be no reduction of reason to faith.  Biblical faith is a composite of the two.  Abraham did not take an unreasonable leap of faith….We are to rationally assess all of life. We are to live reasonably. When we are aware that God’s Word says thus-and-so, we are to rationally assess it.  Does God’s Word actually say that, or is it man’s fallible interpretation?  And if God’s Word does indeed say it, we must then be supremely rational, weighing the human impossibility against the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word.  And we must believe.

It is very rational to believe God’s Word, even when what is promised is humanly impossible.  Of course, this is the essence of faith.  God’s character is the central issue. Hughes writes, “If God’s Word does indeed say it, we must then be supremely rational, weighing the human impossibility against the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word. And we must believe.”

Admittedly, the facts screamed “impossible” as they stacked up one on top of another.  “Past the age” and “as good as dead” seem to tip the scales against faith.  But Abram did a little theology.  Doctrine intersected with life, as it should, and Abram believe that God could still do what he had promised.

Romans 4:18-21 expresses it this way:

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

There was “no hope” as he faced the facts, but he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”  As Spurgeon says, “Your extremity is God’s opportunity.  The difficulty all along has been to get to the end of you; for when a man gets to the end of himself, he has reached the beginning of God’s working.”

Abram’s confidence was in God’s power to keep His promise.  It wasn’t the strength of his faith, because at times it did waver (as we read in the Genesis account); it was the object of Abram’s faith that guaranteed its fulfillment.

After fathering Isaac, Abraham fathered six more.  Why?  Just to show the reliability of God’s faithfulness to His promises and His power to keep them.

This is not blind faith, devoid of intellectual substance.  Later in biblical history we find these expressions of God’s faithfulness:

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, (Deut. 7:9)

O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? (Psa. 89:8)

The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful–for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:11-13)

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Heb. 10:23)

This is what faith is—not intellectual abandonment or frenzied optimism, but clear-headed dependence upon the character of the God who made the promise.  This is the kind of faith that obeys, endures, anticipates future rewards and relies upon the character of God.

To emphasize God’s faithfulness and His power to keep His promise, the author emphasizes the powerful contrast between the one solitary man to whom the promise was made, and the innumerable host of descendants:

Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. (Hb. 11:12)

The word rendered “as good as dead” is the same perfect passive participle as Paul uses in reference to the same subject when he says that Abraham, on receiving the promise of God, weighed up all the adverse circumstances and “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), or the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4:19), but concluded that the certainty of God’s word far outweighed them all. (F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews Rev., p. 297).

Both “stars” and “sand” are proverbial for numbers too great to count.  There is “no math” that can count it all.  It is beyond imagination.  And ten times in the Old Testament this promise is reiterated as being literally fulfilled in history.  Truly God is faithful to keep His promises, His power guarantees it.

Philip Hughes reminds us of the “further and ultimate fulfillment which is manifested in the spiritual lineage of Abraham; and it is in this respect that the deepest truth of the promise is to be discerned.  As Paul teaches, the focus of the promise is precisely Christ, who is the seed of Abraham in whom and through whom all nations are blessed, and the seed of Abraham in its multiple sense is composed of those who are united to Christ the Seed (Gal. 3:7-9, 16, 29).  These it is who, within the eternal perspective, constitute the innumerable multitude of the redeemed, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues,” who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev.; 7:9, 14).

Whenever Abram looked out at the night sky diamond-studded with stars or at the grains of sand in the desert stretches, his heart must have thrilled at the hope of a multitude of descendants.  What about you?  Do you long for multitudes of people come to know Christ as Savior?  Then look up at the stars in the sky at night and by faith continue to claim this promise.  Because remember, God continues to fulfill his promise to Abraham even today.

George Muller of Bristol exemplified the nitty-gritty of a life of faith.  After being a wild youth, he was converted in his early twenties.  He obeyed God’s call by living a life of faith and obedience.  He lived in a manner that the world could not fathom.  He and his wife sold all of their earthly possessions, founded an orphanage, and lived by faith alone, making their needs and those of the orphans known only to God in prayer.  They often faced insurmountable problems that were overcome by faith in God’s power.

In 1877, Muller was on board a ship that was stalled off the coast of Newfoundland in dense fog.  The captain had been on the bridge for 24 hours when Muller came to see him.  Muller told him that he had to be in Quebec by Saturday afternoon.  The captain replied, “It is impossible.”

“Very well,” said Muller, “if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way—I have never broken an engagement for 52 years.  Let’s go down to the chart room and pray.”  The captain wondered what lunatic asylum Muller had escaped from.

“Mr. Muller,” he said, “do you know how dense this fog is?”

“No, my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, Who controls every circumstance of my life.”

Muller knelt down and prayed simply.  When he had finished, the captain was about to pray, but Muller put his hand on his shoulder, and told him not to: “First, you do not believe He will; and second, I believe He has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.”  The captain looked at Muller in amazement.

“Captain,” he continued, “I have known my Lord for 52 years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King.  Get up, captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog is gone.”  The captain walked across to the door and opened it.  The fog had lifted. (From, Roger Steer, George Muller: Delighted in God [Harold Shaw Publishers], p. 243.)

I wish I could tell you stories like that from my own experience, but I cannot.  But George Muller and Abraham should challenge us to grow in the life of faith in the God who is faithful.  Obey God’s call to salvation by faith.  Live as an alien in this world by faith.  Ask God by His power to overcome any insurmountable problems you face by faith.

Faith for the Impossible, part 1 (Hebrews 11:11-12)

Nothing strengthens us so much as isolation and transplantation.  What do I mean by that?  Well, let a person be thrown upon their own resources and like McGyver and he or she will be forced to develop ingenuity and powers that would never have developed and of which there would have been no trace under the ease of home.

This is also true of faith.  So long as we are quietly at rest amid favorable and undisturbed surroundings, faith sleeps as an undeveloped sinew within us.  But when we are pushed out from all these comfortable surroundings with nothing but God to look to, then faith grows suddenly into a monarch oak.  As long as the bird lingers by the nest it will not experience the joys of flight.  As long as the trembling boy clings to the bank or toes the bottom, he will never know the delights of swimming.

