History of Faith – Part 3 (Hebrews 11:17-19)

Strengthen your trust in God’s past faithfulness and His plans. Gain insight into enduring faith during difficult times and how to trust God fully through every trial.

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We’re looking at, I think, our 3rd installment, if I’m if I’m not mistaken, on this series, on this little mini series here in Hebrews, titled the history of faith, and we’re gonna read these scriptures together very short, but powerful.
Hebrews 11 verses 17 to 19 is where we’re at, and I’ll begin in verse 17.
If you’ll pick it up and read your one and only verse tonight, church, is verse 18.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.
Of who he said, in Isaac, your seed shall be called.
Concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.
Lord, bless our study tonight. May we honor you and give you all the glory, and tonight, Lord God, may we leave this building equipped and ready to take on any of those who would attack the deity of Jesus, any of those who would say that God doesn’t love, that God did not provide a savior, Lord, tonight, may we leave with more answers in our belt, as it were, to pull out and to give to anyone who would ask of us, what is the reason for that hope that you have inside of you?
And that we would answer them from the word of God.
We pray it now in Jesus’ name, and all God’s people said, amen. You may be seated.
So we’re having some fun with this title in this little mini series, the history of faith.
It’s almost sounds like, uh, what is known as an oxymoronic statement. The history of faith.
Can you put those 2 together? The answer to that is absolutely yes.
History, we have confined history, uh, in the general way of thinking of that which has happened.
So today, you lived your life. This date in history, uh, will be done.
Tomorrow is coming, and this day will go into the annals of history. History is all that is past.
But we better be careful as believers because the fact of the matter is that there is the history of faith throughout the bible.
And when you talk about the word faith, we’ve been learning that faith is that which is ahead.
Faith listen. You know people who’ll say, and I get it. I agree with it.
Uh, you know, oh, hindsight is a wonderful thing. We’ve all had that kind of a saying as hindsight.
If you only had hindsight, meaning, if I could have known in advance.
I remember my mom.
I don’t know why, or what the context was of her saying this, but my mom would always say, if I would’ve known when I was younger what I know now, I would’ve made so many different decisions.
And that’s a great statement because we are to learn from our mistakes and or the mistakes of others.
Right? Think about that. Well, we learn from history. But as believers, history belongs to God.
Did you know that? He’s the one that presides over it. History’s not gone.
It’s just in the record books now. Listen, my history’s not gone.
Your history is not gone, so to speak. It’s in the history books of God.
And there’ll be a day as a believer we’re that we’re very excited about as a believer.
There’s a day that we’re gonna come before the Lord and history will be brought up.
And our Christian walk, our Christian example will be, uh, reviewed by the Lord.
And that’s a very challenging thing because the Bible tells us in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verses 9 and 10.
But as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard nor it entered the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him.
But God has revealed them to us through his spirit for the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
And the Bible tells us, and we’ll read in a moment, the Bible tells us that there’ll be a day when we as believers will be reintroduced to our history while here on earth before the judgment seat of Christ.
I want to remind you before we dive into this short section is that back in verse 8, the Bible tells us and it applies to us.
The Bible there says, Hebrews 11 verse 8, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.
Now, there’s a lot of action verbs in all of this. Watch this.
And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
We have a tendency to chuckle at that, and and I’m guilty of it more than anybody.
But it’s it’s it’s an amazing declaration that Abraham obeyed. He just obeyed.
When God spoke, Abraham knew it was God speaking because none of the pagan gods, by the way, that he had worshiped in Ur of the Chaldees could talk.
Out of nowhere, this voice comes out of heaven and speaks to Abraham, and Abraham obeys, and he obeys the calling that’s upon his life.
And that was to leave the place that he was residing in because God had an inheritance for him.
Imagine this. This is we’re going back 1,000 and 1,000 of years ago.
And he went out that Abraham went out following God, really, and didn’t even know where he was going.
That is a very very radical and awesome faith statement.
Many times in our lives Christians that you and I, when we live our Christian life, listen to the most extreme, God will tell you to do something and he will make it clear that it’s him speaking, but he will not give you much to act on.
You and I, we say, God, are you speaking to me?
Speak to me, God, and God speaks, and you’re pretty sure.
