We are looking at faith.  Hebrews 11 and 12.  Last Sunday - as we began looking at faith - we talked about fear. 

Someone sent me this.  These are major pot holes.  Invokes a tad of fear.  At least enough to slow down.  Actually these are an ad for Pioneer Suspension.  Here’s another one.  Idea is that if you have Pioneer Suspension on your car you can run over all this and not even feel it.

This is a road hazard that would get the adrenalin going.  Wouldn’t it?

This gets your heart pumping a little bit doesn’t it?  Or this?  Not what we want to see coming up behind us.  Right?

Here’s another one.  Probably not want to see this happening behind us.  Last one.  “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”  No idea what that eye belongs to.  But hopefully it doesn’t eat humans.

Fear - in many ways - fear is the opposite of faith.  Fear effects our relationship with God - our willingness to trust God as we go through the stuff of life.  Can I really let go of this and trust that God’s got it covered?

Stuff going on in my marriage?  With our finances?  My health?  Stuff at work?  In the church?  At school?  With the whole direction my life is headed?  Or not headed?    There are huge uncertainties here.  Can I trust God with that?  What will happen if I really give God control of my life?

The more we live in fear the less we’re trusting God.  The more we’re trusting God the less we live in fear.

Hebrews 11:1 gives us the definition of faith.  Faith is what?  Two things.  The assurance of things hoped for.  The conviction of things not seen.

We looked at this last Sunday.  Assurance is the reality that everything else rests on.  God.  Conviction is what we’re convinced of.

Hebrews 11:3 uses creation as an example.  Hebrews tells us that when we see creation we’re seeing evidence of the creator.  When we see creation - what exists - we believe in what we do not see - Who is God.  God Who reveals Himself to us through His creation.  Isn’t that a great picture?

We need to grab hold of this.  God doesn’t exist because we believe in Him.  God isn’t some kind of hypothesis of theory that humans dreamed up to explain how all this got here.  The gods of Greek mythology.  God is the creator behind reality of what we see simply because He is.  Creation is just one example God puts out there to help us wake up to that reality.

Our faith is not based on religious happy thoughts are some blind leap into the unknown.  Our faith is based on the certainly reality of God Who is.

Because we know that God exists - and in fact communicates with us - actually loves us - cares about what happens to us - gives our lives a plan and purpose within His creation - because we know that God exists we can live convinced that faith in Him - obedience to Him - trusting God with our lives is the way to go through life now and forever.

Conviction is not “Will I believe in God.”  But, “Will I believe God.”  God is the substance of faith.  The assurance that the conviction of how we live our lives is based on.     

Coming to Hebrews 11 - what we’re looking at here in chapter 11 are examples of men and women who - assured of God’s existence - set aside their fears - enough - didn’t say this was easy - these guys struggled with the same kinds of things we struggle with.  But they set aside their fears enough to live by their conviction - trusting God with their lives.

God holds them up before us and says - if you really want to experience life without fear - life that goes way beyond anything you can imagine for yourself - life to the fullest - what they did - the faith in Me part - what they did you need to do. 

The bottom line is that God has not created us to live in fear but by faith.  Say this with me, “God has not created me to live in fear but by faith.”  Faith in God is the only way we experience life the way we were created to live.

Okay.  Join me at Hebrews 11 - starting at verse 8.  Verses 8 to 19 focus on the example of The Faith of Abraham and Sarah.  Let’s say that together, “The faith of Abraham and Sarah.”  What we’re going to see here is faith that trusts God in the midst of the daily stuff of life.

Verse 8:  By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Abraham and his family originally lived where?  Ur.  Then back in Genesis chapter 11 - Terah - Abraham’s father - packs up the whole clan and heads up to Haran - with the goal of eventually ending up in Canaan.  But they stalled out where?  In Haran.

Genesis tells us they “settled” in Haran - literally they pitched their tents - put down roots - became citizens of Haran.  Haran at the time was a flourishing city on the caravan routes.  Haran was a center of worship of the moon-god.  Terah worshipped pagan gods.  Terah probably felt right at home.  Life is good.  Why keep going to some even farther off place like Canaan.  So they settled for Haran.

But God - as we know - had other plans for Abraham.  In Genesis 12 - God tells Abraham, “Abraham, leave your country - notice that “your country.”  Haran was home - very familiar - leave your country - leave your kindred - leave your relatives - leave your father’s house - leave everything familiar and head off to a country I’m going to show you.  I’m going to make you a great nation - I’m going to make your name great - famous in a good way.  I’m going to bless others through you.”

Three commands.  Command number one:  Leave your country.  Go forth.  You’re the power hitter.  Clear the bases.  Bad joke.

