We now turn in the Bible to Genesis chapter 25. Genesis chapter 25, verses one through 18 will be our sermon text for this morning. I invite you to stand out of respect for the reading of God's inspired word. Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimron, Jokshon, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Jokshon fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asherim, Letushim, and Laumim. The sons of Midian were Iphar, Hanak, Abida, and Eldah. All these were the children of Keturah. Abraham gave all he had to Isaac, but to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living, he sent them away from his son Isaac eastward to the east country. These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar, the Hittite east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac, his son, and Isaac settled at Bir Lahai Roi. These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar, the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth. Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar, Abbil, Mibson, Mishma, Duma, Masa, Hedar, Tema, Jetur, Nafish, These are the sons of Ishmael and their names by their villages and their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes. These are the years of the life of Ishmael, one hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people. They settled from Havalah to Shur, which is opposite of Egypt in the direction of Assyria. He settled over against all his kinsmen. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Amen. You may be seated. What is a full life? How do you know when you've lived life to the fullest? Is it a long life? A happy life? A wealthy life? A memorable life? What I found over the years is that most people are very afraid of what they'll find when they get to the end of the road. That they'll be there at their deathbed and they'll look back on everything before them only to look with great disappointment and ask the question, is this all there is? Is this it? I thought life would be so much more. I thought it would be so much full. I thought I would do so many more things. Look at my bucket list. Look how incomplete it is. Look at the things I have. Look at what I'm able to leave to my children. Look at my children. Look at, look at it all. It's just so incomplete. I think I've told you before of how often I would play in nursing homes. I'd play violin. It was how I paid my way through college. And so I would spend a lot of time talking with people who were at the very end of their life or near it. And one of the things I found was how many people were so desperate to prove that their life had meaning. Look at these pictures. Don't you see I've lived a full life? Look at these wood carvings that I did. Don't you see that my life had meaning? Won't you affirm me? Won't you tell me you lived a life that was greater than anyone else I knew? Won't you give me those words? I'm about to die, young man. Won't you tell me my life was worth something? It's almost what I could hear them saying to me, the desperation in an old man's voice saying, please, was it all worth it? Did I live the full life? And the hidden thing that I would hear there was, because I don't feel like I did. How many of us will get to the end to ask that same question and feel that same anxiety? But Abraham shows us a full life. Abraham died, look at verse eight of our text. An old age, an old man, full of years. He was gathered to his people. This is the verse that I'm focusing in on because it's at the very center of our text. Right? Sandwiched between two genealogies, right in the middle. It's focused on Abraham and he's made it to the very end of his life. He's about to die. And it says, look, he lived the full life. His life was complete. He died satisfied and good, full. But it wasn't long years or great wealth or lots of kids that made his life complete. And he had. He had each of those things. What was it that allowed Abraham to die full? Complete was, of course, his friendship with God. Father Abraham's legacy is this, a legacy that we have to take, we have to internalize, we have to take with us. It's this. The full life is a life of faith in God's promises. The full life is a life of faith in God's promises. That's right. And we need to look at Abraham's life. And then we need to see Abraham's legacy. Abraham was in his sixties when God called him out of paganism and told him to leave everything behind and go to the promised land. And he did. He did. And then for over a hundred years, he lived by faith. He spent most of his life waiting for promises that probably felt like a pipe dream on most days. God said, I'll give you all this land, look, I'll measure it out, walk, it's width, it's breadth, this is gonna be yours. And I wonder if Abraham on many days said, yeah, how about that? I'm still a man wandering around in tents in the desert, just waiting for this to be my own. And God told him, Nations are going to come from from you. You are going to be a father of of a great wealth and multitude of people. You're going to be a great blessing to the nations. And remember, it wasn't until 90 years old that Abraham