But you’re you’re listen, you hesitate, you pause, you’re you’re fearful.
And we know it’s fear because we don’t act on the initial calling.
We don’t wanna budge until God listen, we want God to reveal the whole plan for the next 45 years, and then we’ll move.
And God says, Nope. I’m telling you right now, put one foot in front of the other, or else I’m not gonna tell you the rest of it.
And that’s what Abraham did.
He took the 1st step, 2nd step, 3rd step, step, and he just kept going.
Listen, the more you go with God, the more he reveals.
You can be a wonderful believer, but you’re you’re hesitating.
Timidity or fear is holding you back, and God is calling you to step out, and it’s eating you up.
It’s not going away. It’s intensifying, But God is, listen, God is saying, come on.
And you’re pulling back, and he wants you to step. He wants you to move forward.
And we could listen, we we all know that we’re in that moment when we have all of our we have all of our really good excuses as to why we shouldn’t take the second step.
And, uh, friends will listen to those excuses.
You’ll listen to them the most, but God doesn’t accept them.
I think you should be aware of that, that when God speaks to his kids, it’s all about moving in faith, and it’s all about faith looking ahead.
And it’s our action, the faith, that winds up settling our history as a believer.
This is where we’re at last time very quickly because it has to come together because I’m gonna give the first five things that we studied last time together because tonight is number 6.
And it’s this regarding the history of faith. We saw this in verse 13.
That the history of faith, faith thinks about the future. Faith thinks about the future.
Today we had somebody called the church, which is not uncommon, and they’re on the brink of suicide.
And they’re gonna commit suicide, they tell us. Why? They have no future. Something has consumed them.
Something has gotten in the way, and they need faith. They might say they have faith.
They might say, I know who Jesus is, but he’s not operational in their life.
It’s like saying, I have faith in a parachute, but you never use it.
I personally don’t have faith in parachutes.
Why would anybody jump out of a perfectly good airplane is insane to me.
But you may like it, good for you. I don’t have enough faith.
Number 2 was this, is that faith acts into the future.
Everything about your faith as a believer thinks about the future and it acts into the future.
3rd is faith moves based on the future. Time is running.
And as a believer, I think we are more conscious of of conscious of time than anybody else.
We know that the finish line’s coming, And so we want to make sure that every moment counts.
Faith moves based on the future.
Number 4 is that faith plans for the future. It takes a lot of faith to plan into the future.
Young people need to hear this right now, tonight. There’s a future.
So I thought you said Christ is coming back. That’s a future. That’s a forever future.
Are you ready to meet him?
And listen, not only do we plan for the future, I told you guys last time together, it takes a lot of discipline to believe that Christ could come back tomorrow, but to have your family and your plans ready for the next 25 to 50 years in disciplines.
Because the Bible says you’re to occupy till I come. You and I do not know when he’s coming.
I do pray that he comes tonight. Wouldn’t it be amazing? It’s a great night for him to come.
I guess it’s always a great night. It’s a great morning.
It’s always a great moment for him to come.
Oh, if you knew where we were going and what you would be seeing.
You’d all we’d all just go up now. We wouldn’t wait.
We would just go to him now. Get a big ladder. Right? And say, Lord, here we come like Jacob.
Up we go. But number 5 is this, faith rests upon the future.
I love that one. It’s where we ended last time. Faith rests upon the future.
You don’t need to worry about the future. God’s got it all.
And your faith walk, your growth in Christ has got to advance to that point to where, just as God has got your past, are you not trusting God regarding your past?
All of your victories, all of your defeats, all of your what?
Tomorrow, I’ll be a Christian for 47 years tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s June 20th, and in 1977 I came to Christ, and God washed my past away.
He gave me a future.
And the Bible tells us that God, because of what Christ did at the cross, will remember none of the things regarding our bad past.
It’s washed away in the blood. Listen, friends.
If you don’t know how it is or what it is to have your guilt, shame washed away, then you need Jesus tonight.
Because here’s what’s fun about that.
When the enemy when I say the enemy, I mean the dark world, but I also mean this world, and I also mean the world of my flesh.
When my memory flashes up, or a name, or a situation, or a song comes blasting into my heart or mind from the past.
