faith – Page 7 – Grace Still Amazes

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:

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.

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.

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…

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:

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.

The Obedience of Faith, part 3 (Hebrews 11:7)

We’ve been talking about the faith of Noah, a faith motivated by a fear of God, a faith that caused him to take seriously God’s warning (which is like a negative promise) and to obey God’s mission to build an ark.

Noah preached righteousness and judgment, he faithfully built the ark, he lived a life of righteousness in the midst of a dark world, like Paul says to the Philippians, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation” (Philippians 2:14-15). Jesus had told his disciples “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Noah had lived and preached and worked in such a way as to provide a positive witness to his neighbors. But none of them responded in faith. They jeered and ridiculed him.

And we ended last week with this question: Do you think Noah felt like a failure? No! He saved his family—the most important thing any husband and father could do! Our text says that Noah, “built an ark to save his family.” Without his faithfulness he knew that his own children could perish too. We don’t read much about his boys until after the flood, and then there is little to be impressed with. We don’t read about them taking up the preaching ministry with their father, though it was likely that they helped build the ark. But the fact that they joined Noah on the ark shows that they had responded in faith and trust to Noah’s preaching.

It may be that we are losing our children today because we are not living out a radical faith and obedience in front of them. Maybe our children are declaring themselves as “nones” in greater and greater numbers because all they saw at home was a father and mother who only showed up on Sundays, who maybe ascribed to some of the things the preacher said, but whose lives were not changed and who did not impress upon their children the truth of the Scriptures and the necessity of fearing and believing and obeying this God who saved them.

Many children today watch their parents at church and then see them the rest of the week and see no relationship between what they say they believe and how they actually live out their lives. It is no wonder that many of them say we are hypocrites.

Many children see their parents pursuing the world, giving in to temptations, worry and fretting instead of trusting, living only for themselves, and they want nothing to do with their powerless faith.

Radically obedient followers of Christ show their faith by obeying God’s Word, especially when the world around them is moving the opposite direction and ridiculing them for their obedience. 2 Peter 2:5 calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness.”

Do you realize, parents, that you are preaching a sermon every day by the way that you live your life? To live lives of radical obedience will bring us under the criticism of others. Will you fear the Lord or fear men? Will you see the reward of obedience and remain faithful, or will you believe the promises of the world and turn your back on God?

How did Noah save his family? By simply doing what the Lord told him to do, believing and obeying God’s revelation, respecting God enough to believe and obey him rather than giving in to the world.

These children, along with Noah and his wife, “entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood” (Gen. 7:7) and God “shut them in” (7:16). They were safe as long as they remained inside the ark; destruction came upon those outside the ark.

In this way the ark is a type of Jesus Christ. When we trust in Jesus God shuts us into Jesus Christ and He is our salvation. Only by being “in Christ” are we rescued from destruction. You must enter into the ark, Jesus Christ, by faith. You must forsake all other arks, all other supposed means of deliverance. You must not stop at the threshold and just look into the ark. You must enter in. Just “looking into Christianity” as a curiosity does not save you. In those days, it was not enough just to hear about the ark, it was not enough to know about the ark’s engineering, it was not enough to admire the ark for its size and sturdiness, it was not enough even to defend the ark as a seaworthy vessel, you MUST ENTER IN!

Noah’s obedience and preaching led to salvation for the eight people who entered into the ark, but condemnation for those who heard the message, saw the ark being built, but never trusted in God’s Word that a flood was coming.

What about you, today, do you realize that one day Jesus will return and that any of those who have not trusted in Jesus Christ he will treat as enemies? Judgement is coming. Are in “in Christ” by believing in the Gospel, or outside of Christ? Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10

This will happen [the deliverance of God’s people] when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

Today is the day of salvation. Now is the time to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Don’t postpone it to an uncertain tomorrow.

The difference between the unbeliever and the believer is this: the one is a man of the world, and lives here; the other is a man of God, and lives in heaven. His whole life is a protest and a condemnation of the world. Abel, Enoch, Noah–all three were equally rejected and despised by the world, because they condemned its works. God grant that the life of his believing children may be so clear and bright, that the world may feel itself condemned by them! (Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, 435)

Fifth, we also read here in Hebrews 11:7 that Noah’s obedience receives justification. Noah’s faith results in the best possible inheritance, “and [Noah] became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” As an heir, it means that he was now an “owner” or “partaker.” But this didn’t come through dear old Dad, but rather through faith in God Himself.

Now, with the Romans, anyone could become an heir. A Roman citizen could choose a slave to be his heir. But with the Jews, an inheritance was generally reserved for one’s own natural children.

Our text says that Noah “became an heir.” This word ginomai, in Greek, in some contexts means to be born and in a sense Noah and his family, who were born dead in their trespasses and sins, came into existence into a new life, characterized by God’s imputation of his perfect righteousness, just like Abram “believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” All Abram did was trust God’s promise and God credited righteousness to his account.

