SPEAKER_00: This is one of those moments where I get frustrated with this whole sort of Bible recap platform because you think, man, I only I I had to blow through the entire life of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's gone between services.
SPEAKER_00: Where did it go?
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to have some time to teach all that.
SPEAKER_00: But it is also a time that I'm grateful because you see the arc of how it all plays out and you get the whole narrative of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm spending a lot of these as we talked about lunches talking about just trying to unpack that Bible recap deal.
SPEAKER_00: I do want to remind you on the 31st, we're having breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: And you guys are members of other churches, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a hall pass.
SPEAKER_00: We won't tell your pastor you come and hang out with us on a Saturday.
SPEAKER_00: We love you on Tuesdays.
SPEAKER_00: We love you on Saturday mornings too if you want to fellowship with us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Abraham, because we're kind of blowing through his life in the pace of these readings.
SPEAKER_00: Watching the football game last night, which turned out to be a classic football game.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't even going to watch it because who cares about watching Miami and Indiana?
SPEAKER_00: It's not like Indiana has ever played football before at any moment in history, anyway, right?
SPEAKER_00: They just bought that team from, you know, all over the country or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But it turned out it was a classic ball game.
SPEAKER_00: It was incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the second year in a row that there has been a real ethos of people of faith, young men of faith or coaches of faith, and not just the old school, yep, praise Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We, you know, give God the glory, and we beat the crap out of the other team, and we kick their butts all over, you know, and all that kind of like, just don't bring up Jesus' name if you're gonna be like that, right?
SPEAKER_00: But now there's this movement in uh young people and colleges, and there is a huge movement in sports, especially in college sports, where people are really getting saved and God's moving in special and dynamic ways.
SPEAKER_00: And now what you're getting are some real testimonies of spiritual champions and leaders in these settings, coaches, players, and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really incredible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is the second year in the row, and I was watching after the game with Scott Van Pelt and Reese Davis and that whole minute that whole discussion, and they interviewed the quarterback from Indiana, and those two guys are believers.
SPEAKER_00: Um and and it was interesting to see their private kind of about their faith, but they took a lot of pointed time to talk about the value of that quarterback's faith and what it meant for him and what it meant for the team.
SPEAKER_00: And then, of all the people that he could have asked about, uh Scott asked him about, I know you have a lot of mentors, but I know you're close to Tim Tebow.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he tell you before the game?
SPEAKER_00: And so he was shaping that conversation for this young man to be able to talk about the value of his faith.
SPEAKER_00: And he was asking questions, and then Reese Davis did a similar thing where they could really talk in depth about what it meant in actual terms in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Did y'all get any of that?
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that?
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty incredible thing to see uh sports casters who take the time to validate and engage in a conversation in a setting like that about the value of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as I thought about Abraham, and I've been reading those readings this week and all, I thought about his life is so valuable in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is he a patriarch, but he has the longest section and the most verses in Hebrews 11 of any of the other people.
SPEAKER_00: And so Hebrews 11, as we know, sometimes we call that the Faith Hall of Fame.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about faith, and by faith they did this, and by faith they did this, and Noah and Enoch, we talked about Enoch a few weeks ago, that sort of deal.
SPEAKER_00: But Abraham is is really highlighted in a stronger way through that Hall of Fame than anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: And so I, as I put it together, I thought, let's just do a quick overview and see the value of faith in a person's life.
SPEAKER_00: If they're going to take the time to do that in the post-game interviews of the national championship game on a network owned by a not Baptist culture corporate entity, let me just say it that way, then it must have value to it.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see that in Abraham's life.
SPEAKER_00: And so um, I'm not sure what scripture that is.
SPEAKER_00: I think she pulled the wrong scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do this.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And you're familiar with these if you've been in church.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, he obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.
SPEAKER_00: He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
SPEAKER_00: For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
SPEAKER_00: By faith Abraham, though he was past age, and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father, because he considered God faithful, him who had made the promise.
SPEAKER_00: And so from this, one man, and he, as good as dead, in other words, he was long past the child siring years.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God miraculously let him do that.
SPEAKER_00: So even as if he was dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as on as the sand on the seashore.
SPEAKER_00: All these people who were still living by faith when they died, they did not receive the things promised.