And instant you guys know this. Right?
When you hear a song, some of you haven’t lived long enough yet.
When you hear a song, it will conjure up where where you are at, what you are doing, what was going on.
There are certain songs that, of course, many of you know, and I hear them, and I think the same thing that it’s not so much that it’s the doors.
Listen, I’m going somewhere with this. The doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles.
Okay. Yep. Beach Boys were I’m talking about the songs of the Vietnam era.
That when I hear them still to this time, it’s like, wow.
But maybe for some of you, it’s the era of 2,001, and 911, and all that kind of stuff.
It brings things up. Listen, not all of those memories you wanna remember.
Here’s the fun part about being a believer.
When those things come up from the past, as a believer, the Bible tells me, take that thought captive and bring it under the authority of Jesus Christ, and you don’t need to let it bother you anymore.
Seriously. Total freedom. And I love it.
The Bible tells us in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 6, So we are always confident knowing that while we’re at home in the body, that is living in our bodies, we are absent from the lord.
That’s an obvious statement. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Verse 8.
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
That’s the believer’s desire. Somebody’s gonna say, hood sounds so morbid.
You clearly don’t know a thing about heaven.
Let me interrupt myself, which is not uncommon either is this.
So why do we build amusement parks as a culture and as a human people?
All over the world, there’s amusement parks. Why do we do that? You know what the word amuse means?
Basically, I’ll paraphrase it. To amuse means to empty your mind of nothing.
You do know what muse means. Right? To muse on something?
When you go to a museum, you are looking at these incredible paintings and you’re musing.
That’s what you’re doing. I don’t know if you knew that or not.
When you’re standing there going like this. What are you doing? You’re diving into that Monet.
You’re finding out about it. Rembrandt, whoever it might be, and you’re looking into it.
There are those, and this makes for a rough family outing.
There are those, like myself, I’ll stand in front of a painting for too long.
But my family walks by paintings. Seen that one? That’s nice. Oh, that’s pretty. Those are cool flowers.
That makes for a rough visit to the museum. Why? Because they wanna be amused.
I wanna muse. Amuse is to take thoughts and meditations out of your mind, and you go to a amusement park so that you don’t deal with reality.
But why do we think about these things?
Because we’re trying to establish some form of relief inside of us, because we wanna experience something that is beyond us.
The magic kingdom, the happiest place on earth until you have to pay to get in.
I’m surprised they don’t have a suicidal ward off to the side when you get your bill to go into that place.
It’s only happy if somebody bought you a ticket. But why do people go?
Because they wanna just see something that is beyond us.
Well, listen, what the Lord has for us is beyond us, and when we say, we can’t wait to see Jesus, when we say things like, oh, I hope the Lord comes back.
You know, our neighbors don’t know what we’re talking about. Our family thinks we’re nuts.
They don’t get it what the Bible says right here, that we are well pleased to be absent from this body, and to be present with the Lord.
You know that? Listen, if you can’t get that under your belt, then what are you gonna do when things get tough?
God says, when you leave this body, you are with him in an instant. And it’s very, very good.
All 7 of us believe that, and it’s thrilling.
Wouldn’t it be great if the 7 of us got raptured right about now? No.
I’m kidding. Well, you should have participated earlier. Okay. Too late. Already happened.
Verse 9, therefore we make it our aim whether present, that is on this earth or absent, that is gone from here to with him, to be well pleasing to him, that’s the lord.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, the bema, b e m a, bema, seat of Christ.
All believers must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Not God the father, but Christ the son.
That each one may receive the things done in the body according to what has been done whether good or bad.
Was your motive good or was your motive bad? Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
What does that mean? We want as many men and women, and boys and girls to come with us to heaven as possible.
So number 6 in our study, the history of faith is this, verse 17.
That faith endures looking to the future. It endures. A biblically based faith endures.
Hardship, difficulty, tribulations, illnesses, the drama of this world.
By faith, Abraham, when, that’s his time statement, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.
Now, please make a note of this.
You’re gonna be tempted to think, wait a minute, Jack, shouldn’t Isaac be the one that’s honored here in this?
Well, he’s coming up later in the chapter. But just get this down right now.
