So we were singing this song, Trust and Obey. It was already kind of in my mind that maybe my sermon title didn't quite fit with what we were gonna talk about this morning, not that Abraham's not justified by faith, but maybe another sense of what we can think about this morning is trust and obey, a matter of living by faith, as we are gonna look at the life of Abraham and Hebrews 11. So if you have your copy of the scriptures, go and turn to Hebrews 11, 8 through 22 is where we will be this morning. We are planning to continue our study in Hebrews. That's when Brian's away, that's where we are at. And so as long as I'm preaching. And so remember it is a reminder to us as we study Hebrews and to the original audience that Jesus is better. And so that will be kind of one theme that we'll look at through this whole passage, but really through the whole book. And so we will continue in the Hall of Faith. It's kind of a interesting passage as I was talking to somebody else this week you either got to preach it all together or you have multiple weeks right it's kind of tough and so let's go ahead and read Hebrews 11 8 to 22 it says by faith Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And by faith, even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she 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 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, admitting that they were foreigners 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 that they had left, they would have had the 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. By faith, Abraham, when God tested them, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who embraced 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 would even raise the dead. And so in a manner of speaking, he did not receive Isaac back from death. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and worshiped as he leaned on top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, oh Lord, we are thankful for this morning, this day to come and to worship you. to extol your name, for you are great. Lord, I pray that you will be glorified, that we will see of your love and the mercy that you have shown us. In your name I pray, amen. So if Pastor Brian can share about his love for Little House on the Prairie, right, in Hallmark movies, then I should not be ridiculed for liking HGTV. Right? There's been many times where Alicia and I have been away, and you know, when you're on vacation and you're staying on the Airbnb, the only thing that usually is on TV is the free streaming, right? And we've watched hours upon hours of Tiny Homes and House Hunters, and so... I even had a college professor at Coastal who was on the show here in Myrtle Beach. And so it's just kind of interesting to watch those shows as these couples. There's always the joke that, you know, here we have, you know, a pen salesman and a, you know, a sticker designer, and their budget's $1 million, right? And so here we have people, couples, that are looking for their dream home. Whether it's 200 square feet, whether it's a beach house in the Bahamas, or Venezuela, or Ecuador, or a huge home in the suburbs of Atlanta, that's really kind of the goal of the shows, is for us to come alongside of them as they look for their dream home. Each of us has probably thought about our dream home, or maybe we're living in it now. I know a number of y'all. have moved here recently and have come to vacation at the beach, you're like, I gotta live there, right? I'm tired of living where it's boring, I guess, I don't know. And we're gonna live at the beach. And so, or maybe you have a list or a plan and you are thinking of that dream home, right? Waiting for the day to build the home that you long for. And as you're thinking of that next house, there's probably a list of things. You're like, I definitely don't want this, and I need that. I need those things. And so we have that list, and we're excited, and we all kind of have that. You know, maybe it's a wraparound porch with rocking chairs on the front. Maybe it's with all the new tech gadgets, whatever it may be. But eventually what we find out is that not every home, not every home is perfect. Not any home is perfect. They all eventually need work or some type of renovation. Some of you may know that. Personally, we know that owning a home requires work. It's not easy. It was just this past week that Alicia and I, it was after the kids had gone to bed, we walked into the kitchen and there was a smell and of plastic. I'm like, what in the world is that? And so I'm trying to go everywhere. And we finally found out it came from the laundry room. And come to find out that whoever had owned the home before us had not used the right gauge wire to install the water heater. And it had caused all the wire nuts and everything in the box to melt. Fortunately, nothing else happened to that. And it was a quick fix, mainly because my dad came over and did it. I told Alicia after my dad left, I was like, I could have done that, but it would have been tomorrow before it was done. And so either way, these homes or our dream homes do break down and eventually do need work. In our passage this morning, talks about our heavenly home, our final home, a promise of a city whose designer and builder is the Lord. And so as we navigate this passage, one thing that's very important for us to remember that what is true of Abraham is true for us, for every believer. We often see Abraham is given as this great example of faith in scripture. You see it in the first, well, not the first books, but 12 through 25 of Genesis, where we see of Abraham's life, we see of the call, we see of circumcision and the promise of Isaac and of the great nation. We also see it in the Levitical prayer of confession, which we find in Nehemiah 9, where it says, you are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. You found his heart faithful to you and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants. So there we see this example of Abraham's faith, the heart faithful to you. Or maybe in the New Testament, Paul refers to him as the father of all those who truly believe. Galatians chapter 3 6 through 9 it says so Abraham So also Abraham believed God and it was credit to him as righteousness Understand then that those who have faith are children of Abraham Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel and evidence and advance to Abraham all Nations will be blessed through you. So those that rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith Or even in the book of James, which often is misunderstood and is often used by some to push works righteousness and apart from faith and being justified by faith. But even James talks about Abraham being the father of faith in some ways. He says in chapter two, verse 23, And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was credit to him as righteousness. And James adds this little part, and he said, and he was called God's friend. Or even in Romans chapter four, where Paul is also referencing kind of the same thing, that what shall we say then that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered this matter? If in fact Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. What does scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. To ultimately our passage this morning in Hebrews 11, where we see Abraham of being this example of faith. paints a picture, the author does, of Abraham's faith and his focus on his dependency on the Lord. Remember, trust and obey. There's a matter of reliance on the Lord. And so this morning, we are going to look at four things, all of them connected to faith. First is being faith in a better home. Our second is faith in a promised son. Third, faith in forward-looking. And then lastly, faith in the ultimate test. Our first part that we're going to look at is there in verses 8 through 10, faith in a better home. The author here is retelling a story from Genesis. One that we already know well. One that the kids, you learn as a young one. You know, in chapter 12 of Genesis, the Lord comes to Abraham to have him be the leader of a new nation. To pack up and go. Think it even, I can't remember the exact line in one of the songs we just sang. It just basically said, wherever you have me go. I can't remember the exact line. Maybe referring here to Abraham. To pack up everything and go. Leave your home and go to this new land. this new inheritance, this promised land. I think the first thing that we need to do when we think of this, and here in Hebrews or in Genesis 12, is the difficulty of this. This is not something easy. Often in scripture, we can read stories and kind of quickly pass over them and be like, okay, I understand what's going on, but this is difficult. to pick up everything and leave the only place that you know is home, and to go and not know where you are going. I was kind of thinking of this, and could you imagine coming home and explaining this to your wife? Wife, I just want to let you know that we are moving. Oh, well, when? Well, like, now. Like, start looking for diaper boxes and start filling them up, right? We're leaving. We're going today. Or maybe it wasn't that day, but we're leaving now. Pack up everything. Well, where are we going? Well, I'm not quite sure, right? We're just gonna go. I mean, it's hard enough. I know some of y'all have probably have had that where a change of job has caused you to move to a new city, right? But there's some time and you know where you're going. And it's still difficult that the Lord is leading us. I can only imagine the response would be like, well, thank you, God, but I'm fine just where I am, right? I'm happy here, right? I'm comfortable here. What we see with Abraham is that he obeyed the Lord, and he traveled from Ur to Canaan. Have you ever seen a map of this journey? It's not a straight line either, because there's the desert, and they couldn't travel through the desert, so they have to go around, all the way around. And then even when they arrived in Canaan, he didn't completely receive the Promised Land. Actually this wouldn't really come to be until Joshua as they crossed the Jordan. But it also says here along with Isaac and Jacob that they live like foreigners in tents. That Abraham obeyed with very little knowledge of what God was up to. He didn't have a copy of the scriptures, right, to go and to see what the Lord had done before, that he was trusting in what the Lord was going to do. But Abraham never would have believed or obeyed God's call if he had not really taken God at his word. See, we see here with his obedience that it was an outward evidence of his inward faith that he really had taken God at his word. Martin Luther talks about this with Abraham, and he says this. He said, it was hard to leave his native land, which 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 crueler that with his obedience of faith, Abraham gave a supreme exhale of an evangelical life because he left everything and followed the Lord. And then this is the sentence that I really like. It says, preferring the word of God to everything and loving it above everything. Even as Abraham is traveling to the promised land, he was hoping in a better land, a future land. Not thinking of it as the physical land of great pastures and the land flowing of milk and honey and the promises and the future that could come from that, but also looking forward to an eternal dwelling place to be in. There is some focus here with Abraham, and he of course did not know exactly who the Messiah was, but that Jesus was better. That he fully trusted in the Word of God. We often have to be reminded that the land of Canaan was never the ultimate goal. Even Abraham understood that. You see there in verse 10, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. That it was heaven and Christ that he was looking forward to. Often in my family, we like to make lists. Not list of things to do, that's not fun. But list is our favorite things. If we go to a theme park, it's, OK, what was your top three rides? Or as if it's one of my boys, all right, what's your top 10 rides? And so it's just you make this list. Or I can even think of one on our last trip up to Ohio. It's what was your top three things that you ate this past week, which is one of my favorite lists to make. We like to order things of things that are maybe our least favorite to the things that we like above everything else. Do we prefer the promises of God and the word of God to everything else? Where does it fit in our list? Do we think like Abraham? that we are looking forward to heaven and looking forward to Christ or living by faith now as with Christ? Do we love it above everything else? One way that we can mark the way that we love things is by the value that we give to them. Where does it rank? What value do we put to the word of God? Do we live the way that we say that we do? Do we really value it above everything else? I don't know if