Faith - Hebrews 11:17-19

God himself will provide the lamb.

Now, Abraham didn't know what he was saying there in a sense. He assumed that Isaac was the lamb. He didn't know that God would stop him after he had bound his son and after he had lifted the knife. He didn't know that there would be a ram caught in the thicket that would be offered instead of his son. When we're reading Genesis, we finish that story and Abraham calls the name of the place the Lord will provide. And we're left there to reflect both on how Abraham passed the test and what God was trying to teach him in the first place. I would commend to you one of the best books I've ever read is a devotional by A.W. Tozer called The Pursuit of God. And there's a chapter in that book called The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing that reflects on what God was teaching Abraham. But it's interesting to me here because that's not the primary focus of the author of Hebrews. For him, the focus is not on the act of Abraham, but the exegesis of Abraham. And I'll explain to you what I mean. The focus is not on what Abraham does, born of some kind of supernatural will, but how he thinks, born of faith like a child. So look at the text again. He takes us right to the crucial moment.

He who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, the one of whom it was said through Isaac, your offspring shall be named.

And then in verse 19, he takes us to what is going through Abraham's mind while he has the knife in the air.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Now, before we get to why his thought process is so helpful to us as we think about the life of faith, we might ask, how does the writer of the book of Hebrews know what Abraham was thinking 2,000 years earlier? I mean, it's inspired scripture so that the spirit could have revealed it to him directly, but I think the author here is just reading the Old Testament closely. Because if you go back to Genesis 22, And you read verse five, as they approach the mountain, Mount Moriah, Abraham turns to his two accompanying men, who I think are on the journey, just so Abraham can say this to them.

Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and we'll come again to you.

Now, when we read the story, we might pass over that because we might think Abraham is just kind of hiding the awful truth. from Isaac. That's not what the writer here thinks. He realizes that Abraham, speaking from our vantage point, is comparing scripture with scripture. He has no written Bible, he just has the statements that God has made to him. And the fruit of his mental, his emotional, his spiritual wrestling the night before has been this. Number one, God said, it's through Isaac that my offspring would be named. In fact, that they're gonna be as numerous as the stars in the sky, right? And Sarah and I tried to come up with plan B with Hagar and Ishmael, and God confirmed and said, no, no, no, it's gonna be Isaac. So I know it's gotta be Isaac, number one. Number two, God said, kill Isaac. Number three, the only way these two things can go together is that I kill Isaac and God raises him from the dead. In many ways, it's beautifully simple. It's the faith of a child here. Now, let's remember as we think about it that unlike us, Abraham has no teaching on the resurrection of the dead. The first people recorded raised from the dead in the Bible was in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. When you get to the Psalms and we read about God not letting his holy ones see decay. You get to the book of Daniel, and you have in the Old Testament some clear teaching about a resurrection from the dead that's gonna happen, but he doesn't have any of that teaching. I mean, think about what we have in comparison. Ben's sermon from last Sunday just reflecting on how essential our knowledge of the resurrection of the dead that's coming. We've got all that, but Abraham didn't have any kind of teaching like that. And let's remember also that unlike people in the Bible whose child has died and they come to the prophet or they come to Jesus wanting the prophet or Jesus to raise them from the dead, Abraham's child is alive when this happens. He's got everything to lose. So it's just amazing to step back and think about the thought process of the man here. Now, I want us to think about three ways that we can apply this to our own life of faith. All three of these deal with how we think, how we reason, how we consider, in the same way that Abraham did. So three things, if you wanna write them down as we go through. Number one, realize your faith must have a firm foundation. realize your faith must have a firm foundation. We sing that song,

how firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word.