Go forth from your country.  Keep going.  To step out in faith - to follow God - means leaving behind the old life - the securities we’re clinging to - what we’ve tried to control our lives with - our goals - our desires - our vision for our lives - the world we’ve carefully constructed around ourselves.  Step out in faith.  Leave it behind.

Command number two:  Leave your relatives.  Those people who’ve shaped our lives - with their opinions and traditions and pressures.  Family and friends and community.  Oh my.

To step out in faith - to follow God means we must be willing to leave behind even our closest relationships - to let go of what others think - and to be concerned only for what God thinks.

Command number three:  Leave your father’s house.  Good parents provide good resources for life - genetically - spiritually - financially.

To step out in faith and follow God means leaving behind our dependence on our natural resources.  To trust God - to depend on God - for what we need in life.

Three commands - three promises.  Step forward in faith and here’s what God promises.

First promise:  Land.  In Scripture the Promised Land is huge.  God’s people dwelling in the land.  But we need to understand that land means a whole lot more than just a place to hang our turban.

The bottom line about land isn’t about the place.  It’s the presence.  Say this with me, “Its not the place.  It’s the presence.”  Go where God shows us - wherever that is - and God is there.  “Go make disciples.  Lo, I am with you always.”  (Matthew 28:19,20)

When God’s people - trusting God - dwelt in the land - God dwelt with them.  What God is talking about here is about life with God.  Living in the security of a deeply satisfying - intimate - relationship with God in the place that God is going to show Abraham.

Second promise:  I’m going to make you to be a great nation.

Some of that greatness is about numbers - huge numbers of descendants.  In the four thousand years since Abraham - maybe there’s been a billion Jews.  We don’t know.  But there’s been a lot.

But would you agree that greatness is not just because of numbers?

Every book of the Bible has been written by a Jew or under the influence of a Jew.  Jesus the Messiah is a Jew.  Think about the impact that this small people group has made on the world - on world history - even today.  Huge. 

When we’re willing to trust God with our lives God uses us in ways that go way beyond what we’re able - ways that we can’t even begin to imagine.  Greatness is about what God does in us and through us.

Third promise:  Blessing.  God says, “I’m gonna’ bless you.”

In today’s world - Abraham’s wealth, prestige, and influence would blow Bill Gates out of the water.  No comparison.  But let’s be careful.  God’s blessing isn’t about stuff.  God’s blessing is about what really satisfies our hearts.

God says - Genesis 12:2, “I’m going to bless you and make your name great.”

Abraham’s name is a household word - revered by billions today.  Not because of wealth.  But because of his relationship with God.  What God did in him and through him.  That is a blessing.  Isn’t it?  God Himself - the Almighty Holy God - using us - according to His will - giving to our lives real purpose and meaning and significance.

Then God says - Genesis 12:3:  “In you all the families - all the nations -  of the earth will be blessed.  I’m going to bless the people who bless you and curse the people who curse you”

Those who bless Abraham are going to be blessed.  Those who curse Abraham are going to be cursed.  The dividing line is how people treat Abraham.

Looking down the line of history - is the fulfillment of that promise.  The dividing line of blessing and cursing is how people treat Jesus Christ the descendant of Abraham. 

Grab this:  God is offering to do something incredible here in the life of Abraham - to do something through Abraham that transcends the every day stuff of Abraham’s life.  God is calling Abraham to become part of a larger story.  God’s work of buying back mankind from our sins - His work of restoration - of salvation.  God’s redemptive work in history that flows from Adam - through Abraham - through Jesus Christ descendant of Abraham - crucified on the cross.  God calling mankind to dwell with Him today and forever.

There in the familiar comfort of Haran - God calls on Abraham to step forward in faith.  Which is what Abraham did.  Went to a land he’d never seen - a place he knew nothing about.  He dwelt in tents - lived as an alien - a foreigner - in Canaan - not belonging.

Do you ever think Abraham might have had his doubts?  His fears?  Ever feel like you don’t belong? 

In the midst of all that - the whole stranger in a strange land thing - Abraham is choosing to believe God.  To set aside his fears - to cling God’s promise.  Why?  Verse 10.  “For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Abraham longed for - set aside everything - for what’s coming.  A city who foundations and structure is built by God.  Every day Abraham longed for that dwelling with God.

That incredible offer made to Abraham - spiritually speaking - the same offer God makes to us today.  When we put our trust in God - trusting in Jesus as our Savior - God pours out His blessing on us - and we become part of that larger movement of God through history - part of God’s blessing to others - inheritors of the same promise.