And those of you who are not parents, you’re not gonna be able to relate to this.
When it says by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.
Seems like it seems like Isaac’s the one being tested. Who’s gonna die in this scenario? Abraham or Isaac?
Isaac. He’s as good as dead. Do you see where I’m going?
It’s the love of the father that is much more painful than the sacrifice of the son.
The sacrifice of the son, he can willingly and he will.
We’ll see it soon. Isaac, like Jesus, laid down his life willingly. We’ll see this.
The text demands it. But it’s the heartbreak of the father.
It’s what the father is going to do.
It’s what the father knows, and in this case, what the son doesn’t know yet.
And in that is an incredible biblical doctrine of kenosis. The kenosis of Christ.
We’ll study that some other time, it’s absolutely awesome.
But the Bible tells us here that he was tested, Abraham was tested.
You have to circle the word tested.
This is what it means, and we need to know it because this is gonna define your life and mine.
I’m not gonna ask you to raise your hand, but if you’re a Christian, you should put your initials next to this here.
Tested is the word to make proof of.
To make proof of, to attempt, to test, to expose to testing.
The believer’s faith must be exposed to testing, to try as in a fire under pressure.
Example, the making of a diamond or a pearl. A diamond. How is a diamond formed?
Under great pressures of earth, isn’t it? Under great pressure and great heat, we get diamonds.
The pursuit of the world, diamonds.
And when you go down into the bowels of the earth, you’ll find diamonds and you’ll find things like gold and other things that are precious.
Every single one of them have something in association with suffering.
Pressure, tension, and then a pearl.
Uh, I think this is still true. Is this not true?
Aren’t pearls created by the the the oyster being irritated? Yes. And it comes out of suffering.
And the Bible says the same for us. But listen, I’m here to cheer you up.
Faith endures. A biblical faith will make it through.
Because listen, your faith is not in the circumstances, your faith is in Christ, who gets you through the circumstances.
He doesn’t listen. There could be a burning building right there, and he may take you around it, or he may take you through it.
Now, for those of us who are not firefighters, we’ll go around it.
But if you are a firefighter and a believer in the Lord Jesus, you’re trusting him to take you through it, aren’t you?
And God does that in our own lives every day.
How are don’t answer, but how are things going in your life? How are things going in your family?
How’s your marriage? How’s the situation? How’s work? How’s life?
And we’ve got more woes now than we have in in my lifetime that I can remember.
All of these things stacking up, we can barely afford to breathe anymore.
But does that worry you? Does that keep you up at night?
I understand this that you you might say, well, Pastor, that’s that’s easy.
Our lights, you know, our power’s getting turned off because we can’t pay the bill, and we’ve cut everything back.
We’re living in days like this. People, we find that hard to believe in the West Coast.
But, uh, have you ever taken the time, and we ought to take mission trips.
We don’t have to go we don’t have to go to some foreign country to help those that are hurting.
Did you know that there are people in West Virginia, in this country of ours that have no shoes?
They have such a horrific diet because they’re so poor, we need to love on them.
But listen, is faith out of their reach? No. Maybe they have great faith.
The point is this, faith endures. How does it endure? Look into the future.
Look into the future.
And by the way, when you suffer in this world, and Christian, listen, you and I should be known as experts in managing suffering.
You know that. I don’t mean that as a joke.
I don’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings when I say this, but there are Christians who have been Christians for a long time, but they’ve never had any suffering, and so they’re very shallow.
They’ve never had to go deep because they’ve never had much pain.
Then there are the Christians who either are young or old, it doesn’t matter, but what short time or long time they’ve had with Jesus, it’s been filled with pain, And they’re wonderful to be around.
You get so much more out of someone who has suffered with Jesus and whose faith has endured.
Those are the people you wanna hang out with.
I’m telling you right now, church, they are the ones that you wanna sit down with and say, tell me how God worked in your life.
Tell me what he’s doing. And when God does that, there is a power that emanates out of them through their suffering that you cannot buy.
There’s no pill that’s gonna give you that. There’s no drink. There’s no counselor. There’s nobody on the planet.
That when we who have endured suffering share with others what Christ has got us through, great comfort comes upon them.