Abram would never have become Abraham, the father of the faithful, the mighty exemplar of faith, if he had always lived in the comforts of Ur.  No, he had to journey into the unknown and march off the map so that faith could rise up in all its glorious proportions in his soul.

It may not be necessary for you and me to withdraw from home and friends, but we will have to withdraw our dependence upon all earthly props and supports if we are ever to learn what it is to trust simply and absolutely on the eternal God.  It seems, in the life of most Christians that there arise occasions when God benevolently takes away what is precious, even necessary to us, so that we might more fully recognize Him as our most precious possession.

Job knew that God both “gives and takes away.”  He might take away our business, possessions, friends, our influence, our spouse or parent or child, our health—all in an effort to help you find Him to be more precious than it all.  He is most precious of all.  This is the conclusion Asaph came to in Psalm 73.  Looking around at all the good things in life that the wicked were enjoying, he became envious.  But ultimately he “understood their final destiny” (Psa. 73:17, NIV) and came to realize that the nearness of God was his highest good (Psa. 73:28).  Here’s what he says in vv. 25-26, some of my favorite verses in all of Scripture:

25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

But we don’t often come to this place of valuing God above all things until we have faced the loss of some of life’s good gifts.  Abram left the comforts of Ur, left most of his family behind and all of his friends.  Whatever “job” he had there was a thing of the past.  After 75 years of comfort and ease, now Abram was marching out with nothing but the promises of God—promises for a future destiny with many sons.  As yet he had none.

Developing faith in Abram was important.  Both obedience and faith are vital, but for different reasons.  Jerry Bridges, in his book Trusting God, says: “It is just as important to trust God as it is to obey Him.  When we disobey God we defy His authority and despise His holiness.  But when we fail to trust God we doubt His sovereignty and question His goodness.  In both cases we cast aspersions upon His majesty and His character.  God views our distrust of Him as seriously as He views our disobedience” (Trusting God, p. 18).

So God made Abram into a man of faith.  He wasn’t that always.  He became a man of faith by taking away “all earthly props and supports so that Abraham might learn to trust completely in God alone.” (F. B. Meyer)

There is an old poem by that prolific author Anonymous that goes.

When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.

This is what God did with Abram and what he will do with you and me to help us become men and women of faith.

Abram’s faith and obedience, remember, were based on God’s grace.  It was God’s grace that produced such faith in Abram, just as he does in our lives.  It is a faith that by grace displays itself through obedience and endurance.

“The root and the sap of the Christian life are hidden; but the fruits of this life must be manifest before the world.” (Donald Bloesch)

What does this faith look like?

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen that it is a faith that obeys.  So surrendered to the word of God that he didn’t pause to make sure everything made sense for his future.  When a sinner is transformed by God’s grace and given eternal life as a free gift when a person believes, it is now his heart’s disposition to be devoted to Jesus Christ, to give his complete allegiance, which means following his orders. 

That great old hymn by Charles Wesley says it well: “Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed Thee.”

When faith is the product of grace, it doesn’t misuse its freedom to live for oneself, but rather it obeys its new, benevolent master, Jesus Christ.

We also noticed that faith produced by grace endures, year after year after year, even through a whole life of not receiving what was promised.  Verse 9 showed us that Abram still lived like a wandering camper even though this land had been promised to him.  The land promise wasn’t even fulfilled in the lives of his son or grandson, not even in Joseph’s life, not for 500 years!

So why didn’t Abram just wash his hands of this thing and pack up the camper and go back to Ur?  The reason is that the land prefigured something else, something greater, it was the “land of promise.”  Abram looked forward to something he considered more sure than the very ground he trod upon.

And that points to the third thing we learned in v. 10 about Abram’s faith, faith produced by God’s grace, is that it is forward looking, it looks heavenward.  That aspect will be developed in even more detail in vv. 13-16.  Abram’s faith was not just tied to the geography inhabited by the Canaanites, but to all the benefits of eternity in the heavenly city.  This was the secret to Abram’s “long obedience in the same direction” in the words of Eugene Peterson.

Genuine, biblical faith is forward looking.  It anticipates the fulfillment of God’s promise.  Luther says “faith is the wedding ring by which we have pledged ourselves to Christ.”  It is more what we would call an engagement ring, something given in anticipation and surety of the best that is yet to come!

Now, in vv. 11-12, we find that genuine faith is a faith that relies—that stakes its confidence on the character of God revealed in the promises of God.

Having explained how Abraham’s faith worked in relation to the promise of the land, the writer now begins to explain Abraham’s faith and the obtaining of a promised son:

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Some other translations along with the ESV make Sarah and her faith the subject of verse 11—for example, the RSV: “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive. . . .”  But this is implausible because the phrase “received power to conceive” literally is “power for the deposition of seed/sperm” (dynamin eis katabolen spermatos), a patently male function.  Thus, Abraham has to be the subject of the sentence.

Most believe the misunderstanding is due to a wrong accent mark in the Greek that incorrectly renders “Sarah herself” as a nominative and not as dative.  The corrective dative translation gives the right sense: “By faith he [Abraham] also, together with Sarah, received power to beget a child when he was past age, since he counted him faithful who had promised.”

The NIV reads, “By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”

This view also alleviates another problem, namely, that in the account in Genesis 18, Sarah is rebuked for her unbelief rather than commended for her faith.  When the Lord confronts her, she denies, rather than confesses, her unbelief.  Probably, in spite of her initial doubt, she eventually came to believe God’s promise as Abraham did.  But if Abraham is the subject of 11:11, then the emphasis is on his faith, not on Sarah’s faith.

The point is, it was biologically impossible for Abraham, as well as Sarah, to be able to conceive a child at this time.  Abraham was 75 years old when God first promised him a son.  Eleven years later, Abram tries through self-effort, to gain a son for himself through Hagar, but God told him that this was not the son of promise.  And then finally, 13 years later, at age 99, God says, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (Gen. 18:10).