So Abram is not the first to have righteousness credited to his account. Noah is the first person to be declared righteous. This is the “righteousness that comes by faith” which is quite similar to Paul’s distinction in Philippians 3:9, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”

This is the author of Hebrews’ one and only use of “righteousness” in the objective, Pauline sense of righteousness that comes from God through faith, that is imputed or credited to our account. I like to call it an alien righteousness because “alien” stresses the fact that it does not come from within man, but is an objective gift from outside, from God. The great Pauline texts often repeat the phrase “righteousness of God.” For example:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16, 17)

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. (Romans 3:21, 22)

The sublime result of receiving this “alien” righteousness is that we become the righteousness of God, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That’s double imputation—our sins were credited to Christ and his righteousness was credited to us who believe.

The point we must see here is that this righteousness from God is necessary for salvation. Self-generated righteousness is never enough. We can never earn salvation.

This objective righteousness was credited to Noah the moment he believed God’s word of warning. And then subjective righteousness, righteousness on display in our speech and behavior, begins to shine. This kind of righteousness is right conduct.

When we have true faith and receive the objective gift of righteousness and salvation from God, it enacts in us a growing subjective righteousness (a righteousness that grows from within). And this is precisely what happened to Noah, as Genesis 6:9 beautifully testifies: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” He was “righteous” within. He was “blameless.” He “walked with God” toward the same place on the same path at the same pace, just like Enoch. He lived a beautiful life that pleased God.

Noah was saved by faith—his faith led to his salvation. There came the day when the rain began—it continued for forty days without stopping—and the pre-diluvians began to think perhaps Noah was not so crazy. Noah got into the ark, and the jokes stopped for good as the water rose to the pre-diluvians’ knees and over their still lips.

Just as God came to the pre-diluvians through Noah, he comes today to us post-diluvians through the words of his Son who says:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37–39)

The event of Noah was not only a historic event, but it was also a foreshadowing of what is to come, when Christ returns, judgment is coming for the whole Earth.

There is coming another day of judgment. It will be more severe and carry greater consequences than the previous day of judgment. But Jesus indicates some characteristics of that coming generation of people, saying that they act just like people in the days of Noah—carrying on with life as normal without a care in the world, “eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,”—just normal, everyday life.

Jesus doesn’t talk about the coming generation’s wickedness, as Genesis 6:5 does of Noah’s generation. The point is not that they this generation is extremely wicked, it is that they are entirely unaware. Although the people of Noah’s day had seen Noah building the ark and heard him preaching messages warning them of the coming judgment, “they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.”

And today, people will be just as distracted and just as oblivious as the people in Noah’s day, maybe even more so.

Jesus’ point is, “Wake up!” Realize that judgment is coming. It is right around the corner. And if you’re not careful, you will not be ready for his coming. If you are ready, like Noah and his family, you will be saved. If you are not, like Noah’s neighbors, you will perish too.

Greg Morse writes

Life as usual, many will come to realize, was never life as usual.

When Christ returns, many will discover too late that they lived within a dream. Years came and years went. Spring turned to autumn, autumn to winter. They grew and grew old but never awoke. “Normal life” lied to them. So, Jesus foretells,

As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37–39)

The world-ending return of Jesus will be as the world-ending days of Noah. Of what did Noah’s days consist? Busy people unaware — eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, going about life “as usual.” The very morning of the flood, people simply concerned themselves with whatever laid before them. The immediate seemed most urgent, most real. Planning meals, changing diapers, preparing weddings, working, buying, and selling — these seemed to them the greatest verities of life. Until the rain began to fall.

So wake up! Now is the time to get right with God. Today is the day of salvation. The coming of the next judgment may be as imperceptible as a rain drop. We wonder, “What is that?” But we don’t know its meaning.

Jesus calls the world to prepare for him: “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44). By faith we can come safely through this judgment as well.

In fact, Peter says that our baptism is like Noah’s experience being carried safely through the waters in the ark. “In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” (1 Pet. 3:20-21).

He doesn’t mean that baptism is necessary for salvation, but it illustrates a truth about our salvation. And John Piper says, “Noah came to Peter’s mind because only a few were saved in the ark under God’s judgment. And now salvation through faith, through baptism, is like that. Through water, God saves his people, whether few or many, at any given time and place. And we should rejoice that Christ died to bring us to God through his judgment. The whole world may laugh, as in the days of Noah, but by faith we come safely through the judgment.”

Mitch Chase adds: “Baptism corresponds to the ark story because the arc of that story was death and life. Baptism is the Christian’s public declaration that God has brought us through the waters of judgment. Through union with Christ, we have been brought safely into everlasting life. The Lord Jesus, the true and greater ark, is our refuge. And in Christ, we are delivered and not condemned.”

The apostle Peter wrote to a dispersed group of Christians in the first century who had been waiting for the return of Christ. Like Jesus, Peter warned that the biggest obstacle to being ready is the sense of everydayness. Scoffers will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Pet. 3:4).

