Extreme Faith | "Abraham - When God's Promises Seem Impossible" | Jonathan

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) So the story you believe in shapes the person you become.

That's the main idea or the big idea for today is that the story you believe in shapes the person that you become.

Now in Hebrews chapter 11, the author there defines faith for us.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

He says, faith is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see.

It's one of the most famous verses in perhaps all of scripture.

Now over the next five weeks, Mark and I are going to be looking at Hebrews 11 and pulling out five of the many characters that are mentioned there, which demonstrate extreme faith.

They display it in their lives and they live it out.

And we want to show you in some of the ways that they do that.

This week, we will be looking at Abraham.

So if you have your Bibles or your Bible apps, go ahead and find your way to Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

But before we begin, let's pray.

Heavenly father, we come to you to start the year focusing on you.

Prepare our minds for your instruction, prepare our hearts for transformation by your spirit and prepare our bodies to be the executors of your will on earth.

May the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight.

Lord, you are our strength.

You are our redeemer, get glory in this place.

And all God's people said.

All right, so I'm gonna ask for a bit of participation from the crowd this morning.

I know it's the first Sunday of the year, so here we go.

All right, now, if you are somebody who prefers Coca-Cola or any of their many products over Pepsi, raise your hands.

Oh, most of us, I would say.

That sounds like the yeas have it, right?

Now, if you are somebody who prefers Pepsi or any of their products over Coca-Cola, raise your hands.

Okay, there's more here than I thought there would be to be honest with you.

Now, if you are one of those healthy people who secretly judges other people for drinking pop, raise your hands.

All right, there we go.

Unless it's Mountain Dew, right, Mark?

Unless it's Mountain Dew, yeah.

So, it's interesting how this has become a cultural rivalry, Coke versus Pepsi.

You've heard the Pepsi challenge, you've got all that, right?

It's true that often in a blind taste test, Pepsi will actually win out over Coke.

I mean, that's what they say, you know?

Those are the tests, they say that, right?

I know, see, you can see the rivalry coming through this morning.

All right, it's often true that Pepsi will win the blind taste test.

As soon as you tell them what they're drinking, though, Coca-Cola almost always wins out.

And Coke is the largest drink company in the entire world, and they have outsold Pepsi, like, in their entire, like, the whole history that they've been a company.

So, Coca-Cola understands that the story you believe shapes the person that you become.

Let me explain.

So, Coca-Cola had a problem.

People were only drinking their product during the warm months of the year, and so they needed to figure out a way to sell their product and convince their consumers that they could drink it all year round.

So, they enlisted a particular holiday figure, none other than jolly old St. Nick.

And about 90 years ago, it was in 1931, they hired an artist to depict Santa Claus holding Coca-Cola.

Now, up to this point, Santa's been around in the culture for over a thousand years, and so he's been depicted in all kinds of different ways, tall, short, fat, skinny, wearing all different kinds of colors, red, green, brown.

He's been depicted as an elf or an angel, creepy looking, I mean, all different ways.

But in 1931, one man paints Santa Claus as a jolly old fat man with a big white beard, and of course, the iconic red suit.

And the red suit just so happens to be the same color as the Coca-Cola label.

And by putting their product into the holiday season story, they cemented themselves in the culture as the dominant beverage of choice all year round because the story that you believe shapes the person that you become.

Now, a story is a narrative with a purpose, and the purpose of Coke's story is to get you to believe that Coca-Cola or drinking Coke is a part of who you are.

It is to get you to become a consumer with conviction so that when somebody asks you which one is better, you become militant in your answer.

But in the end, what beverage you drink means nothing of significance.

In all honesty, it's nothing more than sugary water, as our healthy people would tell us.

Now, as Christians, there is a story that we attach ourselves to, and when we do, it shapes the people that we become.

It shapes the traditions that we celebrate, and certainly the conduct of our character.

It is a story that truly matters because it says that all this world has to offer is nothing more than sugary water.

Something greater exists.

But here's the sad reality.

We live in a culture that has by and large succeeded in outstorying the church for the last 60 years.

Here's what I mean by that.

Our culture has sold people that nothing matters more than their pleasure and their comfort.

That's the story of our culture.

But our narrative as believers is very different.

It is one of faith in an unlikely king, a king who has invited us into his kingdom.

So if our story of a king matters more than any other story out there, it begs the question, how do we outstory the world?

How do we outstory the world?

Let me put it just in a slightly different light.

How do we convey the weight and truth of our faith in God so that it leads others to loyalty to Jesus?

