2007 Book of Hebrews Series – “The
Hall of Faith (2 of 4): The Patriarchs”
Hebrews 11:8-22
Sermon preached at Curwensville Presbyterian Church – August 12, 2007
Prayer Introduction:
Last week we saw the God who inducted Abel, Enoch and Noah. This week we see the same God who inducted Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph…We pray now for the preacher in the pulpit. He is not worthy, but by your grace he is able. And so it is through Jesus Christ that we pray – Amen!
Sermon Introduction: Before we see faith illustrated in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, let’s revisit the definition and people of faith we saw last week.
I. Faith Revisited
A few years back I was at a seminar where the guest speaker was a radio DJ. Though we had never seen that radio DJ, we were confident that when his name was announced he would come onto the stage. When he stepped up to the microphone he said, “Yeah, you’re not what I thought you would look like either.”
Even though God is unseen, we know he exists, because we know Him. If you have truly received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then the Holy Spirit of God has entered into your heart; and you are as sure and certain of God’s existence as you are of the existence of anyone else in this room. We have faith in God because we know God; and He is continually working in our lives.
A.W. Tozer said, “Faith in faith is faith astray.” And Sir Thomas Browne said, “To believe only possibilities is not faith, but philosophy.” True faith is not philosophy or religion it is a relationship with the living God. And so Oswald Chambers said, “Whenever faith is starved in your soul, it is because you are not in contact with Jesus; get in contact with him, and lack of faith will go in two seconds.” And A.B. Simpson said, “The larger the God we know, the larger will be our faith.”
What does all this mean? It means that for faith to be sure and certain it must be a living faith in the living God. Do you know God? Not just know about God. Do you know God?
Last week we saw genuine faith in Abel juxtaposed with his brother Cain’s mis-placed faith. Cain went through the motions of worship; but Abel actually worshiped the living God by a living faith.
Enoch showed us that faith continually and earnestly seeks God. Only by God’s grace, through faith in Christ, can God be pleased with us and give us eternal life; but faith is not a one-time act, where at some point you said, “I believe in God” and then put that belief on a shelf to pull down from time to time. Faith isn’t something you have, it is something you do [it’s a noun treated like a verb].
In Noah we see it is by faith that we can hear and obey God’s Word.
II. Faith Illustrated in Abraham (vv.8-19 [8-10; 11-16; 17-19])
The
definitive example of faith in the Old Testament is seen in Abraham. Twelve of
the verses in
Abraham’s faith is seen in three parts. First Abraham is told to leave “your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12).
People who don’t want to leave Curwenville can relate to this. What if God calls you to leave Curwensville (or in my case what if God tells you to go to Curwensville). There is great difficulty in leaving home, but even more difficulty in going to the unknown. Isn’t not knowing the hardest part?
When you’re sick – or you’re loved one is sick – but you don’t know why? Your job may be in jeopardy – or not – but you don’t know what is going to happen. Which school should I attend – I have to decide and I don’t know. Newly married couples don’t know what marriage will be like. New parents don’t know what parenting will be like. Not knowing is the hard part.
By faith you go into the unknown – not knowing what will happen, but knowing the God who will take you there. Oswald Chambers said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the one who is leading.”
The second part of Abraham’s faith is seen in verses 11-16 – “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. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people [Abraham, Sarah and his household] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
God promised Abraham a blessing. But the blessing was not really for him. God had said, “I will make you into a great nation…I will make your name great…all peoples on earth will be blessed for you.” But, by the way you will die before any of this happens. Abraham had to wait for even his first descendent – a son.
The original audience of this letter we are reading – the letter to the Hebrews – was wondering why they were not seeing God’s blessings in their lifetime – all they could see was the difficulty of their present circumstances. [Sarcastically] It’s a shame this doesn’t apply today, huh?
Abraham’s faith shows us a faith that can see blessing beyond the present difficulties.
There is a Spanish Proverb that says, “He who loses money loses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But he who loses faith loses all.”
Abraham and his household recognized themselves as aliens and strangers on earth, because they were looking ahead to the Promised Land. By faith we know that “our citizenship is in heaven” – the Promised Land (Philippians 3:20). Our life here, on earth, is just temporary. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Because of Christ we await our resurrection to eternal life in his Kingdom, the new heavens and new earth, which we will not see until we are there.
Corrie ten Boom said, “Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.”
The third part of Abraham’s faith is reported in verses 17-19 – “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”
The famous
story of God calling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, is in
This was more than 2000 years before God sacrificed his own Son – and raised him from the dead. By faith, Abraham believed in a resurrection that wouldn’t happen for another two millennia.