The impotence of Abraham was not the only issue.  Sarai had always been barren.  Menopause had come and gone.  Sarah herself says, “I am worn out, and my lord is old” (Genesis 18:12).  These were two major problems!

Abram had been expressing some faith way back when he was 75 because he did believe God’s promise for a son even though he knew Sarah was barren.  But now that Abraham was almost a hundred years old and Sarah almost ninety, the promise seemed totally out of reach.

Sometimes God stacks the odds, just like when he trimmed Gideon’s army down from 32,000 to 300, making it even more impossible to face the mighty Midianite army.  Why did God do that?  So that the Israelites could not boast that their might had defeated the Midianites (Judges 7:2).  And think of the time when Jesus and His disciples received word that Lazarus was sick and dying.  Instead of rushing to his side Jesus waited…and Lazarus died.  In fact, when Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been in the grave four days.  Jewish folklore held that a person dead four days was REALLY DEAD!  But Jesus used this to show His miraculous power and raised Lazarus from the dead.

The assertion that he was “as good as dead” (perfect passive participle) in verse 12 is exactly the same in the Greek as in Romans 4:19, where Paul said that Abraham “considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.”

But God had made promises to Abram.  In Genesis 15:5 God told Abram:

5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

And notice Abram’s response: “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

In Genesis 22, after God tested Abram’s faith by asking him to sacrifice that one and only Son, that promised one that he loved so much, God said, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies,” (Gen. 22:17).

Later that promise was fulfilled, but not in Abram’s lifetime.  So, what sustained his faith as he saw each year clip by? 5-10-15-20-25 years.  With each passing year the possibilities were dissipating.

What sustained Abram’s faith?  Not just the fact that there was a promise, but faith in the One who made that promise.  Abram knew God well enough to know that he was trustworthy, that He was faithful.  Notice how verse 11 says that Abram “considered him faithful who had promised.”

You and I can always trust God to keep his promises.

Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in England back in the late 1800’s, had this great insight. “If God had meant to run back from any promise, he would surely have run back from the promise to give his only begotten Son; but having fulfilled that, what promise is there he will ever break?”

Thus, Romans 8:31-32 reads: “What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”  In other words, if God has already done for us the thing that would have been the hardest for Him to do—sacrificing His own Son for sinners—then we can believe that He will fulfill all His promises and plans for us.

Sure, Abram was a man just like you and me, prone to doubting.  It took time for his faith to grow strong (Romans 4:20).  That promise of a son was first incredible, but over time it became “impossible.”  However, when Abram refocused the eyes of his heart upon the God who had made that promise, all difficulties disappeared.

The word “considered” indicates that Abram came to this conclusion after much thought and careful search.  It wasn’t a leap in the dark.  According to Paul in Romans 4 Abraham “faced the facts.”  He considered the obstacles that were in the way.  And his conclusion didn’t arise based upon any external circumstances or in his own ability to figure out how things might work out.  As Jerry Bridges explains: “God’s plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand” (Trusting God, p. 20).  It was still a mystery to Abram but after weighing all the evidence—both the biological impossibility AND what he knew about God, he trusted God that He would and could do it.

Abram weighed the human impossibility of becoming a father against the divine impossibility of God ever being able to break his word and decided that since God is God, nothing is impossible. In other words, he believed that God “exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb. 11:6b).

Faith that Marches Off the Map, part 4 (Hebrews 11:8-10)

We’ve been talking about the faith of Abram, a faith that first obeyed and then endured, even though Abram had to wait many years for a child and didn’t receive the promise of the land during his lifetime.

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.

Wait. . . didn’t Abraham make it to the Promised Land?  Didn’t Sarah have her promised child, Isaac?  Yes, but what they experienced in this life was merely a foretaste, a shadow of things to come.  Abraham didn’t receive the full promise, just a down payment.  Abraham and Sarah had only one child–the promise was for descendants “innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore” (11:12).  The land in which he sojourned was indeed the Promised Land, but he, Sarah, Isaac, and all their household lived there as “strangers and exiles on the earth” (11:13; cf. 1 Pt 2:11).  (Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights: Hebrews, 177)

Now, Abram understood that the land of the Canaanites was a foreshadowing of something infinitely greater.  We saw hints of this back in chapter 4 when the author of Hebrews said, “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9).  A rest that was available to those Hebrews in the first century and is available to us today.

Abram was confident that this thin piece of geography would one day belong to his people.  But he had come to view that land in the same way that we view the sacraments of the Lord’s Table—that it points to something greater beyond it.  Abram discerned in the promise of God something far greater than this strip of geography.

The author of Hebrews is saying that when Abraham went out from his father’s country to Canaan, he was not just counting on God’s promise for that piece of real estate.  He was looking beyond it to the promise of heaven.  God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants (Gen. 17:8) and He later gave them that land (Josh. 23:13-14).  But the land was never the final or full realization of the promise.  It was only an earthly picture of the full promise, which is the eternal city that God has prepared for His people (11:16).  Abraham viewed himself as a stranger and sojourner in the land of Canaan (Gen. 23:4).  His focus was on heaven, and so should ours be.

That is why he endured so long.  That is why he lived as a nomad for all those years.  He understood that God’s promise involved something more valuable than all the land of Canaan.

10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

The third thing we notice about Abram’s faith in this passage is that it is a faith that anticipates a greater reward.  It obeys (v. 8), endures (v. 9) and anticipates future reward (v. 10).  What made Abram a “happy camper” even though he waited his whole life to receive God’s promise, is that “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations” —the idea being that he was looking for the only city with enduring foundations.  Although he had lived in likely the largest and most magnificent city of the time, Ur, this was an even bigger and better city.

Abram “was looking forward” reveals a continuous act of looking toward something that was not yet visible.  It occupied his mind and gripped his heart.  He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

More important than anything else about this city is that “its designer and builder is God.”  It owes nothing to an inferior builder.  It showcases better than the earth’s best builders could ever design and build.  God is the designer and builder.