This mundane stability can lead one to forget the suddenness of the flood that once submerged the land. The rainbow sign in the skies points to a covenant in which God pledged to never again destroy the earth by flood. To those who believed themselves to be abandoned by God—since the end had not yet come, the earth had not been purged with fire, and the new heavens and new earth were not yet here—Peter wrote that what they were seeing was not God’s inattention but his patience, “not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

Just as the ark was the only means of salvation from God’s judgment for Noah and his family, so the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way that God has provided for salvation from His coming judgment on the whole world. Everyone on board the ark was saved. Everyone not on the ark was lost. Everyone who has trusted in Christ’s shed blood will be saved. Everyone who has trusted in anything else will be lost. In Noah’s day, it wasn’t a matter of being an excellent swimmer! As Bill Cosby used to tell the story, God asks Noah, “How long can you tread water?” You can’t be good enough to merit salvation. The crucial question is, “By faith have you obediently responded to God’s warning by ‘getting on board’ Jesus Christ?”

God has issued a clear warning: A “Category 5” storm of judgment is heading toward everyone who dwells on earth! The door of His ark is still open today. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. Flee to Christ now and you will be saved. Scoff at the warning and you will be lost forever. Imitate Noah’s faith and obedience. Join him as an heir of the righteousness according to faith.

Your Pastor, Prayed For or Preyed Upon

Lamar Austin, November 8, 2018

How the mighty have fallen. Over the past several years a number of big-name pastors have fallen and are no longer in ministry or have changed ministries. All of us pastors are susceptible to moral improprieties, abusive power, lack of self-control, burnout and all the struggles which come from being set upon a pedestal.

Sometimes pastors quit the ministry because they have been chewed up and spit out by a congregation of people who were supposed to love, support and pray for him.

So pastors fail and congregations fail. One of the best ways to keep either from happening is by praying for one another.

Several years ago Terry Tekyl wrote a book entitled Prayer For or Preyed Upon. In it he asks the question, “Could the pastor be the least prayed for person in the
local church today?”

In Luke 22 Jesus tells Peter:

31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus begins by warning Peter that he is much more vulnerable to Satan than he knew. Jesus clues us in to this as a rebuke of Peter by using his former name, “Simon, Simon.”

The word “behold” can mean “pay attention” or “watch out.” The reason he needed to watch out is that Satan was on the prowl and wanted to “sift you like wheat.” Sifting is part of the agricultural process that began with plowing of the land, sowing/planting of the grain; reaping and threshing or trampling of the stalks of grain.

It is the threshing stage that is being referred to here. After reaping the corn or wheat, stalks would be placed into threshing floors constructed in the fields.

Animals then drug threshing equipment over the stalks of corn or wheat in order to separate the grain from the husks/chaff. The husks and grain would then winnowed by tossing into the air to allow the wind to blow away the husks/chaff.

The grain would then remain, but it would be mixed with stones and lumps of soil which clung to the roots when it was reaped. A sifter or sieve would be used to separate the grain from the stones. The grain would be tossed into the air during this process.

Sift like wheat

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi1suOtwcbeAhUh54MKHSZRAbcQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYOvaZe-yL_Q&psig=AOvVaw3GFXlYPPkyVMHoT6-rRnCs&ust=1541824871792163

What Jesus is saying is that Satan wanted to agitate and throw him around violently.

John Piper illustrates:

We can imagine a picture like this: Satan has a big sieve with jagged-edged wires forming a mesh with holes shaped like faithless men and women. What he aims to do is throw people into this sieve and shake them around over these jagged edges until they are so torn and weak and desperate that they let go of their faith and fall through the sieve as faithless people, right into Satan’s company. Faith cannot fall through the mesh. It’s the wrong shape. And so as long as the disciples hold to their faith, trusting the power and goodness of God for their hope, then they will not fall through the mesh into Satan’s hands. (The Sifting of Simon Peter, April 26, 1981)

We get a clue what Satan was attacking by looking at Jesus’ prayer “that your faith will not fail.” What Satan wants to destroy is Peter’s faith.

However, the good news for Peter (and for us, Romans 8:34) is that Jesus was praying for him, actually had been praying for him. And that made all the difference for Peter and will for us as well.

Peter did not realize how valuable he was to Jesus. Jesus had been praying for him that his faith will not fail and that after he returned he would strengthen his brothers (would retain his leadership position).

And Jesus’ prayer was answered. Peter did fail, but his faith did not. Earlier that night we see Peter’s bravado and self-confidence on display when he would say in response to Jesus..

“Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33)

It’s almost as if Jesus was saying, “I don’t need your prayers. I’m perfectly capable of standing with you to the end.”

Years later, when Peter would look back on God’s work in his life, he wrote in chapter 1 of his first epistle:

6 In this [ultimate salvation] you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

“The tested genuineness of your faith” is what Peter experienced that night. His bravado and self-confidence were shot to pieces, much dross was eliminated, but what was left was “more precious than gold,” real faith, true faith.

What causes Peter’s faith to be refined instead of destroyed and what ultimately made his leadership stronger? Undoubtedly the pray of Jesus Christ.

Your pastor (me included) seldom realizes how vulnerable he is to Satan or how valuable he is to Jesus. Won’t you join Jesus in praying for your pastor? His very life and leadership depend upon it. Your pastor needs prayer partners. Tell him you will be one.