Faith Stands on God's Promises (Hebrews 11: 20-22) With Pastor Andrew Courtis

Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to the epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11, and our reading is verses 20 through to 22.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

A very short passage, but a passage packed with so much meaning.

Hebrews 11, verse 20 to 22, let us hear the word of the Lord.

Hebrews 11:20–22

By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning the things to come.

By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.

By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones.

This is the reading of God's holy word.

May the Lord speak to us through it, and may we have humble hearts before him.

Let us pray.

Our Heavenly Father, I thank you for this time of worship and praise this morning.

Pray that you would have received the worship that we bring to you in sincerity of heart.

We thank you for all that we can adore you for.

And as we now open your holy word, I pray that you speak to us through your Spirit.

Where we need to change, I pray that the Spirit of God would impress that upon us.

Where we need comfort, I pray that the Spirit would do that work.

Oh Lord, your son declared in the letters to the churches, he who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

And I pray that you would please give us all ears to hear.

I pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen.

Every single one of us, apart from those who will be alive at the time in which our Lord will return for his people, every single one of us is going to experience death.

Scripture does tell us, doesn't it?

It's appointed unto man once to die.

And then after this, the judgment.

We live in a world that does all it can to distract us from the reality of death.

There are many people who've actually never been to a funeral before.

We busy ourselves, we try to sanitize it as much as we can, but we cannot escape the reality that we will experience death.

Death is a part of the consequences of the fall.

Death exists.

But it's amazing when we hear the Apostle Paul who tells us in Philippians 1, for me to live is Christ, but to die is gain.

There is a Christian way of thinking about death.

And even though death does bring so much grief into our lives, so much sadness, it has a way of weighing us down and can even overcome us when we think of those that we deeply love who have died.

There is a Christian way of thinking about death and life.

And I want to encourage you this morning that no matter what life you have lived, no matter how much mess you have made along the way, no matter how much weakness you may have or have had and will have, you can face death with confidence.

And the confidence in which you face death is not a self-confidence.

Because that will actually be very depressing.

Not one of us is able to look back and say, I did it all, I did it all well.

Look at my record.

The confidence that we stand on as we face death.

And to add to that, the confidence we must stand on as we live all of life.

Everyone here, young people, those who are in their prime, and even those who are older, every single one of us, we can live life in confidence.

We can stand in confidence.

But the confidence in which we face death and all of life is based on standing on the promises of God.

To stand on the promises of God means that we know what God has said, and we trust what he has said.

The passage that I'm going to share with you this morning is about three of the patriarchs, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

And you'll note that there's only three verses that we're going to be looking at: Hebrews 11, 20 to 22.

But for those of you who are really familiar with the backstory of these men, you will note that they appear from the book of Genesis 24 all the way through to chapter 50.

There's a lot of stories packed into their lives.

And what's recorded in Genesis isn't all that took place in their lives, but that's a big chunk of scripture, isn't it?

Movies have been made about these characters because their lives are so colorful.

So many things happen.

But what I want you to note about these men is that their lives were marked by messiness.

There was wavering, there was weakness, there was dysfunction, there was division.

There was absolute disharmony and disorder in their households.

These men were far from heroes.

Yet they're recorded here in the book of Genesis as examples of people who took God at his word and persevered.

And I want you to remember that sentence because that's what Hebrews 11 is about.

Hebrews 11 is not about you and I looking at these individuals of old and say, ah, I must be just like them.

No.

We are to see that they are examples of a persevering faith, even in the midst of their weakness.

And what made their perseverance strong was not what they had done, it was whom they were trusting.

And if any of us are going to face death or all of life well, we need to cling to the Lord.

Don't look at what you have done.

Don't look at your accomplishments.

Don't look at your failures.

But look to the Lord Jesus Christ and cling to Him and respond to what God has revealed to you with sincere trust.

These individuals that we have mentioned here, as I said, Scripture tells us so much about their lives.

But glancing down at this text, you'll notice that the writer to the Hebrews skips over the most obvious stories.

When you think of Isaac, you will think of the many stories that marked him.

When you think of Jacob, you will think of times where it was quite eventful.

And then especially Joseph, there is so many good stories to tell about this man.

But the writer skips over them all.

And he comes right to the end of their lives.

And that's what these three men have in common.

The writer wants us to see them at the end of their lives, when they're on their deathbeds, when the innings is almost over.