What Abram was seeing was heaven, possibly the new Jerusalem.  Abram saw in God’s promise that which the land prefigured.  From now on, it will be a consistent theme of this letter.  For example, later in Hebrews 11:16 he will speak of “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” and in Hebrews 12:22 he refers to “Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” and finally in 13:14 he speaks of “the city that is to come.”  Revelation 21-22 describe the glories of that heavenly city.  And in John 14 Jesus tells us that he is “preparing a place” for us in the Father’s house.

Although there are certain things about the worldly city that is anti-God, God is not specifically against the city.  It is the ultimate destiny of God’s people.  No more “strangers and aliens,” no more camping, no more nomadic life.  We will be settled there.  A city with foundations offered a permanent, established home, in contrast to the transient existence of a tent-encampment.

“To cultured men in the first century, the city was the highest form of civilized existence” (Leon Morris, p. 118).

A city, in the Old Testament, was a place of security.  That is why the broken down walls of Jerusalem was such a heartbreaking thought for Nehemiah.  It was unable to defend itself. Ancient walled cities were protected by gates secured with bars, and the psalmist in Psalm 147:12 uses this imagery to describe the security God provides.

The word TENTS is to be set against the word CITY.  In a city the houses and buildings are constructed on foundations.  That is, they are permanent structures.  Tents, on the other hand, are temporary dwellings held by pegs in the sand.  The writer is using the tent vs city comparison to contrast the temporariness of life on earth with the permanent character of God’s invisible city.  By faith, Abraham SAW the eternal city, the permanent home of the believer.  To him that was the real world.  From then on nothing earthly could satisfy him.  While his body wandered about in the promised land, his soul longed for the eternal dwelling of the family of God.  (C. S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 255)

Tents have only pegs which are pulled up and moved.  Earthly cities have walls which stand longer and yet crumble.  But this city stands forever.  And we should look forward to and long for this city like Abram did.

It is a dangerous thing when a Christian begins to feel permanently settled in this world.  (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, vol. 2, 98)  This is not our permanent home; heaven is.

A city is also a place of social life.  Bishop Westcott observed, “The object of his desire was social and not personal only” (Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), p. 360).  There, he would not only see God, but he would dwell with believers in harmony rather than dissonance (cf. 12:22–24).

Now, it’s important that we realize that the city to which the writer of Hebrews is referring is not Jerusalem, but the New Jerusalem.  First off, the old Jerusalem was not built by God.  It was a Canaanite city. It was originally built by Canaanites.

We know from Hebrews 11:16 that it is a “heavenly one,” the “heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22), “the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).

If it is the old Jerusalem, it would have been encouragement to return to the law of Moses and the sacrificial system, just as some of them were already tempted to do to escape persecution and return to what was familiar to them.

The writer of Hebrews wanted his first century audience to continue looking forward, to a new and better city than Jerusalem.

We continue to look for a city.  It is a city in which we hold our citizenship (Philippians 3:20).  We are currently nomads living in a foreign country.  Our citizenship is in heaven.  And on this earth, we are ambassadors for Christ.

Our reward is in the world to come.  If I live now as if God’s reward is owed to me now I will be disappointed.  Our reward is not primarily in this world (oh, there will be some), but mostly in the world to come.

Parents, you will never convince your children to give up this world and go to some malaria infested jungles if there is nothing about your life that suggests you are one day leaving this world and clinging to the city of God!  If you hang on to this world instead of the world to come, you betray that belief.

Simply going to church once a week won’t cut it!  Your children must see you give away your money because you believe in a heavenly reward that “neither moth nor rust destroys” (Matt. 6:20).  Your children need to see you spending your time sacrificially because you believe that God does not “overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints” (Heb. 6:10) and will one day reward it (1 Cor. 3:10-15; 2 Cor. 5:10).  They need to see you opening up your home, turning down promotions, doing what they world would say is crazy, because you believe in a greater, heavenly reward.

Do you believe what you sing when you say, “nothing compares to the promise I have in you”?  Really?  What does your checkbook reveal?  What does your parenting reveal?  What does your schedule say?

After 40 years of hard, hard work missionary to Africa Henry Morrison came home.  Sailing into New York City, he happened to be on the same ship with then President Theodore Roosevelt, who at that time was wildly popular with the public.

As they entered the harbor the president was greeted with enormous fanfare.  As Morrison and his wife stepped off the boat, however, not a single person was there to greet them.  Morrison was discouraged and dejected.  After all, four decades of service to the Lord!

Over the next few weeks, Henry tried, but failed to put the incident behind him.  He was sinking deeper into depression when one evening, he said to his wife, “This is all wrong.  This man comes back from a hunting trip and everybody throws a big party.  We give our lives in faithful service to God for all these many years, but no one seems to care.”

His wife cautioned him that he should not feel this way.  Henry replied “I know, but I just can’t help it.  It just isn’t right.”

His wife then said, “Henry, you know God doesn’t mind if we honestly question Him.  You need to tell this to the Lord and get this settled now.  You’ll be useless in His ministry until you do.”

Henry Morrison then went to his bedroom, got down on his knees and, shades of Habakkuk, began pouring out his heart to the Lord.  “Lord, you know our situation and what’s troubling me.  We gladly served you faithfully for years without complaining.  But now God, I just can’t get this incident out of my mind…”

After about ten minutes of fervent prayer, Henry returned to the living room with a peaceful look on his face.  His wife said “It looks like you’ve resolved the matter.  What happened?”

Henry replied, “The Lord settled it for me.  I told Him how bitter I was that the President received this tremendous homecoming, but no one even met us as we returned home.  When I finished, it seemed as though the Lord put His hand on my shoulder and simply said, ‘But Henry, you are not home yet!’”

And we, today, must live as if we are not home yet.  We must live as if the reward of that country is better than anything this world could offer, that the praise of our heavenly father far outweighs any praise we receive now, that anything we give up for Christ in this life will be rewarded a hundred times over in the next.

As Paul has written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him…” 

We must keep our attention and affections on heaven (Col. 3:1-3), as C. S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.  A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food.  A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. … If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthy pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.  Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. … I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and help others to do the same.

We are “strangers and aliens,” Peter tells us.  Our “citizenship is in heaven,” Paul says.  This is the kind of faith that grace produces—a faith that obeys, a faith that endures, a faith that anticipates a greater reward.