SPEAKER_00: They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they are truly living by faith in promises of something that will come in the future.
SPEAKER_00: And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
SPEAKER_00: People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
SPEAKER_00: If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they weren't one foot in God's promise and one foot in the world, leaving an escape hatch to go back.
SPEAKER_00: They were going forward and burned the ships in the harbor and were following God, a heavenly one.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: He who had received the promise 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.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
SPEAKER_00: And you know the story of the sacrifice and then the ram as Abraham was about to bring the knife down.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to just think about that for a minute, and I want to give you just a couple of thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you are headed back to work, so I won't be aware, I'll be aware of that.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what Abraham's faith did.
SPEAKER_00: It first established a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that Abraham was living in a far land, and God comes to him and says, I have a calling for you, and I have a promise for you, and I'm going to use you.
SPEAKER_00: And by faith, Abraham went and followed God.
SPEAKER_00: At that point, Abraham has cast his lot on who God is, and that God will be faithful to his promises.
SPEAKER_00: And you read and heard later in the verse where because of his faith, the Bible says that in verse 16, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
SPEAKER_00: And so Abraham builds a relationship with God through his faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it is only through our faith in him, our trust in him, our listening to his guidance, our trusting in his promises, our trusting in his character that he is faithful to his promises, that we build a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Abraham, you see, all throughout his life, as that story has been unfolded over the last 10 days or whatever it is in our readings, we see all those events that we all know if we've been in church, all of that is unfolding because Adam is, I mean, uh Abraham is doing his best to follow God by faith, to trust in God's direction, God's presence, God's protection, all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he is walking by faith in relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And you see how many times that God moves, God intervenes, God speaks, when Abraham thinks he's too old and he's not gonna have children, and those messengers from God come and they tell him that we're gonna come back here next year, and Sarah's gonna be with child and she's gonna be pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all these times that God is speaking.
SPEAKER_00: When God, when they tell Abraham that they're gonna destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and God pleads, Abraham pleads with God, if we can find 50 people, if we can find 40 people, if we can just find 10 godly men there, will you spare them?
SPEAKER_00: And God is in this interchange with him.
SPEAKER_00: And all throughout, he has a relationship because he is walking by faith.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing you see is God gives him a spiritual understanding of what life really is and how it works.
SPEAKER_00: This passage of Isaac, and I love the way it's described here, he knew that Isaac was the son through which that nation would occur.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he went to that mountain and he placed him there, and he raised that knife, and the full intention that he had, according to Scripture, is that he was going to plunge that knife into his son, and he was literally going to remove the promise of God that God had given him by doing, by taking that action, and yet he had reasoned that God is faithful, God is the author of life, God has promised to do this, God will raise him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And he has a spiritual understanding of who God is and what he does.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that not only is that an illustration of salvation, Jesus the Lamb of God and the Ram and Isaac as a picture of sacrifice and all that.
SPEAKER_00: I think that it is a picture that the promise of redemption through the Savior was alive and well in Abraham's day.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that in the book of Job, which is one of the oldest stories in all of Scripture, and Job gives that incredible statement: My Redeemer lives, and even if my body is gone and my skin is gone, my eyes will see and he will stand with me forever.
SPEAKER_00: A very clear picture of this of salvation just the way we know salvation is.
SPEAKER_00: That God provided the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that Abraham, this is a statement that Abraham has a spiritual understanding that God is promised a redeemer, and that is the foundation of this promise that we're involved with, and he understands those things.
SPEAKER_00: He has spiritual understanding of how life works, of how God's plan works, and what the plan of redemption is.
SPEAKER_00: He is looking at life from a spiritual perspective and a correct one, not a messed up one, but a correct one.
SPEAKER_00: And we know, as we saw in the life of Job, that we live with one foot in the carnal world, the human world, and we live with one foot in the spiritual world, and they operate together, and we need to have a clear understanding of how the spiritual part of life directs the physical part of life and the things that we do on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham had an understanding of that because of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It gave him purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He had a promise, he was going to a land, God had called him there, he was going to have children, he was going to build a nation through him, and even though he hadn't seen that, and even in times when he hadn't seen it yet, you got to figure I'm 61, I'm not siring any more children.