The life lived for years is about to go.

The final breath will be breathed.

And they utter words of faith.

I've had many visits with people just before they have gone to heaven.

And in some of those conversations, I've been struck by the fact that they no longer want to talk about all those things that they did in their life.

They don't want to focus on all their plans and all their agendas and all their workings.

They just want Christ.

I had a very moving experience a number of years ago personally, when I had the opportunity, not knowing it would have been his last week alive, when in God's providence I, well last few weeks alive rather, when I had by God's providence an opportunity to visit Melbourne a number of years ago and to spend some time with my dad.

And I remember he had said to me in this conversation, knowing that there had been some hard providences in my life, and I certainly knew that he had a few over the years.

Hard providences that we contribute to unwisely, but hard providences that seem to have no explanation.

And even though I don't think he had the sense that he was about to go to heaven, I was quite humbled by the fact that he told me to ignore all those things that lay behind.

I remember being really humbled by that and moved by it.

And that became all more meaningful when he went into the presence of the Lord Jesus in the glory of heaven.

But can you think of moments where perhaps you've shared with someone who they've lived a life that's packed of activity, they've done so many things, they've done great things, they've done bad things.

But when it comes down to it, they know that only one thing matters.

It's that they're clinging to Christ.

And they want others to cling to him as well.

That is what we see in Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

The writer doesn't want you to see their scoreboard.

He doesn't want to exaggerate their good doings, nor does he want to fixate on the areas where they messed up, but he does want to show you that they faced death with confidence.

And the confidence they face death with is the same confidence that we ought to be able to face all of life with.

But you cannot do that if you are living for yourself, your ways, if you are clinging to your wisdom and your efforts.

Are you truly living for Christ?

Is he your all?

Do you love him?

Are you looking to him?

Is his lordship permeating all of your life?

Well, friends, let's look at these three examples of three different men, three different experiences, but all of them sharing one thing in common.

When they faced death, they were clinging to the Lord.

By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

The story is found in Genesis 27.

Prior to this, we know and we see it in verses 17 to 19, Isaac is a part of the story in which God calls Abraham to go sacrifice your son, your only son, there on Mount Moriah.

This was an incredible moment in Abraham's life.

God had told Abraham previously in Genesis 12, he then issued the covenant in Genesis 15, had reiterated in 17 and 18.

He had told him that Abraham, through you, through your seed, the nations will be blessed.

And we know the difficulty that he and Sarah had for those many years in not being able to have children.

But then finally the child of promise had come.

We learnt about that last week.

But God told Abraham to go and sacrifice your only son.

What ran through his head in that moment.

So many emotions would have been there.

But we learned that the bottom line was he did it, he was willing to do it, he took his son, and Isaac, who was no little tiny boy, he was older, willingly, submissively followed his father.

And when the time came for him to be laid down as a sacrifice, Isaac lies down, ready to be that sacrifice.

Abraham pulls out the knife.

And it is only when the Lord calls for him to stop that Abraham stops and loosens Isaac.

This was an epic moment.

But the writer to Hebrews told us that Abraham knew that even if he went through with this, God would raise him up.

For he believed the promise of God that the nations would indeed be blessed.

What faith, what trust?

This great promise of God, which is so big.

Remember, a promise that brings blessing to the nations, a promise that's huge, it's wide.

All seem to just be banking on this one son.

Well, Isaac survives, and he grows up and he lives his life.

And as you read from Genesis 24 onwards, um, you will begin to read the stories of him.

You will see that the Lord appears to Isaac and reiterates to Isaac the promises that he had made to his father Abraham.

That there will be the land, there will be descendants, and there will be blessing.

This was reiterated to him.

And Isaac received the promise of God that was issued to his father and was also issued to him from the Lord God.

The Lord had granted Isaac Jacob and Esau as children.

And the Lord had made it very clear to him and Rebekah that the older will serve the younger.

Remember Jacob and Esau?

A smooth man was Jacob, a homebody, a mama's boy, as some may say.

Esau, the wild hairy guy, the guy who was the outdoorsman, he was favored by his dad.

But despite the favoritism going on inside of the family, despite some very poor parenting, despite the internal dysfunction of this family, God was clear, wasn't he?

The older will serve the younger.

This was God's decree.

This was God's sovereign election.

And the book of Romans picks up on this theme.