Is that the kind of faith you have?

Abram never would have left Ur until he decided that he loved the “many sons” in a far-off land and a city whose designer and builder was God more than he loved the familiar way of life in Sumer.  He had to trade one love for another.

The boomer who came to Jesus asking about eternal life may have been sincere.  But when Jesus forced him to face the fierce competition between his love for his possessions and his love for Christ, ultimately he couldn’t abandon his love for possessions.  He couldn’t leave.

Ultimately, mid-course corrections and the life of adventure start by facing the question Peter had to face: “do you truly love me more than these?” (John 21:15).

As we shall see, this was Abram’s dilemma throughout his life:  “Do you love me more than life in Ur?  Do you love me more than trying to save your tail in Egypt?  Do you love me more than your frantic attempts to obtain a surrogate son?  And the big one: do you love me more than Isaac?”

And this is what God is asking you and me:  Do you love me more than you love this world?

The apostle John warns us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world–the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions–is not from the Father but is from the world.  And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17)

“I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home,” we love to sing, but in life’s reality it’s often so different.  Eyes that should be raised heavenward are riveted on earth.  Feet that should be tramping toward Canaan’s shores are mired in earth’s swamps.  Hands that should be reaching for eternal treasures are wrapped around gaudy marbles.  Backs that should be straining in kingdom effort are bent over in valueless pursuit.  (Richard E. Lauersdorf, The People’s Bible: Hebrews, 137)

“This is why a continual desire for worldly pleasures often signifies that all is not well.  Some of this world’s pleasures, even in moderation, will undermine a Christian’s spiritual life.  If a married man wants to flirt with other girls, even in moderation, one assumes that there is something wrong with his marriage—or if not, that there soon will be!  So it is when a Christian flirts with worldliness.  The command is clear and uncompromising:

Come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch not nothing unclean; then I will welcome you.  (2 Cor 6:17)

We are to abstain from every form of evil (2 Thess 5:22).” (Kenneth Prior; The Way of Holiness, 144)

And how do we do that?  By tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, by developing a sweet tooth for God rather than the delights of this world.  According to Francis de Sales, these “foretastes of heavenly delight” are used by God to withdraw us from “earthly pleasures” and encourage us in the “pursuit of divine love.”

Faith that Marches Off the Map, part 3 (Hebrews 11:8-10)

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.

Faith that Marches Off the Map, part 2 (Hebrews 11:8-10)

Abram was an idol-worshiper graciously chosen by God to receive the wonderful promises of the Abrahamic Covenant.  There was nothing special about Abraham.  God just chose him.  But that choice, which gave birth to faith, became a faith that obeyed, a faith that endured and a faith that anticipates God’s greater reward.  We see this in Hebrews 11:8-10.

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.

So first, we see a faith that obeys.  Genuine faith always expresses itself in obedience.  So the person who has believed will yearn to obey.  Because we retain the vestiges of sinful flesh, that obedience will be imperfect (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 3:10), but the desire to do the will of God will be ever present in true believers.

Obedience is the inevitable manifestation of true faith.  Paul reminded us of this when he wrote to Titus that “to the defiled and unbelieving. . . . profess to know God,  but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:15-16). To Paul, their perpetual disobedience proved their disbelief. 

“By faith Abraham obeyed…and went out…”  Faith is the manner in which Abraham obeyed.  It was the impetus of Abraham’s obedience.  It made obedience possible.  The word translated “obeyed” was often used to speak of a doorkeeper, who would listen for the right signal and open the door to those awaiting entrance.  Obedience thus comes from hearing, just like faith comes from hearing God’s Word.

Faith and obedience are inseparable.  Abraham would never have obeyed God’s call if he had not truly taken God at his word. Abraham’s obedience was thus an outward evidence of his inward faith.  Genuine faith always obeys God.  We are saved by faith alone, but the kind of faith that saves is never alone.  By its very nature, it results in obedience.

F. F. Bruce says, “If the patriarchal narrative says in one place that Abraham was justified because he believed God, in another place God confirms to Isaac the promise made to Abraham because ‘Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge…’ (Gen. 26:5).  He would not have obeyed the divine call had he not taken God at his word; his obedience was the outward evidence of his inward faith” (The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 291)

Abraham demonstrated faith in three phases: when God called him to leave Mesopotamia (v. 8), when he reached the Promised Land but still had to live in it as a foreigner (vv. 9-10), and when God called him to sacrifice Isaac (vv. 17-19).

Note that Abraham’s faith-walk began “when he was called” (Heb 11:8).  His faith wasn’t founded on a subjective feeling about God’s will, a billowy cloud formation pointing like an arrow, or a vague message from a fortune-teller staring into a crystal ball.  The Bible says “the Lord had spoken to him” (Gen. 12:4), and “the Lord appeared to Abram” (Gen. 12:7).  This is where true faith rests—on the clear revelation of God (Rom. 10:17).  God’s calling to Abram was audible, objective, and specific.  He responded with faithful obedience. (Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary – Hebrews)

This word suggests that immediately upon hearing God’s Word, Abram obeyed.  One Greek scholar puts it: It’s almost as if Abram left while the sound was still ringing in his ears.  There is no lag time, no hesitation, but rather an immediate responsiveness to the Word of God.  God appears and speaks, and as a result Abram begins to pack his bags.

Now, remember, Abram first went as far as Haran with his father Terah and his family.  That doesn’t seem like immediate obedience.  But the author of Hebrews is focusing on the fact that Abram did leave for another land.

Apparently, Abraham obeyed God by leaving Ur, but he settled in Haran for a few years until his father died.  Then God issued the call of Genesis 12, and Abraham again obeyed by moving on to Canaan.

This was not Abram’s dream, it was God’s calling.

What did this mean to Abram?

First of all, Abram lived in a culture where nothing purposely changed.  Life offered few choices; everyone believed that their fate was determined and you could do nothing to change it.  There was no impetus to leave, to better one’s life.