Faith trusts
in the promises of God. In
Consider this. We are called to be faithful, but not necessarily for a reward that we will see in our lifetime. To be sure, we will receive our eternal reward in heaven. But consider how our faith, right now, will affect – not us – but our children, and our children’s children.
The promises of God are not just for you and me, but for a future generation; yet what we do now affects them later. This Thursday is our big Discipleship Planning Meeting. We will plan out the Sunday School and Way Cool Wednesday ministry for 2007-2008. We will never see the full fruit of our faithful acts in our lifetime; but there will be fruit.
There will be children who are changed by God’s grace on Wednesday nights – and they will grow up differently because of it. Their marriages will one day be different because of it. They will raise their children differently because of it. And their children will come to faith years from now, because of our faithfulness this year.
How might the community of Curwensville, and Clearfield County, and beyond, be affected by Jesus Christ in the years to come, because of a plan made by faith in Christ this Thursday?
III. Faith Illustrated in Isaac (v.20)
Looking at the future, rather than the present, by faith is also illustrated – very briefly – with Isaac in verse 20 – “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.”
The account of this is in
Little did Isaac know what the future looked like when he blessed his two sons. None of us know what the future holds, but we know the one who holds the future. E. Stanley Jones said, “Faith is not merely you holding on to God – it is God holding on to you.”
Philip Yancey has said – “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” There is much that we will not understand until we are in heaven and can look back and see the full perfection of God’s plan.
We will see how God saved and blessed the undeserving. We will see how undeserving we were to be blessed at all. Those who grow old in Christ receive an increasing awareness of this.
IV. Faith Illustrated in Jacob (v.21)
In fact, look at the next
person in the Hall of Faith in verse 21 – “By faith Jacob, when he was dying,
blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his
staff.” Consider the difference in Jacob’s faith from the time he
deceitfully took the blessing from his father to the time he passed on the
blessing to his grandsons (at the end of
One of the great
errors in today’s culture is the way we have devalued the wisdom of our elders.
The Bible strongly affirms the elderly. The older men and women are to train the
younger men and women in godliness (cf.
A.W. Tozer (in Rut, Rot, or Revival) with great wisdom wrote – “Think about people who find themselves in religious ruts…They will find that they are getting older but not getting any holier. Time is their enemy, not their friend. The time they trusted and looked to is betraying them, for they often said to themselves, ‘The passing of time will help me. I know some good old saints, so as I get older I'll get holier and better. Time will help me, purify me and revive me.’ They said that the year before last, but they were not helped any last year. Time betrayed them. They were not any better last year than they had been the year before.”
Those who are in the second half of life – are you growing in holiness? As your body weakens, is your faith growing in strength? We need you. Focus your faith on Christ. Call on Christ to purify you through the work of the Holy Spirit. We do not get holier in time, but in Christ.
IV. Faith Illustrated in Joseph (v.22)
Genuine faith grows stronger throughout our life. This truth is illustrated three times – in Isaac, in Jacob, and now in Joseph – in verse 22 – “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.”
The weakening of our physical body is a grace of God, which forces us to trust in the Lord in increasing measure. Joseph’s faith was strong at death – strengthened by the hardships he had faced in life. He had been sold into slavery by his brothers. He was unjustly imprisoned. But in the end he said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20).
What a powerful statement of faith. As we get older, we can begin to see how all the trials in our life were sovereignly ordained by God to bring us to faith and for the perseverance of faith.
And so it is that our concern is not for those who simply sin from time to time; but for those who are not continually and earnestly seeking God – for those who are not persevering in faith.
All of our sins are covered by the blood of Christ. And so, by faith, we do not fixate on sin, but on Christ.
By faith in Christ we, as Christ’s Church, absolutely must pursue those who are not persevering in faith. We must be willing to go into the undiscovered country of confronting those who are stuck in a sin. We do not know what will happen – only God knows. But, by faith, we know God and we know that he has called us to do this.
Let us encourage one another to persevere in a genuine faith:
Genuine faith looks upon Christ continually and with increasing eagerness.
Genuine faith grows stronger throughout our life.
Genuine faith helps us look at the past with understanding.
Genuine faith enables us to look at the unseen future with confident hope.
Genuine faith desires God’s blessings on future generations.
Genuine faith isn’t self-serving, but God-glorifying.
Genuine faith acts today for what God will do tomorrow.
MAY THE TRUTH SET US FREE – AMEN!