Yes. And I gotta tell you, all glory be to our God, because listen, when things come to you and they say, we don’t know how this is gonna go, and it could go really bad.
When you sit there, when you actually know you’re flooded with this peace of whatever outcome is good with me.
So what’s wrong with you? God’s overwhelmed me with peace.
Boy, you should bite your nails. Don’t want to. Don’t need to.
Listen, if you don’t know our God, you need to know him because he shows up when things are the worst.
He shows up when things are in doubt. He shows up.
And in that final moment of your life, he’s gonna show up.
Your faith is in him. He is so good.
Earlier in this chapter, verse 13, it says that these all died in faith, not having received the promises.
Well, what does that mean? It means their faith endured looking to the future. That’s what it means.
But having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
That’s the life of the believer.
James chapter 1, you’re gonna wanna this is one of those verses or those sections that you wanna memorize, but then your hope never comes to you, but then you realize once you’re in the midst of it it’s like, alright.
Let’s let’s do this. James chapter 1 verse 2. You guys okay?
Verse 2, James chapter 1.
My brethren, so he’s talking to his brothers and sisters in Christ, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
See the word trials? It’s not temptations. It’s trials.
Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Don’t we hate that word?
Yeah. We shouldn’t, though. There’s power in that.
Again, there’s not only power in the word.
The only thing more powerful than the word is experiencing the development of patience.
How does that happen? But let patience have its perfect work. Just relax.
That you may be perfect or complete, lacking nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let them ask of God.
Hey, let’s do this right now.
Dear Lord in heaven, Father, we all pray for wisdom right now.
We wanna, Lord, be caught right now asking you for wisdom because we ain’t got none.
Lord, we need you and the wisdom from above, not human wisdom, not any human source.
Lord, we pray, each and every one of us pray right now, Lord, for your wisdom to be upon us.
We ask you believing, because it’s in your Bible. We’re praying your Bible. Amen.
And so, Lord, we thank you for the wisdom that you give us.
Let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.
He’s talking to Christians, you guys. He is a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Can a Christian be double minded and unstable in all of his ways? Yes.
You can be going to heaven, your soul’s secure in the blood of Christ, but your life’s miserable because you make one dumb decision after another because you have no wisdom.
You should ask God believing him and he’s gonna provide.
He said, why do you say this in light of faith enduring?
Because this is what you and I need when we are enduring. Lord, you got this.
Give me patience, and here’s this is a big one.
Lord, whatever we’re going through right now, cause me to be still and to hang on to you and to know that you’re God because, lord, I don’t wanna repeat this one.
Are you with me on that? I don’t want to repeat trials.
Listen, when we get to the first one, put a bow on it, and send it off and say, Lord, that was gnarly.
I know you said that you won’t give us anything that we can’t handle with you, but I had my doubts there for a while.
So just get me ready for the next one.
And then the next one hits and he reminds you.
Now remember, I won’t give you something that without me you can’t handle.
Lord, will you remind me that throughout the day? And get through it.
Don’t disobey and have to redo it.
Christians who don’t grow, they just go through the same trial for 40 years because they never get to the second one.
Faith wants listen, It’s active and wants to grow, but faith, listen, was built to endure.
That shouldn’t be strange to us.
We see things in life that are built to endure. It’s amazing.
Listen to what Jesus said about this struggle, about this thing of the Christian life.
Matthew 5 verse 3 says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. You know what that means?
That means blessed are the poor in spirit, they understand that they cannot do anything in and of their own strength or of or of their own so called righteousness.
They see them selves for who they really are, but they also realize that they’re blessed in Christ and God.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is God’s design that, listen, you and I, that we own nothing on this earth.
Now don’t run out and freak out yet. How how can you say that?
It’s God’s design that you and I own nothing in this world as believers.
And there’s a blessedness to the realization of the Christian who really realizes there’s nothing that I can own.
He said, I’ll take issue with that, pastor.
I just bought a new home, or I just bought a new car, or I just bought some new shoes.
I understand that.
And if you were to say to me that you have the pink slip, good for you.
Or the deed, good for you.
You could own a cattle on a 1000 hills and a 1000 hills on every hilltop.
You know you don’t own it.
And listen, the fact of the matter is, are you taking it with you?