Plus, people in those days didn’t travel to, let’s say, Washington D. C. for vacation.  In fact, most people in those days never traveled more than a few miles from their birthplace their whole lives, unless they made a living from trading.

Also, this would mean leaving behind people he knew and loved—his family and friends.  A man’s “household” in those days was his safety net.

It also meant leaving a comfortable homestead.  Whether or not it was an affluent homestead, it was his.

In addition, it meant leaving the only culture he knew—the music he listened to, the foods that he ate, the business associates that he worked with.  All that would change.

Finally, there would be no turning back.  There was a sense of finality in the command to “leave.”  This was no summer cruise, no short vacation from the routine.  This was final.

Thus, this was no easy choice!  We might not think of it as that difficult, but it would not have been easy to obey this calling from God for Abram.

You discover in Genesis 12 that Abram was 75 years old when God’s call came to him.  Abram was likely a prosperous, middle-aged man, successful by any human standard.

One ancient commentator says it like this: “Abraham departed the moment he was bidden.  Taking no thought for anything, either for his fellow clansmen or wardsmen or schoolmates or blood relations on father’s or mother’s side; or country or ancestral customs or community of nurture or homelike—all of them ties possessing a power to allure and attract, which is hard to throw off.  He followed a free and unfettered impulse and departed with all speed from Chaldea, a land at that time blessed by fortune and at the height of its financial prosperity.  He heard the call of God, he obeyed, he went.  No lag time, no hesitation, no pondering; that’s what faith does in response to the Word of God” (Philo, De Abrahamo, p. 66f).

By the way, it might be encouraging to us to notice that although Abram’s faith was immediate, it was not complete.  He didn’t leave every member of his family behind.  He took his father and nephew, Lot.  He didn’t go all the way to the Promised Land right away.  He stopped in Haran and it took the death of his father Terah, to move Abram from the halfway house all the way to the Promised Land.

My point is this:  Abram’s faith was not perfect.  We will see that all throughout his life.  But, he was responsive to the Voice.  And when he failed, he got back up and continued forward.  Our faith, our obedience, does not have to be perfect.  But it must respond.

One might wonder if Abram had any resistance to the Voice.  Could he, like Simon Peter, have initially responded, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man?”  Could Abram have doubted his own mind?  Could he have agreed with Lily Tomlin, who said, “Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?”  “Am I going crazy?

Well, the first step in any kind of life-change is responding obediently to God’s calling.  It often involves leaving something or someone behind to pursue something else.  For change to last in our lives we have to leave something behind.  We have to “put off the old man,” for example.

Consider marriage, for example.  In order to experience the depth of change a man must “leave his father and mother…” (Genesis 2:24).

In discipleship Jesus said we have to “deny ourselves,” we have to leave our own desires behind, so that we can follow Him (Luke 9:23).  Jesus calls his disciples to rise up, forsake all and daily take up the cross (Matt. 4:18ff; 9:9; 10:38f; 19:27ff).

What is God calling you to leave behind, to let go of?  What baggage is there that you need to jettison from your life?

All of this from Abram is quite amazing in itself, but then we find out “he did not know where he was going.”

You might have heard a conversation like this between Abram and his lifelong neighbors.

“Abram, are you moving?”

“Yes.”

“Why?  We’ve been neighbors for so long.  Are you looking for better quality of life, more acreage, better schools for your kids?”

“No.  I’ve heard a Voice.”

“Okay…where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  Now Abram, think, is that really the responsible thing to do, the rational thing?  You sound like a radical.  How will we get in touch with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“I’ve heard a Voice and it promised me a place somewhere.  All I can tell you is that the Word of the living God has spoken to me.  Now all my ambitions which consumed me before have been replaced by one over-arching passion.  It is my desire to follow that Voice.”

Living by faith means stepping out for God and leaving the results to him.  It won’t always be clear what the end result might be.  It’s no guarantee of a long life and good success.  It is obedience “no matter what.”

Leaving is an act of obedience, but “not knowing where you are going” is an act of trust.

Martin Luther, in his commentary on Hebrews, says: “And this is the glory of faith, namely, not to know where you are going, what you are doing, what you are suffering, and, after taking everything captive—perception and understanding, strength and will—to follow the bare voice of God and to be led and driven rather than to drive.”

This is the kind of faith that is produced by grace.  It is the working of God; it obeys.  There is no greater miracle in the heart of a genuine disciple of Christ than simple obedience to the Word of Christ.  Abram heard the call “and went.”  Jesus told His disciples, “If you love me, you will obey my command.”  James 2:26 says, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

Obedient faith is the product of God’s grace.  The Christian loves to obey and finds his or her greatest happiness in obedience, because that obedience is in keeping with his transformed heart.  Like nothing else obedience brings him pleasure.  Like Eric Liddell said, “When I run; I feel his pleasure.”  A genuine disciple says, “When I obey; I feel his pleasure.”

If there is no desire or drive for obedience in a person’s life it betrays that there has not really been an experience of the sovereign grace of God regardless of how many aisles have been walked down.

Jesus very ominously warned us, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Jesus never knew these people, despite all their fantastic works.  Be careful never to invert the order:  The experience of grace is not the consequence of faith; the experience of faith is the consequence of God’s grace.

In Philippians 1:29 Paul says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.”  That word “granted” could be translated “gifted.”  In other words, both suffering and believing are gifts from God.  Most people are surprised that suffering could be considered a gift from God, but the greater surprise is that faith is also a gift from God.

Paul is saying the same thing in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  The gift is the whole experience of salvation by grace through faith.

Peter concurs in 2 Peter 1:1 when he says, “Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,  To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:”  You obtain something that has been given to you.  You receive it.  Here Peter says that we have received faith.

Likewise, in Acts 13:48 Luke records: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”  They believed because they had been appointed by grace to believe.

I don’t believe and then get grace; God chooses to give me grace, which then enables me to believe and I actively put my trust in Him.

Again, Martin Luther expresses the depth of Abram’s obedient faith when he writes: “It was hard to leave his native land, which it is natural for us to love. Indeed, love for the fatherland is numbered among the greatest virtues of the heathen. Furthermore, it is hard to leave friends and their companionship, but most of all to leave relatives. . . . And then it is clear that with his obedience of faith Abraham gave a supreme example of an evangelical life, because he left everything and followed the Lord. Preferring the Word of God to everything and loving it above everything” (Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., Luther’s Works , vol. 29 (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1987), p. 238).