had his first child. Waiting, waiting, waiting. He took a shortcut. Had a son through Hagar, but it wasn't until Much older than he had Isaac, the child of promise. Now he was at the end of the road. Here's Abraham, and you could see this as his sunset years, right? The years in which it's all slowing down and coming to an end. He feels it in his bones. He saw his wife, Sarah, die 30 years earlier, and he's been waiting for he himself to go, he himself to slow down, he himself to die. And now looking back on it all, the question comes to Abraham, to us, was it all worth it? Did God deliver on his promises? And we can answer that question for Abraham in two ways, because we see this in our texts. Yes and no. Or better yet, yes and not yet. Yes and not yet. And I want us to think through this. Did God deliver on his promises? Yes! God promised that Abraham would become Abraham. Abraham would become Abraham, and that am, added to Abraham's name, means father of multitudes, that God was going to increase him and his line exponentially, and we see in our text that that has become true. Because think about this, here you have Abraham's last days and it's sandwiched between what? A genealogy on the front end and a genealogy on the back end. And it's as if the very text is showing to you in picture form, God has been faithful. Look at all of Abraham's children. You could almost see Abraham sitting in a rocking chair, looking out over grandkids running around and he would, think of his son, Ishmael, who had been sent away, of course, but he knew of him and he knew that he had started to multiply and become a father of princes. And then he would think of his beloved son, Isaac, who was in his own house, his beloved son, the child of promise, who had taken Rebecca and who was beginning to have children of their own. And then he would look and he would see his most recent children through his wife, Keturah. all of the children running around him. He was blessed with many children. This man who at 90 years old was still saying, yeah, right, God. Me have the child of promise. And he's looking out and seeing little ones running all around. Abraham lived to see this promise fulfilled. Yes, God's delivering on his promises. But in another real way, Abraham would look and say, not yet, not yet. You see, there are things that God promised that simply have not been fulfilled in Abraham's life yet. He has glimmers of them, glimpses of them, but they feel just out of reach, just beyond the horizon, almost there, but not quite yet. And I want you to think of some of those. Abraham died still waiting to receive some important things. What about the land, right? God had him walk around this entire promised land, the holy land. And yet he walked through all that land and he dies owning what? Just a small field with a cave on it, enough to bury the dead. told you a few weeks ago, this is like, you know, you pass away and the executor of your estate says, well, it's very simple. He didn't have a home in this life, but he did have a plot in Woodland Cemetery. That's it. That's like what Abraham has when he dies. He doesn't have much land. He doesn't have a huge portion of this promised land. He dies with just a tiny little plot in it. Just a cave, just a tomb. He would die without seeing all this land belong to him and to his ancestors. He died in faith, not yet having received the fullness of that promise. And there's a lesson for us here as we hear, yes, and not yet. That Abraham was a man who lived by faith in between the already and the not yet. In between the promises that had already started to come true, that he already had, and those that he was waiting with eager expectation to have as his own. We are that kind of people too, are we not? The kind of people who live sandwiched between promises that are already ours, that we can already have and touch and hold, and those that are just outside of the reality that we have at this time. I want you to think of what we already have in Jesus. We've received a rich down payment of God's blessings. Have we not? We have the Holy Spirit as our own possession. We have the fellowship of believers that we enjoy. We have the very forgiveness of sins. Remember what came to you earlier in this service, the very forgiveness of God, reassuring you that your sins are forgiven. You say, that's mine right now, right here. I don't have to wait for it. And yet there are other things that we have not yet received. that God has in store for his people still. I want you to think of the new heavens and the new earth that await us, right? The place where there is no crying, no weeping, no death. I want you to think of the life that we will have there, full freedom from sin. No sin clinging to us, pulling us down, distracting us from God. The resurrection of the body. We still wait for our flesh to be remade and restored so that we're not on a downward trajectory with our body breaking apart, but everything holds together and we are healthy and thriving with our bodies. These are things we wait for. These are things that we only will see in full on the other side of the grave. They're like