Verse 11 focuses us on Sarah - Abraham’s wife.  Verse 11:  By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.  Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

This is familiar?  Yes?  Abraham is 99.  Sarah is 89.  Old enough to remember when dirt was invented.  God tells Abraham that next year this time Sarah is going to bear a son - Isaac.  And Sarah does what?  She laughs to herself.  “How in God’s creation is that going to happen?”
 

Sarah is not exactly an example of faith.  Right?  

What we need to know here is that while Sarah - at first struggled with her faith - she did eventually cooperate with Abraham.  It takes two to get pregnant - right?  Sarah trusts God - steps forward in faith - taking every day the steps necessary to bear Isaac.  To raise him as God’s promised child.

The result of that faith was not just Isaac.  But their descendants - a great nation.

Verse 13:  All these - who?  Abraham and Sarah’s descendents - they all died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.  For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. - If I say I don’t belong here it means I think I belong someplace else.

Verse 15:  And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. - We could always go back to Haran.

Verse 16:  But as it is, they desire a better country that is, a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Day in and day out - years of waiting - and heartache - and failure - waiting while they moved from Haran to Canaan - even down to Egypt - waiting for God to fulfill His promise of a son - an heir - movement towards the promise God made to Abraham of a dwelling with God - uncountable descendants - great blessing to Abraham and through Abraham to all the nations.  Why wait until it was naturally impossible for Sarah and Abraham to bear children?

Why?  Answer:  So no man could possibly take credit for it - especially Abraham - who is as good as dead.  At the exact time God said Sarah would give birth to a child - Sarah gives birth to a baby boy. 

Who made all that happen?  God.  Who alone is able to accomplish what He wills to accomplish?  God.  Who alone is able fulfill His promises?  God.  This is a God moment - in the daily stuff of life - because this is something only God can do.

Do you think that God story got passed around the family?  Big time.  Verses 13 to 16 focus on the forward looking faith of Sarah and Abraham’s descendants.

How many of you parents pray for your children and your grandchildren - generations to come - pray that they would know Jesus as their personal Savior - that they would deeply know God - serve God - live out God’s purposes for their lives? 

What are all these descendants longing for?  A better country - a heavenly one.  Generation after generation living as exiles - as strangers - on the earth.  Day after day - year after year - through the stuff of life - longing for what’s coming.  They lived looking forward to the fulfillment of prophecy that only God could fulfill.  God choosing to dwell with man.  That day by day faith is the faith of Abraham and Sarah passed on.

Verse 17:  By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.”  He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

Perhaps this is the ultimate test of faith.  How hard would this be?  I can’t even begin to imagine the conflict raging in Abraham.  My son - that I love with every fiber of who I am - heir of God’s promises - all my hopes and dreams - my life is in this child - that I’m tying down on this pile of wood.  Verses - God who calls me to faith in Him - to trust Him.

Every word - every question of Isaac.  “Father, we got the wood and the fire.  Where’s the lamb?”  How do we answer that?  How do we keep going through with this?

The writer of Hebrews says that Isaac is a type - an illustration.  An illustration that Abraham couldn’t fully understand.  We understand it today because we look backward from today - past the cross - to the altar with Isaac laid out as a sacrifice.  Today we know that God so loved the world that God gave - sacrificed - His only begotten Son - Jesus - on a cross - so that whoever of us believes in Jesus - in what God accomplished for us in sacrificing Jesus - will not perish but have eternal life - dwelling with God today and forever.

Abraham had faith that looked forward past the altar with Isaac laid out - past the cross - to what was coming.  Verse 19 says that Abraham “considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead.”  Why?  Because of God’s promise.  What’s coming.  God dwelling with man.  So Abraham trusted God in the here and now - laying Isaac on the altar.

The faith of Abraham and Sarah isn’t about the circumstances surrounding them - what’s familiar - what’s impossible - what looks like a dead end to what once was hope.  Stepping forward in faith isn’t about believing in God.  Even Satan believes in God.

Abraham and Sarah stepped forward in faith believing God.  Taking God at His word and trusting Him - longing for what He promised - regardless of the daily circumstances of their lives.

Verse 20 to 22 focus on The Faith of The Patriarchs.  Let’s say that together.  “The faith of the Patriarchs.”  What we’re going to see here is faith that trusts God even in the face of death.  Three examples.

First example:  Isaac.  To help us get verse 20 in perspective we have a short video clip from our award winning Creekside Drama Group.

(video) 

From birth God said, “The older will serve the younger.”  (Genesis 25:23)  Esau will serve Jacob.  All the subterfuge - selling stew for a birthright - just works to further God’s purpose of fulfilling His promise through Jacob.