SPEAKER_00: He was a lot older than me.
SPEAKER_00: He was almost as old as some of you guys when he had that child.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as the Bible says here, it was almost as if he was dead in the sense that he couldn't be doing that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to think at some point when he crossed that Rubicon, he is discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he continues to pursue God, he continues to walk with him, he continues to follow because he had a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: God's promise gave him a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And God's promise gives us purpose.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just to be clocking in life or doing what the Joneses are doing or checking off the box about we bought this house and we did this, we got this promotion, we got these kids, and we bought that for them, and we did this.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas time.
SPEAKER_00: Christians run around doing Christmas the way the world does it, missing a lot of times the truth and the reality of what it means.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are to have a purpose that is a spiritual purpose driven by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: His faith carried him through his failures.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing to me when you read that story, and the first time he shows up, and that king says, Hmm, man, you got a good looking wife.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Tell him that you're my sister.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I would have been dead at that point with Janet, but to do it a second time, like I'd have never gotten the chance for the second one.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: But here's what happens in that second time, if you did the reading this week, when he comes and finds, they give him all this stuff, they give him all these camels and all these slaves and all this wealth and all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They take his wife.
SPEAKER_00: God shows up and gives the king a warning.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: You are gonna die if you touch that woman.
SPEAKER_00: And when you watch it unfold, she hasn't had the child yet.
SPEAKER_00: Adam, I mean, Abraham is beyond childbearing years.
SPEAKER_00: What God does is he protects Abraham's journey, he protects her honor, he keeps her away from those people.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that they give her back to Abraham, and then he calls witnesses and gives a special gift in honor of Sarah to prove that no one touched her, nobody had sex with her, she is pure in terms of that deal, and comes back and protecting the testimony that God will miraculously use Abraham to create a miraculous child to build the nation of Israel, the conduit for the Savior, in the same picture of how he was going to build salvation through Jesus with a miraculous birth.
SPEAKER_00: And even when Abraham has messed it up, God is protecting and moving and shaping all those events, and he even blesses him with the wealth that he takes beyond in the midst of all that.
SPEAKER_00: And it is Abraham's walk with faith that carries him through the failures of life.
SPEAKER_00: And if we sat around drinking coffee and eating more pie, we could all tell stories of how God has moved into our mess ups and our struggles and been faithful and carried us through that.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, he established the hope of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It makes it very clear that heaven is not just the view of the New Testament, it is the view and the picture of the Old Testament as well.
SPEAKER_00: Redemption from the beginning has been about eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Abraham sees and believes in redemption and knows that God is a God of resurrection, and he understands the prophecies of a redeemer, he understands that this is about eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And he is longing, as the Bible says, for a new country, and not just the one that he was called to from his home to Canaan that later became the land of Israel, but he is also desiring, it says specifically, a heavenly home and a heavenly place.
SPEAKER_00: And he is certainly an alien or a pilgrim or a sojourner when he goes from his home to Israel, the land of Israel, but he is still a pilgrim in human life and experience because our citizenship is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it is with God for eternity as our Redeemer when He redeems us.
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham has a calling and a picture to see life in light of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the value that our faith brings to every aspect of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And when we're making decisions and we're flowing and we're working through failures and we're dealing with relationships and we're searching for what am I going to do next?
SPEAKER_00: And we have those times when we don't feel useful or whatever it is, in all of those moments, it is turning back to the Lord and our walk of faith that calls us to a purpose and reminds us we have a relationship that cannot be separated.
SPEAKER_00: It causes us to see the vision of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And even when we fail and struggle, it is our faith that tells us that God is faithful and carries and protects and forgives and reshapes and prunes and grows on that journey to that vision that we have of eternity of eternity and eternal life through Jesus our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: It is our life of faith lived on a daily basis that brings that value.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that's an encouragement to you.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for letting me go a little bit long today.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray and get you guys out of here.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for today.
SPEAKER_00: Again, thank you for the encouragement and the blessing of these men.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for a chance to be together.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this will remind us and encourage us every day to turn to you and walk by faith because we see the incredible value that you have built into this relationship that we have with you through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray, and everybody said you guys have an awesome day.