a light at the end of the tunnel. So that we actually can say in this life, we get to the end, we say, wasn't that a promising start? And then God says, yes, but now are you ready for more? I think this is why Abraham's final years were actually full of blessing and peace. I told you earlier in the sermon that I have known many people who have met the end with great anxiety, with great desperation, and with great frustration. But Abraham has none of those things. He serenely greets old age. He serenely becomes this elderly man that is getting closer and closer to death. What does he have? What he has is this understanding of what he already has and yet a hope for what he does not yet have but will soon have in his possession. You see, if this life is all there is, then Abraham should have been very disappointed. He should have been supremely disappointed that he got to the end and said, wow, this is it? Where's the land? Where's the end to sin and death? Where's the blessing to the nations? God, I've been waiting. You better bring these things before I die. But if this life is just the start, just the beginning of it all, just a down payment, if death is a turning the page to the next chapter, then we don't have to spend our final years in bitterness and frustration. We don't have to spend our last years trying to eke out of life everything we can because that's just the end of it. We can greet the end saying, praise God for a faithful start. Now, Lord, I see, I can barely see it, but on the other side of my casket, I see light. I see a new beginning. This is only the start. And have you ever met people that are so frustrated with what they're getting out of this life? They say, you know, I married someone I loved, and yet I asked, is that all there is to marriage? I worked a job, worked with my hands, did things I enjoyed, and then at the end I said, is that all there is to work under the sun? You ever met someone who traveled the world and checked off their bucket list and got ready for the end and they said, is that all there is? Most people won't actually tell you if they actually feel that way. Most people will spend their last years, if they really feel that way, desperately trying to show or to prove to themselves that this life really was full. But it's when you realize that this life, it's not all there is, that this life is only half full, as it were, because God is leaving the next life, the life of the resurrection, for the fullness that he will bestow upon us, it's when you can greet life for what it really is, only half of it all, or even just the very beginning of it all, that you can really greet it and say, well, I don't have to get more out of this than I need to, because there's more to come. The great irony is this, only when we look to the life to come will we live a full life here and now. Christians are able to do that. Christians are able to greet old age serenely and with dignity. The Russian Christian, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, says this. I want you to listen to his own reflections on aging as he got near the end. He said this. Aging is in no sense a punishment from on high, but brings its own blessings and a warmth of colors all its own. There is warmth in watching the little children at play, seeing them gain in strength and character. There is even warmth to be drawn from the waning of your own strength compared to the past, just to think how sturdy I once used to be. Growing old serenely is not a downhill path, but an ascent. Now I want you to think what kind of framework, what kind of context, what kind of beliefs would have to be there for someone to actually affirm that? The only worldview that would greet old age in that way is the Christian worldview. This man was a Christian. He's able to see old ages, not as a downhill movement, but an ascent. Why? Because he's saying, I don't have to eke more out of this life than it is. I can enjoy the simple joys, the simple things, the slowing down, because I know that I'm going to God, and that's where the real joy is. That's where the real joys take over. Already in this life we have a taste, but there's so much that we have to look forward to in the life to come. And this is what we see in Father Abraham, a man who greets old age serenely. And then came the day when Father Abraham died. And look at what it says. He was gathered to his people. Isn't that a beautiful thing to say of Father Avery? That even in his death, even as he goes through, he breathes his last, he slows down, he dies. And in that very moment, he is translated, his very soul is taken to the living fellowship of the redeemed. When he goes, when he dies, he goes to his people. He goes to those who share his faith, to his Sarah. And I would argue to his Savior. Luke 16 calls this place, this place where our souls go after we die, Abraham's bosom. Abraham's bosom, why? You can hear in that phrase, this picture, I'm going to go where Abraham was, where he's gone. I'm gonna go where my patriarch, where my forefather in the faith is gone. I'm going to go to the place where my people are. And this is a good time to pause and