If you own it, are you taking it with you? You’re not taking it with you.
Well, Jeff, where’s the blessing in this? Here’s the blessing.
How is it that some Christians seemingly own everything?
I’ve noticed the Christians who seemingly own everything, they don’t own anything.
When you find out to get to know them, they don’t own it.
Oh, don’t get me wrong.
Their name might be on the deed, or their name might be on the building, or their name might be on the will, or the trust, or the it doesn’t that’s not what I’m talking about.
You could be the you could be Elon Musk tonight, and literally Elon Musk without Christ owns literally nothing because tonight, Jesus Christ could touch Elon Musk’s brain or heart, and it’s all gone.
And he’s taken it nowhere.
The man who sent spaceships into space like no other ain’t going anywhere without Jesus.
But you could be worth all of those countless 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars that he has and be in absolute prison and turmoil and pain, suffering and sorrow, or Elon Musk tonight can turn all of his wealth over to where it’s in the hands of the one who’s given it to him in the first place.
You know, it’s God that gave Elon his brain and his creativity and his freedoms, and God could take them away.
But listen, that same goodness should lead him, Musk, to follow Christ as it is you.
You can be you can point at Elon and say, yeah. That Elon. And God is saying, wait a minute.
What about you? You live in a little shack, you got a scooter, and you and you, uh, you own it.
And there’s no place for me in your heart.
See, listen, it’s not what you have or what you don’t have.
The believer is not to own anything. God owns it all.
He’s imparted to us what you and I have access to as management. Stewardship. Did you know that?
Stewardship. When you look at somebody, you say, why do they have that stuff?
God’s entrusted that to them. Don’t look at them. Don’t worry about them.
Whatever you have with faith, moving into the future, even in the life that’s gonna demand hardships and difficulty, manage what you have for his glory because you don’t own it.
He loaned it to you. Do you have a baby? Do you have kids? Do you have grown kids?
Loners. They’re all loners. I mean, they’re not loners. God you know what I mean.
God loaned them to you. God loaned them to you.
Boy, I tell you, when your babies are little and sick and you’re in the hospital and the doctors tell you, you know, we don’t know if she’s gonna make it.
You wake up real quick as to who owns this child.
It’s him, and he owns you.
The key in our lives is to own nothing. Manage everything, but own nothing. Liberty and freedom.
In fact, you say, I don’t know if I agree.
Yes, you do. Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, right here.
Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let him have, what?
Did did he say ownership? No. He said, dominion.
Stewardship, control over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
That’s awesome. Because you know what?
Before the fall, that was supposed to be that was supposed to be our to do list.
Before the fall, we walked around where we would’ve.
We would’ve been walking around before the fall, Adam. Birds probably came and landed on him.
He’s talking to the birds. Well, think about what this means before Adam fell.
The creeping things on the earth, that sounds creepy. I’m not interested in that.
It must have been amazing. There’s nothing in this that’s bad.
When God said, I want you to steward over everything that I’ve given you. It’s all for you to enjoy.
It must have been amazing. Stewardship.
Never let God’s gifts or good things take the place of God himself.
Everything good should cause us to run to him and say, thank you.
In AW Tozer’s book, The Pursuit of God, there’s the chapter of the blessedness of owning nothing.
He talks about Abraham.
And he mentions that Abraham was financially rich beyond all the men of the earth.
He had everything but possessed nothing. Nothing.
He had possessed him but God alone.
See, we’re coming to a portion right here, right now, where God is gonna call Abraham to offer up his son.
Why would God do that? Did God need Isaac to be sacrificed? Nope.
Abraham needed his son, Isaac, to be sacrificed. Why?
Because Isaac is clearly in the way between Abraham and God. How do we know?
Because the announcement is given to Abraham after the Lord stops him from plunging a dagger into his son’s heart as a sacrifice, God stops him and says, now I know God already knew.
Abraham didn’t. Now I know that you’ll that you love me and you’ll you’ll withhold nothing from me.
God knows all things. He can’t learn anything. You know who didn’t know that? Abraham didn’t know that.
Somewhere deep inside, friends, is a challenge in our hearts, on the altar of our heart.