So that we have conviction in our faith.

Now, let me go ahead and answer that question for you today, and then we will just expound upon it as we go throughout the sermon.

We live like the story we believe in matters more than anything else.

So we have to live like the story we believe in matters more than anything else in our life.

And Abraham's life demonstrates this because as the Hebrew's author will point out, Abraham responds to God's invitation, he waits for his inheritance, and he expects the impossible.

All right, so Abraham responded to God's invitation, waited for his inheritance, and he expected the impossible.

So if you would follow along with me in Hebrews 11, eight, where we see Abraham respond to God's invitation.

It says there, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he would later receive as an inheritance.

And he went out without understanding where he was going.

You know, sometimes responding to God makes you look a bit crazy.

Responding to God's invitation can make you look a bit weird to your peers, to your friends, to your family, your loved ones.

I mean, put yourself in Abraham's shoes.

He's called away by God, this God, by the way, that none of his neighbors had ever heard of, to go to a place, like, he doesn't even know where he's going, go to the place that I will show you.

He has no idea where he's going, there's no map involved.

And yet, he takes his family on a thousand-mile journey.

Imagine telling your neighbors, while you're packing up all your stuff and loading the U-Haul camel, that you're leaving because some God spoke to you.

I mean, it just looks a little crazy.

It's kind of like growing up in the big city of Cincinnati and then moving to the land of New Lisbon, where they eat giant pork tenderloins on these tiny little buns and they call themselves Hoosiers, like, whatever that is, right?

I'm just kidding, of course, that's not that far.

Honestly, it's much more like Mark and Margie's story, moving from Pennsylvania to Indiana.

Oh wait, I didn't say that right.

Pennsylvania, great state of Pennsylvania, to Indiana.

Yeah, where they responded to God's invitation into ministry and sold all their stuff and they left.

And so, imagine what it would look like to your neighbors if you responded to God's invitation.

Part of what the Hebrew's author is doing all throughout this chapter is challenging his readers to imagine how different their lives would be, even the world itself, if Abraham didn't respond to God's invitation.

I mean, he's in here today and we can have fun at his expense, but imagine how different this church would be if Mark didn't come.

He's been here for 24 years.

Imagine how different your life would be if the person who shared their faith with you didn't do that.

When God calls, you obey.

Even when others think you are crazy, even perhaps your own family.

There's this really fascinating story.

It's kind of a made-up story about Abraham.

It comes from the book of Jashar, which is a total made-up book, right, from about a couple hundred years ago, where they added kind of some stories or commentary from characters of the Old Testament.

And they tell this really fascinating story about Abraham.

And so, it's trying to depict the response to God's invitation and how difficult that might have been for Abraham and his family.

And so, they're living in the city of Ur, which is in Babylonia at the time, or pre-Babylonia.

And so, he goes to his father and says, I've received this oracle from God.

I need to go to the land that God's gonna show me.

And his dad just doesn't understand.

Like, he doesn't get it.

Like, how am I supposed to uproot everything that I have?

All that I worship is here.

And he has an idol room where he has all the idols of the Babylonians where he goes in and he worships.

And so, Abraham comes up with this idea to show his father how ridiculous this is.

And so, he walks into his father's idol room, basically was essentially a large sledgehammer.

And then, he goes and he breaks all of the idols to pieces except one.

And then, he puts the hammer in the hands of that idol.

And then, he puts a piece of meat on the ground.

And his dad rushes in from all the commotion.

And as Abraham's walking out, and he's like, Abraham, what's going on?

What happened here?

What happened to all these idols?

And Abraham comes up with this great story.

He says, well, I came in to offer a sacrifice to the idols.

And yet, the big one there in the center got jealous that I was doing it for all the idols.

So, he took the hammer and he beat the pieces all the other idols.

And his dad's like, that's crazy, Abraham.

That doesn't make any sense.

These things are lifeless beings.

I carved them myself.

To which Abraham then responds with perhaps the greatest mic drop in all of history.

He says, then why do you bow down to them?

Why do you worship them?

You see, our culture sells us on so many idols that we bow down and worship to.

Why do we do that?

God has called us and invited us into a greater story.

And when we respond, it might make us look crazy to them, but the story you believe in shapes the person you become.

So, how do we convey our story of a king to the world in a meaningful way?

We obey God when he calls us to act.

Faith is manifested in obedience.

That's obvious.

But what's not so obvious is that our obedience also leads others to faith.

Our obedience leads others to faith.