ask, who are your people? If your people are people of this world, then you'll go to them. But if your people are the people of faith, the people of God, the people of the promise, then you will go to them. And you will enjoy in that moment the splendors of life in God's presence. And you will realize in this moment, wow, it's only getting started, isn't it? What comfort to us that after we die, we go to be with the souls of our loved ones who have died in the Lord and in the Lord and to be with the Lord himself. Now Abraham's soul goes to paradise. while his body is laid where? In the cave of Machpelah. And this too speaks to his faith, his faith in God's promises. Because this little piece of the promised land was where Sarah had been laid to rest 30 years earlier. It was the place where Abraham in his moment of deepest grief buried his wife in hopes of the resurrection and in hopes of God's promise that one day they would rise again and inherit the entire promised land and even beyond the new heavens and new earth. So here's Abraham, and it is utterly important to him that he be buried in that same place as an act of faith in God's promises. Bury me there. Bury me next to Sarah. Bury me in the place where my hope in God is dramatically displayed, where I will show to a watching world this isn't the end, it's only the beginning. His bones would wait there until the voice of the Son of Man would call them on the day of the resurrection, rise. And Abraham will rise. This is Abraham's life, a full life, a complete life. And what I want you to see this morning is that Abraham's life is also Abraham's legacy, a legacy that lives on. Because Abraham is dead, but God's covenant continues. And in fact, the Bible says that Christians are children of Abraham. We are spiritual inheritors of all that is Abraham's and all that he inherited by faith. We heard that in Galatians chapter three. We follow his wonderful example. Three New Testament passages demonstrate how we carry on Abraham's legacy as we wait for God's promises to be fulfilled. And I want, if you have a pen, this would be a great place to jot down some of these key passages, because I believe it to be three key passages where we see the question, well, what am I supposed to take away from Father Abraham? How do I live that full life? How do I die saying, already so much is mine, and yet the joys that in the new heavens and the new earth, that which is not yet will be mine too. Well, here's how. First of all, we live by faith. We live by faith. Romans four, chapter three. lays this out, it says, Abraham believed God and he counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham believed the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness. Faith, faith is the defining feature of Abraham's life. If you were to give Abraham a name, a nickname, it would be Mr. Faith. Why? Because when God spoke, Abraham said, I believe it and I'll follow you. And he did this without tangible evidence, touch and feel evidence of this, right? God said, go and I'll give you wonderful promises. And Abraham said, well, I guess I have to go. This was the pattern and the cadence of Abraham's life. And there were times where he would stumble, he wasn't perfect, he'd slip away from this. But the defining feature of his life was, I leave everything behind, all the things that look secure to this world, and I go to follow God. Salvation comes through faith. Wasn't this the great hope of the reformers? Wasn't this what the forefathers of the faith hammered out and said, no, we got to get back to Abraham. What kind of righteousness do we have? One that comes through faith. One that says, I don't see the Lord Jesus Christ right now. He's at the right hand of the father, but his righteousness. I need that. His death, I need that. And we lay a hold of Christ by faith, not looking to what we can see of ourselves, not looking to our own good works, but looking to the works of Christ, looking to the death of Christ, looking to something that is not right before us, but we behold by faith and we hear in the scriptures and we say, I'm going to look outside of myself. I'm going to grab a hold of that. I want that as my own. A faith that looks outside of itself to the promises of God and that reaches and grasps and says, God, give it to me. I need it. Are you living by faith this morning? Or are you walking by the things that you see with your eyes and hear with your ears? The gospel says to live by faith in God's promises, to reach out and to grab a hold of that which we hope for that God has laid out in his word. The second thing that defined Abraham's legacy, a legacy that lives on today is works, works. James chapter two, verse 22 says this. You see that faith was active along with Abraham's works, and faith was completed by his works. And of course, we have that great controversy that has raged throughout the history of the church, but especially at the time of the Reformation, saying, well, are you a Romans 4 guy or are you a James 2 guy, right? You want faith or you want works? And the answer is, give me both. Give me both. Because Abraham believed God, and at that