Faith in God’s promises is why Abraham risked his entire future.  Faith in God’s promises is always how to deal with the uncertainties of life.  Abram didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t know what the future held, and into that vacuum of uncertainties can rush all kinds of fears and anxieties UNLESS one holds on to the promises of God.

And that is what Abram did.  He is a strong example of faith because he marched off the map, going forward with God even though he had no strong indicators of where he was in reaching his destination.

The call which Abram received was not only a command that called him to obey; it was also a promise for him to believe, the promise of an inheritance on which he should fix his hope.  He did not know, when he departed, where that inheritance could be, but he believed God who said that he had an inheritance.

Here again, we have a striking illustration of “the assurance of things hoped for” combined with “the conviction of things not seen,” the two components of faith defined in the opening verse of this chapter.  “Abraham set out in faith, his destination unrevealed, but he also set out in hope, firmly grasping the promise of an inheritance.  The bare word of God was sufficient warrant for his going” (Philip Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 467).

Faith That Marches Off the Map, part 1 (Hebrews 11:8-10)

Perhaps you’ve heard the story about the emperor who ordered his favorite general to embark on a dangerous mission to conquer new land.  Because that meant entering hitherto unknown territory, the maps stopped at the frontier of the previous exploration.  Many months later, after completing his mission, the general sent a message back to the emperor: “What do we do now?  We have just marched off the map.”

This was not the first time this had happened.  Abram and Sarah were planning their retirement when God called them to “march off the map,” to blindly go wherever He led them into a territory unknown to them.  Our text in Hebrews 11:8-10 tells us that Abram and Sarah went out “not knowing where he was going.”

Most of us like to be settled on our destination before we take off on a journey.  We get out our maps or GPS on our phone and look for the destination and the fastest or best way to get there.  But this is not always the way that God leads us in life.  He doesn’t always lead us in straight lines.  We don’t always “get there” the fastest way or the least difficult way.

My encouragement to you this morning is that God may want to intrude upon your settled, comfortable life and call you on a grand adventure that is beyond your wildest dreams.

A few years ago, I picked up a bargain book from one of my favorite authors, Gordon MacDonald.  This book is called Mid-Course Correction and it deals with the need of those in the middle to later years to be open to change.  It speaks to those who may have lost their vital optimism and their need for a mid-course correction to get back on track.  He identifies three movements for those who get back on track—leaving, following and reaching.  He uses the story of Abraham to talk about the importance of leaving.  At the end of the book he says, “Many of us are disappointed in our faith experience because we have not left” (pp. 233-234).

Abram was about 70 years old at this time.  For him, that was mid-life.

Our text says…

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.

So far we’ve seen that every person identified (all males so far) has expressed their faith in active, tangible ways.  Abel worshiped God; Enoch walked with God.  Noah stood alone for God; Abram moves forward for God.  In every situation they obeyed God’s revelation to them.

Let me ask you this question this morning: “Does your faith in Christ compel you to obey Him?”  Or is obedience to you an option that you only rarely pursue?

Abraham, Moses and David tend to stand out in the minds of the Hebrews.  Abraham was the “father of the faith,” Moses the giver of the law and David the greatest king.  While Abel and Enoch are given a few verses in Genesis and Noah is given four chapters, Abraham’s life is on display in Genesis 12-25, a quarter of the entire narrative of Genesis.

Abraham’s faith was so celebrated in Old Testament times that the Levitical prayer of confession extolled God and lauded Abraham’s faith: “You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.  You found his heart faithful before you. . . .” (Nehemiah 9:7, 8).

Paul, in the New Testament, also highlights Abraham’s faith: “. . . just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ . . . Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:6, 7; cf. Hebrews 2:16).

And in Romans 4 Paul states:

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Regarding his belief in God’s promise that he would have a son, Paul writes:

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

James adds that because of Abraham’s faith, Abraham was called “a friend of God” (James 2:23).  Thus, Abraham was the undisputed example of faith and therefore we have much to learn from his life of trusting in God.

I love that definition of faith that Paul gives in Romans 4:21, that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”  That was what fueled Abram’s willingness to “march of the map” and go to a land he knew nothing about, his patience in waiting 25 years for God’s promise of a son from his own loins to come true, and his obedience in taking that very son to the top of Mount Moriah with the intention of obeying God’s directive to kill that promised, beloved son.  All of that, and more, was catalyzed by Abram’s conviction that when God makes a promise, nothing can stop him from fulfilling it.

That is faith.

Now, remember that faith calls us to step out and obey.  Paul even calls what saves us “the obedience of faith” in Romans 1:5.  Obedience and faith are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, they serve to interpret each other.  True gospel preachers call people to a faith that obeys; we call people to an obedience which trusts.

And this describes not merely the moment one believes, but the whole life of faith that starts at that moment and continues until the last breath.  The life of faith, from start to finish, is a steady obedience that fixes absolute trust on Christ’s saving merit.

Abram is a model of that obedience of faith.  Abram was not perfect.  His fallen humanity is on evident display throughout the narratives in Genesis 12-25.  This is why our author reminds us, after this chapter on people of faith, to “fix our eyes on Jesus.”  He is the only one to express perfect obedience and uninterrupted trust in His Father.  However, there is still much we can learn about a life of obedient faith from Abraham.

But, where did Abram’s faith come from?  Where did it originate?  Did it come from an incredibly pious father and mother?  Did he have ancestors who were believers?  Did he sit for some years under good preaching?  Was he homeschooled and learned good morals?  What was the cause of Abram’s faith?

Well, let me tell you a little bit about Abram.  He was a citizen of Ur, a prominent pagan city of about 300,000 located on the Euphrates River in what would today be called Iraq.  It was a world-class city, much like New York today.  It was probably also much like Las Vegas, “sin city,” today.