It could be money, it could be a person, it could be a husband, a wife, a child, a parent, it could be a pursuit.
It could be the future itself without God is an idol.
I’m gonna say something that’s gonna upset people, but I’m gonna ask you to think about this before you even comment.
How much do we wanna see this nation turn back to god?
Enough to pay the price? What does that mean?
I’m getting a little concerned, to be honest with you, where I see a lot of Christians, maybe ill intended, maybe ignorantly intended.
I don’t know what, but I see things going on right now that did you know that everything is gonna be better after November?
That’s what I’m hearing. It’s all gonna get better after November. Have you heard somebody say this?
You say, what are you saying? You know exactly what I’m saying.
Whoever gets elected, this nation is so spiritually broken.
It is so absolutely destitute of what pleases and honor honors God.
That it doesn’t matter who gets elected in November unless you and I repent as believers of our national sins.
And if you don’t understand that, you’ve got a rude awakening coming.
Because your person could get elected and nothing changes.
God bows to no one, and God doesn’t use any man to usher in his kingdom.
When the church is wayward from God, without repentance, then you can only with educated eyes upon the Bible conclude the worst is yet to come.
Unless we turn, unless we repent.
And I applaud Louisiana tonight for blessing God by reinstalling the 10 Commandments. But that’s listen.
That’s just the first step of getting this nation back. You say, well, what do I do if it’s overwhelming?
In your own home. In my own home. In my own life.
In your own life. This is serious stuff because, well, aren’t you MAGA?
Aren’t you make America great again?
I like the other hat that says, make America godly again. But if listen.
I guarantee you, everybody’s hanging their hat on Donald Trump, poor Donald Trump.
He he’s gonna be expected to perform with that kind of weight, and it’s all gonna be better in November.
Listen. If that is your plan, then God will see to it that Trump never gets elected.
You wanna know why? Because you’ve made him an idol. Isaac was an idol.
And Abraham, God speaks to Abraham, we’ll get into it next week.
We’re out of time. I can’t believe it.
God speaks to Abraham and he says this, Abraham, he says, yes, Lord.
I want you to take your son, your only son. God said that. I thought he had Ishmael.
He did. The God of the bible did not recognize Ishmael, the child of the flesh.
Ishmael did not come around by a promise. Did you know that?
Ishmael came with an old man sleeping with a young girl because the old man’s wife said, look, I ain’t gonna endure this faith thing anymore.
I’m looking to the future, and I’m just seeing more wrinkles. It ain’t happening, Abraham.
So you take my maid, And and you and then when the baby comes out, I’ll grab the baby, and we’ll adopt the baby.
And that was Sarah’s plan. And Abraham said, I’ll pray about it. Okay? Where is she?
And Ishmael was born, and never was Ishmael a child of promise, was he?
Never once, not once. God had earlier told them, you are gonna be pregnant, Sarah, and you’re gonna bring forth a son.
He’s the son of a covenant. He’s the son of promise.
And listen, read the fine print. I read it through just again today to make sure.
She laughed. You know she laughed.
But I was reminded today that when that was first announced, Abraham fell on his face before the Lord, and in the dirt, it says he left.
And he left and he said, shall I, an old man, and my wife Sarah, an old woman, have a child?
Apparently, his and Abraham never got in trouble for that, but Sarah did get in trouble for laughing because I think maybe she laughed loud or long.
But the Lord said, hey, I heard you laugh. And she goes, I didn’t laugh.
He goes, no, I heard you laugh. I made your ears. I know how they work.
I heard you laugh. Isaac is the impossible son.
He’s the one that has promised.
And can you imagine, We’ll pick this up next week.
Can you imagine the old man, a 100 years old? Little baby. Little baby.
Can you imagine him leaning over and picking up this kid?
Think about it.
Decades of promises, finally fulfilled, wondering, hope deferred, so to speak, while you’re traveling on the future, and yet the future seemingly never comes.
And now you’re holding the future. This is my lineage.
We don’t get it listen, we don’t get it in America. We don’t get it in our western culture.
We have no depth to this. In the Middle East, you better have a son.
Listen, when my family dies off, when I die off, my name ends.
And if I sit in the Middle East, people would start crying, oh, poor Jack.