So, when we trust in God's story, no matter how impossible it may seem, our obedience will lead others to faith.

And Abraham believed God.

He took him at his word, manifested his belief by leaving his home, his place of comfort, his refuge, his castle, and followed God.

And I am a believer today in Jesus Christ because 4,000 years ago, Father Abraham obeyed.

I mean, the kids today would call him the OG of faith.

He is the original example.

He was the first one to really dramatically do something that led to the kingdom of Israel.

Our obedience leads others to faith.

Imagine how different your life would be if the person who led you to faith didn't obey God, didn't share their faith with you.

Imagine how different life would be for that person you know who was far from God to not only hear what you have to say about faith, but then also responded.

See, we have to give up our comfort for others.

Imagine how different our neighbors would be if we became a church that responded to the invitation of God to live our faith radically.

You see, the founder of Financial Peace University, David, Dave Ramsey, he has this famous tagline, right?

Live like nobody else now so that you can live like nobody else later.

And he's talking about finances and he's talking about living a humble life now so that you can live lavishly later.

He's talking about money.

But the same is true with faith.

Live like no one else now so that one day we can live with the king of kings in all of eternity.

See, our obedience leads others to faith.

The Hebrews author pulls some more examples from Abraham's life to show how the story he believed in led him to live a different kind of life.

Jump back into Hebrews 11 with me, verse nine, where we see Abraham waiting for his inheritance.

It says, by faith he lived as a foreigner in the promised land as though it were a foreign country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob who were fellow heirs of the same promise.

Sometimes you have to wait for the thing and the longer you wait for it, the sweeter, the more delicious it is when it finally arrives.

You know, I have the perfect illustration to depict this.

So you probably don't know this about me, but I am kind of a Michigan fan.

I mean, just a small one.

And you know who their biggest rival is, right?

It's Ohio State, thank you.

Yes, yeah, the evil Ohio State, as we would say in my household.

And so that is your number one goal, beat Ohio State.

And from 2001 to 2020, Michigan racked up a total of three victories against that team from Ohio.

Talk about embarrassing, talk about frustrating, talk about having to wait and wait as the pressure builds and mounds.

The last losing stretch was eight losses over nine years.

And then in 2021, in the snow and in dramatic fashion, Michigan pounds Ohio State into the ground.

And when it rains, it pours because we're on year number four, winning streak, right?

And when it finally arrived, it was so much sweeter when Michigan finally got the edge over Ohio State.

Now you had to know that I was gonna fit in a Michigan illustration somehow, right?

That's about all I'm good for as a preacher, by the way, if you hadn't caught on over the last 10 years, Michigan illustrations and C.S. Lewis quotes.

Oh, by the way, here's the C.S. Lewis quote.

He says this in mere Christianity, I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless he sees that it is good for him to wait.

See, waiting makes the arrival of the thing that much greater.

Now, Abraham lived as a stranger, a guest, a foreigner in the land of Canaan because of a promise.

In fact, if you pay close attention to the story, you notice when he left, he was not promised the inheritance of Canaan.

He was not promised at all the land.

He was not told what he was gonna receive.

It wasn't until he arrived in the land that God said, you see this land, I'm gonna give it to your descendants, right?

That comes in Genesis 12, verse six says, Abraham traveled through the land as far as the oak tree of Mora at Shechem.

At the time the Canaanites were in the land, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your descendants, I will give this land.

So Abram built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

He didn't know that the land would belong to his family until after he arrives.

But Abraham's inheritance was never for him, but his descendants, right?

Abraham had to live knowing God's promise would not be fulfilled until after his death.

But in the meantime, that doesn't stop him from living for God instead of the beliefs of the culture or the story of his neighbors.

Did you hear that?

Did you get that?

Abraham had to live his life knowing God's promise would not be fulfilled until after his death, but that didn't stop him living for God instead of the beliefs, the culture, instead of the story of his neighbors.

You see, we too live our lives waiting to inherit God's great promise, salvation.

We too live as foreigners in a world that is crying out for salvation.

As Paul would put it in Romans eight, we too live each day for God and against the culture that surrounds us.

And here's the point.

If the story we believe in shapes the person we become as it did with Abraham, then how do we show the world a better story than what the world offers?

By giving them a taste of that future glory.

By showing the world a taste of that future glory, the world to come.

In other words, show them what it means to live in the kingdom of God.

Show them what it truly means to be a part of Jesus.

You see, our story tells us that the fruit of heaven has begun to ripen in our lives in the present time and in the present place.