you guys know this, but we live in a world full of different things screaming and grabbing for our attention. Years ago, I was at summer camp, a middle school summer camp, and I can't remember the gentleman that gave this example, but he had a couple students come up in the front of the classroom, and he wanted them to listen, right, to what was being said. And on one side of the room, he said, he gave them, because it's middle schoolers, he gave them very set examples of what he wanted them to say. I want you to say bad things. Right? And then on the other side of the room, I want you to say, you know, good things about them. And so we're all just yelling and screaming. It's just middle schoolers' best moment ever, right? Yell and scream as much as they want. And he got done, and he said, all right, what did you hear? What did you hear? Well, everything that they had heard, even though we were both yelling, I was on the good side, we were both yelling as hard as we could, and yet the only thing they heard were really kind of the old insults and the bad things. And so for us, we had to be so rooted in the word of God, because there's so many other things of this world that are screaming for our attention, and it's so easy to fall into that. And so my question in regards to this is where are our eyes and our minds and our ears and our hearts set? That all of us by faith are called to obey and go as God directs. Maybe the best way that we can think of this is that we as Christians shouldn't feel like locals in this fallen world. We should not grow accustomed to the things that are going around us. It should not be ultimately a surprise, even reading from scripture, those that didn't know the Lord and the lives that they lived, that the world around us is very much the same. That our real home is in the city that God has built. And that we all need that recalibration. The second thing that we see here in verses 11 and 12 is faith in a promised son. The author now begins to describe another story that we know really well, to describe Abraham's faith in a promised people through a promised son. God says to Abraham, see the stars in the sky, your descendants will be like the stars in the sky. I will make to you a great nation. God promises that through Abraham will come a great people. But there's a problem. We see that in verse 11. It says, By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even though she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised. Right? Sarah was not able to conceive and they both were old. It was biologically impossible for Abraham and Sarah to have children. Even in Genesis 18, Sarah says, I am worn out and my master is old. There's this idea, right? It's like, this is not possible. that if God is going to make a great nation through Abraham, then he will need to do something miraculous. And of course, Abraham is tested here, and there's a whole issue with Hagar, and all that issue, and with Ishmael, and so forth. But they had faith. Abraham knew the situation, and that was humanly impossible. but he didn't necessarily need to take an unreasonable leap of faith. Kent Hughes says, he weighed the human impossibility of becoming a father against the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word and decided that since God is God, nothing is impossible. There's two sides, right? There's the biological impossibility of them being able to have kids because they're both in their 90s, or there's the divine impossibility of God being able to break his word, and he rested in knowing that God is God. And by faith, he believed. By faith, he obeyed. So my question is, do we take the Word of God at heart? Or to heart? We rank it maybe in a certain series, but do we truly take it to heart? Be uncertain of the things that we do not see. Do we fully rest in the promises of God? As we looked last time in this passage, faith is the cure for our drifting hearts. Would it not be easy for two 90-year-olds to push this aside, this idea of them having kids aside, as just foolishness? There's no way that this can happen. It just doesn't make sense. Often, that is what happens in our drifting hearts as we start to weigh out the possibilities and the impossibilities and start to figure that out. But rather, by faith, they chose to live their lives according to the Word of God. Even in the midst of the impossible, we know that all things are possible through God. That we should do the same thing. Live our lives according to the Word of God. The next thing that we see is in verses 13 to 16, in faith and forward looking. This section starts by saying that Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac finished well. As I was preparing this, I was thinking, well, Julian would preach just this verse, right? Finishing well. You guys are familiar with Julian and that was often a topic of conversation as a matter of finishing well. And Sarah and Abraham and Isaac, they finished well. Living by faith right until the last moment. But at the same time, they never saw the great nation or the promised land in full. They embraced and saw the fulfillment of the promise. But one thing that we see about faith is that it's forward-looking. It's not always looking back and looking at the promises of God. Of course, we do see God's faithfulness to his promise and his people and how we see that in the covenant. And we see that when we do look back. Sometimes maybe we think of faith as looking back on what God has already done. But another aspect of faith is forward-looking, that they believed without seeing. Remember in the very first verse of the chapter, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That they had hope, that they lived by faith, that they longed for a heavenly home. This was the longing in their hearts. This should be the longing in our hearts, a matter of forward looking, of trusting in the Word of God. This is what enabled them to preserve in their faith, persevere in their faith. Fellow Christians, this should be our same longing. This should be our same desire. That this example of faith should not be wasted on us. is we're reminded of who Abraham is and what Abraham has done. Ultimately, it points us to what Christ has done. For we know that our citizenship is in heaven, that we are no longer foreigners and aliens but fellow citizens, that we are to set our hearts and minds on things above, and that we are to seek the city that is to come. It's really interesting to me what the author here in Hebrew says next. As he's addressing this idea that they did not see, but yet they believed. That they believe, these patriarchs believe the word of God. And the author says this about it. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. There in verse 18, but it is as they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. As they look forward to their heavenly home, as they look forward by faith, trusting, and obeying in the word of God. Some of you guys may have heard of Henry Morrison. Maybe not. He was a missionary in Africa for 40 years. It's a long time serving the Lord faithfully. And as they were finishing up their missionary career, they were on the boat ride back home. Now, this was years ago, so probably would have been a long journey, especially if they were taking a boat back home. And as they were on their boat ride back home, on that exact same boat was a man that we all know well, Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy, I don't know exactly when this was, time-wise, if he was president or not, but he was on his way back home from a hunting trip, probably killing an elephant or something along those lines. If you guys know anything about Teddy, that's kind of how he was. And as he was arriving home, Of course, Teddy would receive quite the welcoming with no acknowledgement to the Morrisons. Can you imagine that? You had served the Lord faithfully or done something faithfully for 40 years and you're just hoping that someone asks, hey, what do you do for a living? And you can just share, right, of 40 years of the Lord at work and just how we've seen many of those come to salvation and probably a multitude of stories, especially being a missionary in Africa. but rather the focus and attention was on Teddy as he probably shared of his hunting journeys. And Henry Morrison really wrestled with this thought that no one cared about his work in Africa. No one asked the questions. There was no parade whenever they got home. And with his wife's encouragement, when they got back home, he decided that he would spend some time with the Lord. And after a little while, he comes out and he says this, came out and told his wife, the Lord settled it with me. It seemed as though the Lord put his hand on my shoulder and said, but you're not home yet. I read that, I was like, man, that will preach there. That is so true. We are not home yet. that He has prepared for us a great city. That should be our heart's longing. That should be our heart's desire. And then lastly, in 17 to 22, we see faith in the ultimate test. Maybe this is a hard passage often to read as parents, is understanding why Abraham would be willing to do this. The author accounts the story of Abraham's towering faith. That Abraham is put to the test so that we could see what amazing faith will do and what kind of radical obedience that it produces in Abraham. Remember, as we just talked about recently, is that they had been waiting for a child. They had been waiting for this child like we talked about earlier, right? And now as he becomes a teenager, the Lord is asking him to offer his son as an offering, as a sacrifice. This has to be tough on a couple different levels. One, it's his son. And the love that he has for his son, his offspring, his blood, the one he deeply cares about, that they had waited so long for. And now the Lord was asking him to make a sacrifice and to kill his son. And the second part that's connected to this is the promise of being a great nation. How could the Lord make a great nation from Abraham if there was no one to continue the family line? What would happen? How could this be? Abraham goes once again. Actually, kind of immediately, he packs up his donkey and they travel. And you'd imagine as Abraham and as Isaac are making that journey, begin to talk, hey, dad, what are we gonna do? We're gonna make a sacrifice. Where's the bull? Where's the goat? Well, son, we'll figure it out when we get there, or maybe Isaac knew, right, either way. But what's interesting here with this text is it actually says that he offered Isaac as a sacrifice. We look at this in the Greek, it's a matter of present tense. Like it had already happened. That in terms of his obedience to God, Abraham did it. Even though we know that Isaac was not killed. In terms of his obedience, he did it. So how was he able to do this? We get a picture of that in verse 19. That he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did not receive him back. That Abraham believed in something that had not happened yet. In the resurrection of his son. That God is so faithful to his promises that he would bring Isaac back from the dead. And so by faith he trusted and obeyed. And what a great picture of faith this is. We know the rest of the story that God provides the substitute. Ultimately foreshadowing of what is to happen in the life and the death and the resurrection of Christ. But great faith for Abraham to believe in the resurrection. And as we see here in this passage of scripture, that Abraham was a great man of faith. That in Abraham's life, there were ups and downs. There were moments that Abraham grew in his faith. And as we can see from Abraham's life, the path to strong faith was never easy or smooth. And so as we look in our own lives, that there may be times of uncertainty and of doubt. There might be times in our lives where we don't really see what God is doing, but by faith we trust and obey. And the way that we do that is that we must cling to the cross, keeping our eyes and our hearts fixed on the Lord. living our lives according to the Word of God, just like Abraham did multiple times in this passage, living according to the Word of God, looking forward to our heavenly home, and knowing that our faith will be tested. And so as we soon take communion, allow this passage and the rest of scripture to be a daily remembrance of the hope that we have because of the finished work of Christ. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are thankful for this story of Abraham, as he trusted and obeyed, as he lived by faith. taking your word to heart. Lord, I pray that you would do that same thing in our lives. That we would put you at the forefront, that we would trust in your word, that it would be the thing that we prefer and the thing that we long for, the thing that we love. Lord, I pray that you would work in our hearts to allow us to continue to draw closer to you. in a daily remembrance of the finished work of Christ. In your name I pray.