We remember Jesus' parable about the man who builds his house upon the rock. But here it's on such amazing display. In one sense, most of us don't go through anything approaching what Abraham went through, right? But we do all go through a stripping away of the foundations we try to choose in life that just don't do us any good. I mean, I often think about how growing up, we just learn to put our best foot forward, to look for things that we're good at, to build a resume, either actual or in our mind, of things that we think give us security in life. And then as we go through, we just watch how they fail us and they fail us and they fail us. There's no bedrock under any of the things on your resume or mine. you and I have to sink pillars down into something more solid, uh, which here it's the promise of God, right? That that's the bedrock on which Abraham builds. God said to me, this is what's going to happen. So for us to ask ourselves first, is your confidence, is your life in a sense being built on the promises of God? Do we know the promises of God? Are we studying this book? It's wonderful for us to have lots of other conversation partners in life, things we watch on YouTube, podcasts we listen to, but beyond and underneath and stronger than all of that, Are we building on the bedrock of the promises of God? So number one, realize your faith must have a firm foundation. Number two, realize your faith must move from promise to obedience. There's a direction here. First God made promises to Abraham and Sarah that they were supposed to bank on. Then come commands that make these promises doubtful, hard, questionable perhaps. The commands test whether there's confidence in the promises. So obeying commands for us will test our faith in the promise of God. I was thinking about how often it's issues of marriage and of sexuality that put these to the test. So the Christian single who wants to be married faces temptation to compromise standards to achieve the goal. They might reason that God said marriage is a good thing. And yes, God says I shouldn't marry an unbeliever, but it's half good if I get married, right? Do I believe my good and God's glory are really bound up together here? Or we could take a Christian in a hard marriage. They know propositionally that God works all things together for good, so that even their marital perseverance is best, but temptation comes to start thinking about how much better another situation might be. So again, I have several friends in the last several years whose adult children have identified as homosexuals, and basically given their parents this option, Either you uncategorically affirm my choice as good and right in all respects, or you don't love me and we can't have a relationship. Is there a third choice I can have? What are they going to do in that choice? You see, when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, You're gonna have to go back to truth, to the word, to promises, and then you're gonna have to move towards obedience from there. I think that's something that's going on in all of our lives in many, many different ways, because obedience is costly for us. You can think of situations in which that's true for you this evening. A third point of application for us here, realize our faith must be tested. It must be tested. I mean, that's how the text began. Abraham, when he was tested, God tested Abraham. That's the backdrop to the drama of Genesis 22 that Abraham doesn't even know. The reader knows it. Abraham doesn't know it. It's like the book of Job where we see the divine drama behind the scenes, but Job doesn't know. When you and I are tested by various trials, there's no SMS that arrives to tell us what's going on. There's no emergency messaging system that comes to our phone. Walking by faith, not by sight, means that we have to supply the interpretation. We have to frame it ourselves as, oh, what I'm going through right now is a testing of my faith. It's a trial that is meant to refine me. I mean, that's what 1st Peter 1.7 says.

For a little while, you've been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it's tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now, I imagine this evening that there are two groups of people, really, anytime we gather. One group, when I say trials, you have something that immediately comes to mind. You can fill in the blank. You're in the middle of it right now, this relational conflict, this health challenge, my kids, my job. Yours is hand-to-hand combat. in a battle for interpretive supremacy over the trials that are going on right now. Will I believe that this thing is allowed by God to reveal the tested genuineness of my faith? Or will I believe that this is part of a tragic story, the depressing reality of events that are always letting me down in life? You see, you've got to interpret it the right way right now. For others of us, things are more theoretical and hypothetical. We're feeling pretty good right now, not aware of any big trial. The challenge for us is preparation. When you know an enemy is coming, you dig in, you dig trenches, you put up stakes, you aim guns in the right direction. What will you believe when the good circumstances you currently enjoy take a sudden turn? Because the truth is, all of our faith must be tested. So three lessons from Abraham. Our faith needs that firm foundation. That's a lot of Fs. Our faith needs a firm foundation. We have to move from promise to obedience, and we are going to be tested. But as we close, let's remember that believers are never truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Abraham wasn't either. For him, the way out was the lamb that God would provide. But for our savior, Jesus, he didn't avoid the rock or the hard place. He suffered death for us, but he didn't have a figurative resurrection the way Isaac did. He had a literal death and a literal resurrection so that you and I have the hope of eternal life, even as we thought about last Sunday. And so for us, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how it looks that we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, You and I have the hope of eternal life because of the work of Christ. Let's pray together. Father, you have been so good to us in so many ways. We pray that you would help us amidst the trials of life to trust you and to believe that you intend all things for our good and for your glory. For we pray in Jesus name. Amen.