Well, in the West, we don’t care. I mean, let’s be honest.
There’s people that are so and so so and so so and so the 5th.
Well, that’s cool. I guess that’s cool.
But for those of us who ain’t got that, it’s like I was just passing through in the 1st place.
You know? But in the Middle East, they think completely different. You gotta have a son.
The name’s gotta continue. It’s everything. And he’s holding everything.
Did they go fishing together? Of course. Did they ride donkeys and camels together?
Of course. Did they do business together? Of course. Abraham was the richest man.
You think he taught everything to Isaac? Both boys, no doubt, because he loved them both.
But he had to look at that kid and say, man, Ishmael, I know how that happened.
Isaac, how did this happen? How does this happen?
This is impossible. The God who is the object of our faith dwells in the impossible.
He revels in the impossible.
Listen, friends, your future, I hope listen, my future, whatever that may be, I am trusting him to make it impossible.
I want your I want your future to be impossible. Well, it’s kinda threatening.
Not well, I’m getting ahead.
You’ll have to come back next week to learn how that works.
Father, we come tonight and such a great and awesome God.
And you know, Lord, I pray that you’d speak to any anyone who’s listening right now who’s either not a believer or wavering or whatever the case may be, that just the entire concept of faith is so bizarre, it’s so beyond us as humans that it just screams your existence.
Because we never would have put that on ourselves.
If we invented this whole thing, we never would have done it like this, Faith.
And here we are tonight where faith is the big challenge, and it always has been, to people’s existence, to people’s future, to life.
Faith. We have faith in business partners. We have faith in husbands and wives.
We have faith in seat belts. We have faith all the time.
So why is having faith in the unseen God such a big deal?
Because we confess tonight, we are very concerned about our lives.
Do we dare cast ourselves into the hands of an invisible God?
Do we dare leave the end of our lives to someone who we’ve never met, to have washed away our sins and to carry us up into heaven that we do not slip down into hell?
Well, the truth is, yes, we do believe in him.
Yes, we do have faith in him, because we know that without him, faith would be impossible.
You see, friends, listen, he first loved us, that’s why we love him.
You know, he spoke to you first and said, You’re not right with me.
I want you to be right with me, but you’re not.
I’m God, and you’re a sinner, and I love you, and I’m here to tell you you’re not right, and I want you to be right with me.
I want you to set your life right by coming to my son, Jesus Christ.
And you’ll have to exercise faith.
But listen, you know down deep inside of you where nobody sees, nobody hears, you alone with yourself.
Have you noticed down deep inside you’re not alone?
There’s a voice coming in from the outside at the very least, saying, let me in.
Hand it over. Give up. Come to me.
All the enduring that you’ve gone through has brought you to this moment for you to say yes, because no one can help you.
There’s no answer coming, friend.
Even if the envelope is in the mail tomorrow, there’s nothing of this world that can make it right, but God alone.
And he made it right through Jesus Christ.
While we’re praying church, can you stand to your feet right now?
Father, I pray right now, and I’m asking you Lord for these that are here in this body of believers Lord God that you’d bestow upon them absolute abounding faith.
Lord, will you gift us with faith, a greater faith?
And we can hear you speak right back, faith comes by hearing, Jack. Hearing by the Word of God.
Yes, Lord. Will you open up our ears to hear more clearly?
God, open up our eyes that we would see more clearly?
Lord, would you make us blind the things of this wicked world and crystal clear vision to the things of heaven?
God, will you make us no longer having an appetite for dark things in this world, and turn and be obsessed with the light of God.
To be consumed in your glory and to be like Abraham, perhaps atop Mount Moriah, as we’ll see next week, who struggled with you, but finally came to that moment.
If my son dies, he will live again. Yes. That’s it.
And if we have any less faith than that, we cannot claim to be sons and daughters of Abraham.
So Lord, we need you, and we praise you. We praise you now in song.
We praise you in our closing. And Lord be with us this week. Holy Spirit come upon us.
Lead us and guide us. May the countenance of your face be ever before us.
May your grace and your mercy surround us.
And, father, as we leave this building tonight, may we be careful about all the stuff on the radio, or the screen, or conversations that could take us away from musing upon the things of God.