Ur was a cultural center for mathematics, trade and great religious activity.  The city was dominated by a massive three-staged Ziggurat built by Ur-Nammu during the beginning of the second millennium B.C. E ach stage was colored distinctively, with the top level bearing the silver one-roomed shrine of moon god Nammu or Na-na.  (I’m sorry if some of you grandmothers have adopted that moniker with your grandkids.)

This was a distinctly polytheistic culture.  Moreover, the royalty of that time were buried in death bins, accompanied by dozens of human sacrifices intended to accompany them on their journey to the next world.

This, this is the culture, the milieu in which Abram grew up.  He had no monotheistic background.  He was an idol worshiper.  He was not a “good man.”  He was no better than the average run-of-the-mill person of his day.  He was a pagan, raised by pagans in a decidedly pagan culture.  He went along with the flow.  Jeremiah 24 and Joshua 24:2 tells us that his family worshiped “other gods.”  In other words, they were not obeying Exodus 20:3-6 about worshipping the true God, Yahweh, exclusively and apart from any physical representation (idolatry).  Everything about his life was immersed neck deep in God-despising idolatry.

So how does a man go from rank paganism to being the epitome of believing obedience?

The same way it happens with you and me—by virtue of the sovereign display of the intervening grace of God.  God takes the initiative to take idol-worshipping, immoral sinners and call them to himself.

Listen to the way Genesis 12:1 describes it:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

We don’t know what Abram was doing.  Maybe he was involved in his business; maybe he was at home getting ready for supper with Sarah; maybe he was worshipping his gods at some temple.

But ONE THING comes and saves Abram—God’s word, God’s calling.  And that Word, like the creative word of Genesis 1, performs what it demands.  It creates in Abram a life that first trusts, and then obeys.

Notice the wording of Hebrews 11:8.  “By faith Abraham, when called…”  The Voice called out to Abram.  We don’t know if that Voice spoke loudly or forcefully, but it spoke effectively.  It called Abram to “leave” to “go from.”

Acts 7 fills this event out a little more fully.  Stephen says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham…” (Acts 7:2-3).  God made himself known both visually and verbally.

God told Abram, “go from your country.”  God had no plans to save the people of Ur, not even most of Abram’s family.  But it was God’s pleasure to call one man out of that cesspool of a city, Abram.

But why did God call Abram?  What it because he was on a quest for the one true God?  Was it because of his own free will he intuitively inclined toward the religion of Yahweh?  No text tells us that Abram was any better than any other person in Ur.  In fact, if we read the text carefully, we find that Abram did not immediately leave his relatives and go to the land God was directing him to; rather, he along with his father settled in Haran for a number of years until his father Terah died.  Eventually Abram did obey.  Genesis 12:5 says, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.”

So, don’t presuppose that Abram had anything to do with his calling.  It was God that initiated it. It was God who kept at Abram until he did finally obey.

Abraham did step out in faith, going to the place God promised him; but his faith was less than perfect.  This is seen by comparing Genesis 12:1-5 with Acts 7:2-4, where it is evident that Abraham first went half way to where God called him, and only eventually obeyed completely.  Yet thousands of years later, God did not “remember” the delayed obedience, only the faith.

Abram was a fallen son of Adam just like you and me.  God’s grace came to Abram.  He didn’t deserve it.  He could do nothing to earn it.  By this calling of Abram God not only reveals God’s grace to us, but in a far more profound way it illustrates for us the sovereignty of God’s grace!  Out of 300,000 people God chose one—Abram.  Why?  Simply because it pleased God to do so.

God works in salvation in the same way today.  God still today chooses people not because of their own goodness (in fact, we are “still sinners,” Romans 5:8).  It is totally and fully because of God’s sovereign grace.  God doesn’t choose us based upon foreseeing anything in us.  According to Romans 9:16 God’s choice “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”  It doesn’t depend upon our will, our choice one way or another; it doesn’t depend upon any exertion of action, either good or bad.  God chose us solely because He is a merciful and gracious God.

Saint Augustine was a man many consider the single most influential Christian thinker the world has ever known.  If you have ever read his Confessions, you know that his life before Christ was vile, self-centered and degraded.  Here is how he speaks of God converting him.

Who am I?  What kind of man am I?  What evil have I not done?  Or if there is evil that I have not done, what evil is there that I have not spoken?  If there is any that I have not spoken, what evil is there that I have not willed to do?

But You, O Lord, are good. You are merciful.

You saw how deep I was sunk in death, and it was Your power that drained dry the well of corruption in the depths of my heart.

And all that You asked of me was to deny my own will and accept yours.  But, during all those years, where was my free will?

What was the hidden, secret place from which it was summoned in a moment, so that I might bend my neck to Your easy yoke and take Your light burden on my shoulders, Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer?

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose and was now glad to reject!  You drove them from me, You who are the true, the sovereign joy.

You drove them from me and took their place, You who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, You who outshine all light yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, You who surpass all honour though not in the eyes of men who see all honour in themselves.

At last my mind was free from the gnawing anxieties of ambition and gain, from wallowing in filth and scratching the itching sore of lust.

I began to talk to You freely, O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.”

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions,  trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 181. (9.1.1.)

Did you hear that?  Where was my free will when sin and all its lusts dominated my life?  Where was my free will when my heart was enslaved to that iron cage of sin?

So, Augustine, if it wasn’t your free will to choose Christ, then what happened?

You drove them from me and took their place

This is what the Puritans called “The expulsive power of a new affection” (Thomas Chalmers) or what Quakers used to say about one’s salvation, “Have you been seized by the power of a great affection?”  It reminds us that our salvation is about being called into a relationship with Jesus Christ that is best described in the image of the bride and bridegroom.

My dear friends, true Christian faith, the kind of faith that we see in Abram is not the consequence of a man’s free will.  It is the product of the sovereign grace of God in choosing to manifest His selecting love upon us.  This is where faith comes from: it originates in grace.

When faith is the product of grace, it will display the same kind of attributes that we see in the faith of Abraham: a faith that obeys, a faith that endures, a faith that anticipates the greater reward.

And it is this kind of faith that we will look at in the coming weeks.