Verse 20 says, By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.

A person could argue that Isaac was a doddering old man of 180 and so he was easily deceived.  And he may have been.  But that isn’t the point.  Back in Genesis - after all this deception is brought out into the open - Isaac goes back and blesses Jacob a second time.  An even more purposeful blessing of the younger son instead of the first born.  “May God give you the blessing of Abraham.”  (Genesis 28:1-4)

Both blessings - Jacob’s and Esau’s are about God’s future for these two boys - God’s continued working in their lives - not the natural birth order.  Isaac’s blessing is about faith in what God would do long after Isaac was dead.

Second example:  Jacob.  Verse 21:  By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

Jacob - in an act of worship - meaning he was focused on God - Jacob blesses the two sons of Joseph - Manasseh and Ephraim.  Only Jacob gets it wrong.  He puts his right hand on Ephraim the younger son and his left hand on Manasseh - meaning that Ephraim - the younger son - would get the blessing of the first born.  Joseph tries to switch Jacob’s hands back.  Obviously grandpa who’s 147 isn’t firing on all cylinders.  But Jacob insists.  Purposefully gives the greater blessing to the younger son.

Like Isaac purposefully blessing Jacob - Jacob - at death - by faith is looking past the natural order of things to a time of fulfillment far distant - a time - that as he’s dying - a time he won’t see..  During the divided monarchy - Israel dwelling in the promised land - Ephraim’s descendants were the most powerful tribe in the north.

Example three:  Joseph.  Verse 22:  By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

Joseph said to his brothers, “I’m about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob… Carry my bones up from here.”  (Genesis 50:24,25).

Except for the first 17 years of his life Joseph had lived 93 years in Egypt - raised a family there - risen to the top of Egyptian society.  He’s Egyptian.  In Joseph’s day life in Egypt was good.  God’s people were blessed there.  The Exodus - and the reasons for it - all that oppression - all that isn’t even on the radar.  Why would his people ever return to Canaan?

And yet, Joseph’s longing was to be buried in the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Joseph - at death - is looking beyond death - by faith  

The example of Abraham and Sarah is an example to us of trusting God in the midst of what we do see - what we think we have control over.  The example of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph is about trusting God with what we can’t see - what we could never have control over.

Back in January when mom moved here to Merced I was stressing out.  Stress is like fear on steroids.  And fear is the opposite of what?  Faith.

If there was something to stress about I was stressing.  Getting the UHaul to Redwood City.  Getting mom packed.  Getting all her furniture and stuff on the Uhaul.  Getting back here to Merced in time to off load her stuff and turn in the Uhaul Saturday night.

I was stressing over all the little details that all had to fall into place to make all that happen.  Stressing over all the little things that I knew could go wrong.  Breakdowns.  People not showing up.  Traffic.  If it was possible to go wrong I was stressing over it.

I remember on the way back to Merced - early Saturday afternoon - driving over Pacheco Pass - I remember thinking to myself about how the morning had gone.  Linda and Denise had packed up mom’s stuff perfectly.  The guys from the Hispanic church - that mom used to play piano for - they’d showed up to load the UHaul.  I just stepped out of their way.  They did a professional job of loading.  The whole morning flowed.  Every detail.

I was thinking - as I was driving through the pass - why is faith so much easier in hindsight?  Why couldn’t I have the trust in God that I have now seeing what God did back before God did it?  Ever been there?

Then I started stressing about what would happen when we got to Merced.  Ever have one of those moments when God clobbers you with a 2X4?  “Hey, you in the UHaul.  If I came through in Redwood City don’t you think I’ve got it covered in Merced?”  Ever been there?

Tough choice.  But I decided to believe God.  Not just believe in God.  But to believe God.  “Ok God.  I’ll trust that you’ve got it under control.”

Some of you were there at Emeritus to help mom.  Mom got off loaded.  Set-up in her apartment.  It was amazing how everyone worked together - almost fun.  You all were part of a God moment.

Stuff got dropped of at home - a church.  The UHaul got dropped off Saturday night.  Last truck onto the lot.  But it was there.  God had it covered.

Hear this:  If God has eternity covered do you think He might just have all the stuff between now and then covered as well?  Even if we don’t see it?  Even if we have no control over it.

Sometimes we think we have control over it - the day to day stuff.  Which may be harder to trust God with because its easier to delude ourselves into thinking we can control the day to day stuff.

But death - and what comes beyond - where we fit in God’s plans - the future of our children and families - what control do we have over that? 

Faith is the assurance - because God is God - that we can live today convinced that what God has promised is already a done deal.  Faith is the assurance that we can live longing for what God has coming.

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