Hebrews 11:8-12 The Message
8-10 By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by his keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
11-12 By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
Word of God for the Children of God
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Faith believes God has revealed something about the future; not everything, but something.
And what he has revealed is quite enough for us to know.
Faith seizes upon a revealed event and begins to live in anticipation of it.
Therefore, faith gives our life a goal, a purpose, a destination and horizon.
It is a look into the future.
We see this in the biblical example of the Patriarch Abraham.
He is an illustration of the meaninglessness of time in the life of faith.
It is amazing how far Abraham saw.
Abraham lived about two thousand years before Christ.
We live about two thousand years after Christ.
Yet Abraham, looking forward by faith, believing what God had said would take place, looked across the expanse of forty centuries of time and beyond, to that one day when God would bring to pass on earth, a city with eternal foundations.
Abraham saw what John sees in the book of Revelation, a city coming down out of heaven onto earth.
That is a symbol of that which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,
(Matthew 6:10).
That is the unseen horizon Abraham longed for, an earth run after God’s order, where people dwell together in peace, harmony, blessing, beauty, fulfillment.
Because of that he was content to dwell in tents, looking for horizons coming.
You can see this quality of anticipation also in Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
Isaac and Jacob both knew God intended to make nations from their sons, and their final prayers were based upon that fact.
They prayed in anticipation of what God had said would come, and blessed their children on that basis.
Joseph, when he was dying, saw four hundred years ahead to the coming exodus from Egypt, and arranged by faith for a funeral service in the promised land.
He did not want his bones to be buried in Egyptian soil.
Thus he symbolized his own conviction that God was going to do exactly what he had said, and eventually it happened exactly that way. (Genesis 50:24-26) and (Exodus 13:18-20)
You can see how faith anticipates in the case of Moses’ parents who, when he was born, saw he was beautiful in God’s sight
(Acts 7:20-21) they acted by faith to save him from the edict of the king all newborn male children should be slain (Exodus 1:16,22).
This was more than the natural inclination of parents to preserve their children from death.
But these parents knew there was a promise of deliverance from Egypt for their people, and they knew the time was near.
God had foretold how long it would be.
They were given assurance this boy, Moses, had been singled out by God, they trusted God’s word and, acting on that, they defied the king and hid the child for three months (Hebrews 11:23).
This quality of faith, accepts as certain, that on God’s appointed day, a promise of the future will truly be fulfilled, a sure measure of a faith which always acts.
There is a common misconception that thinks of men and women of faith as so occupied with the future, they sit around, twiddle their thumbs, doing nothing.
We have heard of those who are so heavenly-minded they are no earthly good.
That is the common concept of faith.
But that is not faith; that is fatalism!
Faith works!
Faith is doing something now, in view of the future.
If you are folding your hands and waiting for the Second Coming you are not living the life of faith.
The life of faith is that which acts now in view of that coming event.
If we seek to understand better what it means to put faith into action and to take God at His word, then we need look no further than the life of Abraham.
He’s described in Romans as the father of all who have faith (Romans 4:16).
He was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (v 21), and this was the conviction which spurred him on to faithful obedience and action.
God’s call to Abraham was costly and radical:
“The LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Genesis 12:1).
Abraham was asked to leave his country, his friends, and his extended family—essentially, all that he knew and held dear.
God did not stop at that command, though.
He promised to bless Abraham in the new land, to make him “a great nation” and to make his name great (v 2).
And Abraham obeyed and went.
Genesis 15:4-7 New American Standard Bible
4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come from your own [a]body shall be your heir.” 5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your [b] descendants be.” 6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He [c]credited it to him as righteousness. 7 And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to [d]possess it.”
Why would anybody ever do that?
Abraham had nothing save the command of God, the accompanying promises.
But that was enough for him! That is faith in action. That is faith in every day and in every generation: taking God at His word and stepping out in obedience.
The callings of God, will seldom leave anyone where the calling finds them.
If we fail to go forth when God says ‘Go,’ then what? For by faithful obedience, Abraham’s example of faithful obedience, we should not remain stationary.
Refusing to step out and act in faith results in backward movement even as we never take a step.
Abraham, though, walked forward.
He departed in obedience, “not knowing where he was going.”
It was sufficient for him that God had told him to go, and so he did not need to be told where he would end up.
And by stepping out in faith, Abraham stepped into the heart of God’s plan to save His people and bring (how many stars in heaven?) blessings to His world.
Abraham’s example of faith and obedience leads us to discover that the only place to be is exactly where God wants us to be, and the only purpose that we should ever seek to fulfill is that which God has surely made known to us.
Has God been speaking to you through His word about stepping out in faith and obedience to His leading?
Then “today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15).
God’s commands, summons’, may run absolutely contrary to everything we have been planning and thinking about, and it may require us to leave behind everything that represents security to us—but if God be calling, we must go!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Praying …
God Sustains His Servant.
For the music director. A Psalm of David.
40 I waited [a]patiently for the Lord;
And He reached down to me and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up out of the pit of [b]destruction, out of the mud;
And He set my feet on a rock, making my footsteps firm.
3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the Lord.
4 How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust,
And has not turned to the [c]proud, nor to those who become involved in falsehood.
5 Many, Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done,
And Your thoughts toward us;
There is no one to compare with You.
If I would declare and speak of them,
They would be too numerous to count.
6 You have not desired [d]sacrifice and meal offering;
You have [e]opened my ears;
You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
It is [f]written of me in the scroll of the book.
8 I delight to do Your will, my God;
Your Law is within my [g]heart.”
9 I have proclaimed good news of righteousness in the great congregation;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips,
Lord, You know.
10 I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your mercy and Your truth from the great congregation.
11 You, Lord, will not withhold Your compassion from me;
[h]Your mercy and Your truth will continually watch over me.
12 For evils beyond number have surrounded me;
My guilty deeds have overtaken me, so that I am not able to see;
They are more numerous than the hairs of my head,
And my heart has [i]failed me.
13 Be pleased, Lord, to rescue me;
Hurry, Lord, to help me.
14 May those be ashamed and humiliated together
Who seek my [j]life to destroy it;
May those be turned back and dishonored
Who delight [k]in my hurt.
15 May those be [l]appalled because of their shame
Who say to me, “Aha, aha!”
16 May all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
May those who love Your salvation continually say,
“The Lord be exalted!”
17 But I am afflicted and needy;
May the Lord be mindful of me.
You are my help and my savior;
Do not delay, my God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 