Yet, when it came to it, he was going to, upon his deathbed, issue the blessing to Esau.

And you remember the familiar story.

A great deception goes on.

Of course, um Jacob wanted Isaac wanted this lovely soup that his son Esau could make from the hunting.

And while he was out in the field, Rebekah, of course, gets together with Jacob and they create that great plan.

Esau obviously was very hairy because this smooth man has animal skins on him.

Whoa, that's super hairy.

He goes in, and his dad, losing his sight, is deceived by this, and the whole situation is an absolute laugh and mess.

God was explicit to Isaac that the older will serve the younger.

The blessing was to go to Jacob.

Jacob and his mum are in this with deception, and this is the future of how the nations are going to be blessed.

But it's interesting, the writer just skips over all their story.

It's inexcusable what happens.

It's wrong what happens.

The family was messed up.

There was great deception, great dysfunction, great disharmony, and it's not to be commended.

Though he was deceived, he issues the blessing on the wrong son, doesn't he?

At least in his eyes.

Jacob receives the blessing.

Esau finds out.

And when it came down to it in the moment, when finally Isaac realized what was happening, here's the stunning thing.

He doesn't revoke the blessing.

He says, He will be blessed.

And what that tells us is, first of all, as he actually issued the blessings upon the two sons, and they both did receive a blessing, despite the favoritism that was on display, God orchestrated everything so the blessing actually went to the one who it was intended to.

God's ways will always prevail.

Nothing will ever thwart God's plan.

We can do what we want in our genius, we can do what we want in our human wisdom, we can do what we want in what we deem wise, but God's ways will always prevail.

And that's humbling.

But secondly, when finally confronted with the fact, he did not revoke it.

And he believed with all his heart that what he has issued to his son will come to pass, for God had made this promise to his father Abraham and also had reiterated to him.

What we see here is finally, as horrible as it was to get there, as disobedient and as inconsistent as he was, when he finally gets to the finish line and faces it, the writer to the Hebrews tells us that it was by faith he blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

He truly believed that God would do what he said he would do.

And what makes that also remarkable is this here is Isaac, who heard the promise made to his father Abraham and saw that his dad never got to see the fulfillment of the promise, but kept trusting the Lord that he would do it.

Isaac now has lived a long life.

And as he gets to the end, he is still clinging to that promise.

And the fact that he issues this blessing means I am looking past me and my circumstances and my present situation, and I am confident that God is going to do what God promised he would do in the future.

So as he gets to the end of his life, that's what he's clinging to.

He actually believed God.

He trusted him.

But this is a reminder that our faith at times can be wavering faith.

It can be weak faith.

But as I reminded you a few times so far these last few weeks, that there is a world of difference, though, between weak and wavering faith and no faith at all.

And as small and as weak as his faith was, he did trust the Lord.

Isn't it incredible that everything that he had done his whole life, every effort in the end, none of that mattered.

What mattered was that it As he was ready to close his eyes for the final time, he trusted the Lord's promise.

And it was concerning things to come.

That tells us that Isaac was ultimately looking at the future.

He should have been doing that the whole time in his life.

But instead, he allowed the glorious promise of God to be hijacked in his own mind by his own prejudice and preference.

That never stopped God's plan.

It just robbed Isaac of enjoying the blessing of knowing that his whole life.

But as he got to the end, he trusted God.

Secondly, we see Jacob.

He's found in verse 21.

By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

Again, this is incredible.

There is no story about Jacob having to flee the scene because his older brother Esau wants to kill him.

There's no story here of him having that conversation with Isaac just before he left, where Isaac reiterated to him saying, Jacob, remember the promise of God to our father Abraham, that he will give us the land, that he will give us descendants, and he will give us blessing.

The writer skips over the time that Jacob went out and slept on a rock at nighttime.

He skips over the time that he sees the ladder with angels descending and ascending.

He skips over the story of Jacob wrestling with God and saying, I will not let go until you bless me.

He skips over all the dodgy stories as well, where he repeats the sins of his father and grandfather.

They all throw their wives under the bus.

These men, they were scoundrels at times.

The writer just skips over it all.

All the stories that make good movies, all the stories that make good Sunday school lessons.

And he just gets right to the end of his life and says, Jacob, who we know, as I said, did a lot of wrong things.

When he came right to the end, when it was just him ready to be ushered into the presence of God.

When he was dying, he did two things.

He blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worship leaning on the top of his staff.

The writer here reverses the order of these things.

He's not really interested in a chronology here.

He's just simply trying to give us the story of what captivated these men at the end.

So, first of all, he he points out that he blessed each of the sons of Joseph.

You remember Jacob had many sons, and these sons would become the tribes of Israel.

This was a significant family.

The promise for the nations to be blessed has gone from Abraham to Abraham and Isaac, and gone now from Isaac to Jacob, and Jacob now has many sons.

But he zeros in on Joseph.

Joseph wasn't to receive normally in normal custom the double blessing.

He wasn't the firstborn.

But Joseph receives a double blessing from his father.

And the double blessing is seen in that he called Joseph's two sons to come to him.

And as these two sons came, he placed his hands upon them.

But rather than placing his right hand upon the older and the other hand upon the younger, he reversed his hands.

And Joseph thought he made a mistake, but he insisted, no, this is the way it is to be.

And as he blesses these two sons, see what Jacob is doing here.

Jacob believes that the promise God made to Abraham that was reiterated to his father Isaac and has now been repeated to him on that starry night, Jacob believes that God is going to fulfill that promise.

And he is so confident that he blessed all of the sons, but he gave a double portion to Joseph.

And this was seen through Joseph's two sons.

And as these two sons received this double portion, this blessing, the testimony is on display that this dying man is clinging to the promises of God.

He's not leaning on his resume.

He's not resting on his accomplishments and reputation.

He's leaning on the promises of God.

And I love the picturesque language of what's described next.

It says in verse 21, and worshipped leaning on the top of his staff.

The idea here is he bows down.

That's what the word worship means.

He stoops in humility and in recognition of God's glory and honor and power.

And he worships him.

He trusts the promises of God.

Here is a man who, like his dad and like his granddad, did not see the promises fulfilled.

And as it said earlier in the passage that we looked at last week, these men wandered throughout the land and never got to see the city that has foundations.

But they trusted.

And here is Jacob right at the end.

Jacob did not father his family well.

Jacob was a failure in much of his life.

He truly lived up to his own name.

Deceiver.

But when it came to it at the end, when all that was stripped away, he said, I give this blessing to you, my family.

And I issue it to the sons of Joseph.

And I lean on my staff and I worship God because God will do what he said he would do.

He faced death with confidence.

But now we come to the last character, he's in verse 22.

And this is the character who's most different to these men.

Of course, Joseph was also a sinner and had his weakness.

But the biblical account doesn't paint him as negatively as the others, does it?

He's presented very positively, just like Daniel.

But we read, knowing the story of Joseph being an epic one, the prime minister of Egypt.

And how did that happen?

How did that happen to this young son of Jacob, this nomad family?

Well, it happened through a hard providence.

His brothers were so jealous of him.

After God had given a revelation to this young man through dreams, the brothers wanted to eliminate him.

They wanted to murder him.

Of course, there was an intervention among some of the siblings, but ultimately they agreed, well, what we'll do is we'll sell him to the Egyptians.

And they lied to their dad.

They brought back his clothing with animals' blood on it and said, Look, you know, he he died.

It's so sad.

Their dad grieve over this deception.

And the whole time, while they're doing their family thing, he's off in slavery.

And you know the story.

God raises him up to lead in Potiphar's house.

And even as he labored with integrity and with faithfulness, with his eyes upon the Lord, there were those who lied about him.

There were those who said horrible things about him.

Potiphar's wife.

Remember the accusation?

He was innocent.

He got thrown into prison.

And there he was left for some time.

But God was with him.

The Lord allowed his goodness to be upon him.

He gave favor upon him.

We don't know the prayers of Joseph during these years, but he would have been looking to the Lord.

He would have remembered the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Of course, he was released.

He was promoted to being the prime minister of Egypt.

Famine came in the land in fulfillment of the dreams that God had sent Pharaoh.

The people were delivered.

The family of Jacob had come to Egypt.

Joseph reminds them that what you did to me, you meant for evil.

God meant it for good.

Joseph was able to see the providence of God on display.

But again, the writer to the Hebrews doesn't want to talk about any of that.

He just gets right to the end.

And he says, What does Joseph do when it comes to the end, when it's at the 11th hour, when he's about to be ushered again into glory to be with the Lord?

What does Joseph do?

Notice the text.

When he was dying.

This powerful man.