very moment, it was counted to him as righteousness. When he believed God, he was justified, safe forever, safe and secure in God. But how did this manifest itself? How did this show itself? Through his amazing acts of obedience. A true faith is always going to bear good fruit. A good tree bears good fruit. Faith shows itself, reveals itself, manifests itself, demonstrates itself to a watching world. How? Through radical obedience to God's commands. Here too is a question for you this morning. Are you following Father Abraham in this? And I want you to think back to the sermon in which we highlighted his greatest act of obedience, which was what? his willingness to sacrifice Isaac on the cross, not on the cross, but on the altar, on a cross as it were. We too must be so full of faith that we would follow God's commands and say, God, you point to the idol and I'll give it up on the altar. You tell me what to let go of and I'll let go of it. I want you to think again of what it is that you are, if God said, let go, you would say, no, not that. Because when you identify that, you might be getting, you're probably getting very close to an idol and to an area in which you need to work on giving, on living by faith and by demonstrating your faith through works. Abraham's faith was proved through amazing obedience. True faith, saving faith shows itself in works. Ours should too. And so you have faith, you have works. But the final thing we need to know about Abraham's legacy is this. Third word, third phrase is this, Christ. Faith, works, and Christ. Galatians chapter three, verse 16 says this. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. And it says this, that offspring is Christ. That offspring is Christ. Now Abraham loved all his children, but you'll notice in our passage that he only gave his blessing to one of them, to Isaac. All the other sons get sent away with gifts, nice things, possessions, but it's Isaac alone who gets what? He gets the promised land. And in fact, Paul is so, Abraham is so protective to have Isaac inherit the promised land that he says, I'm gonna send all these other children east so that they create some space and don't pose a threat to Isaac. Abraham is putting everything, everything he has, investing everything in the future of this one child of promise. Why? Because there's something so special about Isaac? No, because God placed his blessing upon that child. And so Abraham could have said, you know, I'm gonna hedge my bets and, you know, I'm gonna make sure that I spread out my wealth amongst all these children, but he doesn't do that. Why? Because God said, this right here is the child of promise. You can love these other sons, but this son right here, he's the one to whom I'll save the world. And Abraham in his last day, his lasting legacy is this. One of the very last things he does is he says, I love my sons, but my blessing is with Isaac because God's blessing is with this son. Over the years, God would trace the line of covenant on through Isaac to Jacob and then to Judah and all the way down through all those kings to who? To the promised birth of Christ. I don't know how, but somehow through the eyes of faith, Abraham looked down the corridors of time and said, there's an offspring coming, there's a Messiah coming, there's a head crusher coming, just like Genesis 3 spoke of. That head crusher, that Messiah, he'll come through Isaac. It's that one that my hope is in. That's how Father Abraham was saved. through forward-looking hope in a Messiah who had come through Isaac's line. Do you know how we know this? Because Jesus himself said this, Abraham saw my day and was glad. What particular features did Abraham see of Jesus' day? We don't know for sure, but we know he saw something of that. And something of it, even the little glimpse that he had, led him to a life of faith, led him to a life of amazing works, and led him to grab a hold of Christ. This, brothers and sisters, must be our legacy too. Not just faith and works, but above all, Christ. Now we look back, and with greater clarity, we see all that Jesus is, and we say, Abraham saw your day and was glad. I have seen your day, Jesus, and I am glad, too. I need you. Give me Christ, or I have a disappointing life. Give me Christ, and I have fullness. Give me Christ, and I have everything. That's how we live the full life. That's how we live the complete life. It's through Christ. And so may we follow Father Abraham and his amazing legacy, leaving everything behind, clinging to Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Abraham saw Christ's day and was glad. What an amazing thing. But Lord, how often we who have looked back and seen with greater clarity Christ's coming and his life and his works, how often we are distracted and look with disappointment in our life and what we've experienced thus far. Help us, Lord, to recalibrate our desires so that by faith and faith demonstrated through works, we might be satisfied with this life looking forward to the life which is to come, for it is all wrapped up in our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in Him we have fullness. Amen.