It's called the fruit of the spirit.

Have you heard of it?

It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Is your life demonstrating the fruit ripening in the present, the fruit of heaven here and now?

What are you saying to others about what you hear on the news?

What words come to mind when you see others who live differently?

How do you treat strangers that you encounter?

Is it with derision, questioning, or is it in genuine love?

Paul says in Romans chapter 15, verses one and two, he says, but we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not just please ourselves.

Romans 15 · chapter mention

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up.

And then in Galatians chapter five, it says, for the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, you must love your neighbor as yourself.

You see, we show the world why our story is better than theirs, because while they are pursuing comfort and pleasure, we are at work pursuing love and God's justice.

So we love our neighbors as ourselves, as we await for God's promise to come.

Though Abraham would never see the land come to his descendants, he would see the promise of a miracle birth come to pass.

And the Hebrews author turns to that story next.

Follow with me as we see Abraham expecting the impossible.

Abraham expecting the impossible.

Hebrews chapter 11, 17, verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

He had received the promises, yet he was ready.

He was ready to offer up his only son.

God had told him through Isaac's descendants will carry on your name.

And he reasoned that God could even raise him from the dead.

And in a sense, he received him back from there.

This story is found in Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

And if I'm being honest with you, it's a really weird story.

I mean, have you ever like sit there and thought about this particular event in Abraham's life?

God tests Abraham's faith by telling him to offer his son, his only son, whom he loves.

It's just so weird.

God is telling the man that he chose to move a thousand miles to kill the boy that he miraculously brought into the world and is endangering the blessing that God foretold would come through Isaac.

So God's goodness is on the line here.

His character is on the line.

What does this make any sense?

That's what the pagans do.

That's what the idol worshipers do.

They offer up children.

Now, as a father, I can't imagine having to put Charlie or Jack on the altar.

Well, I will be honest, there are days when I am tested, but I could never do that.

I could never do that.

I can't imagine the pain or the weight on Abraham's mind.

In my sanctified imagination, I visualize Abraham working through this in his head.

The stress mounting, the questions dizzying.

The big question, of course, is how does killing this boy or even at this point, young man, make good on God's promise to bless the world through him?

I've got to be honest here.

Trust here seems near impossible, but Abraham had to reckon or imagine, creatively come up with the idea and the belief that God was going to do the impossible.

Let me explain.

Abraham expected Isaac's resurrection, even though that was never promised in the story.

In Genesis 22, in verse four, they're on their journey and they find the place that they're going to carry this out.

The Mount Moriah is what it's called.

And so here's what the text says.

Verse four, it says, on the third day, Abraham caught sight of the place in the distance.

So he said to his servants, you two stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go up there.

We will worship and then return to you.

We will worship and then we will return to you.

It's implied in the story in the text that Abraham is expecting that he's going to come back with Isaac.

Or did he say that to throw Isaac off the scent?

I mean, he's having to work all this through, right?

So now him and Isaac are walking up Mount Moriah, preparing to do the deed.

And Isaac is not a moron.

And so he's like, well, dad, I've got the wood for the altar.

I've got the wood for the sacrifice.

Where is the sacrifice?

And Abraham looked at his son in verse eight says, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.

The Lord will provide for himself.

You see, Abraham put his trust in God's character.

Either God would not make him go through with it or God would raise Isaac from the dead.

Regardless, Abraham obeyed.

He walked up that hill with all the questions in his head.

I have to be honest with you all, it's hard for me.

A lifelong believer in the resurrection of Jesus to imagine arriving at the conclusion that Abraham does.

Here's why.

I've grown up my entire life with 2000 years of history, believing and following the story of Jesus that he was raised from the dead.

In the Bible, there's only a couple of characters that actually come back to life.

In Genesis 22, nobody's come back to life yet.

Resurrection has not been mentioned.

There is no precedent for this story whatsoever for Abraham to come to the conclusion that Isaac's gonna be raised from the dead.

He is arriving at this through his imagination and what the spirit might be doing for him.

It might be teaching him and showing him.

So it's never been established in the Bible that resurrection was even a thing.

But by trusting God's character, he believed that Isaac would come back to him.

Now, this story of Abraham and Isaac is the foreshadowing of that greater story when God takes his son, his only son, whom he loves, and offers him up as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

And three days later, of course, he is raised from the dead.

You see, resurrection is the impossible promise of God that is hard to wrap our minds around.

But here is Abraham, son bound, knife raised.

And then when you expect the impossible.