When he was dying, what did he say?

So, brothers, one more dig.

I made it, didn't I?

You wanted me out of here?

Who's now bowing before me?

No, no.

That's what I would have done.

No.

He made mention of the departure of the children of Israel.

Wow.

He's dying.

And what does he say?

Not self-defense, not even like, hey, our family's done pretty good, right?

Like we're we've um come from Canaan and we're like we're number one in Egypt now.

Like there was none of this internal pride going on.

What does he say?

He goes, remember, Egypt is not our home.

We're passing through.

God made a promise that we'll receive the land, that there will be descendants, and there will be blessing.

He spoke of the Exodus.

This was a long way away from his death.

But he believed the promise of God.

He didn't know how it precisely would happen, but he knew that in order for them to receive the land, they must depart out of Egypt somehow.

And he spoke of that.

He reminded them of the future.

He reminded them that God will deliver the children of Israel.

And he gave instructions concerning his bones.

But he didn't want it.

He said, You must take my bones, and when you leave, not knowing that they will become slaves to the precision that we read of, not knowing every struggle that they would experience, I want you to take my bones and I want you to take it to the promised land.

This man trusted God at the end.

He had faith.

He believed.

And this reminds me again that Joseph had had such a hard life, so many difficulties, so many struggles, so many blessings.

But when it comes right to the end, none of that mattered.

What mattered was that he was just trusting God and believing him.

And I fear that sometimes when we are in the prime of our present, that we are not helping people think about that which is to come when we stand before the Lord one day.

We're not doing enough to help one another in their struggle against sin.

Marriages will struggle and be dysfunctional.

Families will sometimes be experiencing great disharmony.

People will be overcome by so many temptations.

Sicknesses and suffering and afflictions are coming upon some people here in this congregation.

And it weighs you down.

Some of you are under deep pressure and work and in other situations.

And what do we need as the people of God in these moments?

What do the people around you need the most?

They need Christ.

They need him in all his glory, in all his beauty, in all his loveliness.

I guarantee if you ask those men at the end of their lives, what do we need most?

They would just point you to the promise of God and say, Trust Him.

Because that's what the writer to the Hebrews emphasizes here.

Now, as I step back and look at these three examples in the text, it would be very easy for us to look at this and simply say, Well, Isaac and Jacob, as they faced death, they blessed others and reminded them of the things to come.

We should do the same.

Joseph, he made mention of the future and his bones, which were to remain among the people and brought to the promised land, were to be a constant reminder of Joseph's trust in the Lord that God would deliver them.

It'd be very easy for us to look back and go, well, there's some very encouraging examples, but I want to encourage you with this to follow the way in which the writer is presenting this to us.

That's not what we're supposed to do.

What are we supposed to do?

We are to look to the one who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

We aren't to look to the bones of Joseph.

We are to look to the one whose body is no longer in the tomb.

We are to look at the risen, reigning Lord Jesus Christ.

We are to forsake the things of this world, including our own accomplishments and achievements.

We are to lay aside every weight that will hinder, entangle, and ensnare us.

We are to cast it aside, and we are to remove our fixation from us, from those around us, from this world, and we are to set our eyes upon the heavenly prize, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Look to the one who has blessed his children.

It's Christ.

Look to the one whose bones are not here, but is alive.

We are to look to him.

We will stumble, we will fail, we will be weak, and we will grow weary.

But what must we do?

We stand on the promises of God.

For on the promises of God we cannot fall.

Not because of who we are and what we've done, but because of the one in whom our anchor is attached to.

Remember our anchor, which begins in the boat in which we are in.

A boat that is faced by storms.

Storms of our sin, storms of trial, storms of temptation, storms of worldliness, storms of all the things from the world, the flesh, and the devil that are constantly raging against us.

We take our anchor, but unlike the world, we don't cast it down into the waters.

We cast our anchor up.

And our anchor goes through the veil, and it's attached to the one who is at the right hand of the Father, and he pulls us home to glory.

So are you going to face death with confidence?

Are you going to face all of life with confidence?

Then remember that begins by you taking your eyes off you and firmly fixing them upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's stand on the promises of God.

They cannot fail.

Let's pray.

Gracious Lord, I thank you for this passage of Scripture and the reminder for us to firmly set our gaze upon Christ.

May He receive the glory, may He receive the honor, and may you watch over us as a church family in Jesus' name.

Amen.