By Faith, Abraham – Hebrews 11

By Faith Abraham, Hebrews 11 Series, August 25, 2019, Cornerstone Community Church, Kouts, IN.

Hebrews 11:8-10

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

His Names and Legacy

Abram: exalted father. Abraham: father of multitudes
Sarai: my princess. Sarah: mother (princess) of nations.

Abraham is known as the father of the faith. Even the father of Islam, as Abraham’s son Ishmael was the beginning of the Arab peoples. (see article on Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac). He was the father of the Jewish faith and people, and of the Messiah, Jesus. Abraham is mentioned twice in Hebrews 11, and his wife Sarah as well, an indication of how important he was to God’s story. Abraham is one of the central figures in all of scripture, mentioned by name over 200 times, 75 times in the New Testament.

Shem’s line (Semitic people)
Genesis 11:14 Eber Genesis 11:18 Reu Eber-Reu, Hebrew
Eber and Reu were both alive when Abram was growing up.

His Call

Genesis 11:31-32 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years and died in Haran. (Named after Terah’s son Haran, who died in Ur)?

Genesis 12:1-3 The Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.

A New Land

God called Abram to go to a new land, and gave him a great promise, that he would become a great nation and all people would be blessed through him. Although he left from Haran, God says later that he was called out of Ur. Maybe Abram influenced Terah to leave Ur and head for Canaan. Imagine what that was like for him, to leave everything he had known, his native land, his relatives, his father’s house.

Once in the land, he lived as a foreigner living in tents, temporary, looking forward to God’s city, his promises.
Hebrews 10:13 These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth

It was a very significant calling, one of the first major steps in God’s plan of redemption, and a messianic prophecy.
Place – God’s choice of the land where he would establish his people and set them apart.
Nation – the beginnings of the nation of Israel which he would establish after the exodus and bless.
Messiah – who would arise from the nation of Israel and be a blessing to all nations of the earth through his atoning death and resurrection.

Three Things to Learn

I see three important things that we can learn from Abraham’s response to this calling:
1. He heard God’s voice. We don’t know exactly how that played out, whether an audible voice, an impression, a dream, etc. But he tuned in enough to hear.
2. He believed what God said. The essence of faith as Jay laid out in the first message in this series. If God has spoken it, it is true and must be believed.
3. He obeyed God’s command.

Result: God working through his obedience brought about his purposes. God always uses our obedience in ways we can’t even imagine now.

Throughout his life, even culminating in God asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac, he expressed these principles of faith.

He Heard God’s Voice

We hear many voices, of our adversary the devil, our flesh, our desires, the voices of this world. We need to discern God’s voice from all of the other things that clutter our minds. How to discern?

KNOW THE WORD. The first place he speaks to us. As far as we know, there wasn’t a written word in Abraham’s time, only oral traditions, but he was living it! We have the scriptures, God’s written record of his dealings with his people. The scriptures are the primary source of God’s voice to us today.
HOWEVER, those very scriptures teach that “my sheep hear my voice”, that we will have dreams and visitations, the Holy Spirit will be our counselor, that we are directed to be led by the Spirit.
But we must reconcile all of our thoughts, impressions, dreams, etc. with what we know about him through his Word.

Pursue friendship with God. Call on his name, pour out your heart to him, read his word, draw near to him. Pursue Him!

Friend of God

2 Chronicles 20:7 and Isaiah 41:8 and James 2:23 Abraham called a “friend of God” or “God’s friend”.
As God’s friend, Abraham was able to pour out his heart to God, and have conversations with him. Like any friendship, it went both ways.
He called on the name of the Lord in 12:8, 13:4, pursuing God, drawing near to him.
His concerns that God was a little slow in keeping his promise. His doubts along the way.
Genesis 15:2 I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.

17:18 if only Ishmael were acceptable to you.
He was free to complain to God, to express his frustrations.

Genesis 18 Example

God thought a lot of Abraham, so he decided to reveal his plans for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham took the opportunity to be brutally honest with God about how he felt, knowing that Lot and his family lived there, even appearing to criticize him
V. 23 Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Genesis 18:25V. 25 You could not possibly do such a thing…won’t the judge of the earth do right?
He then proceeded to negotiate with God about the numbers, finally getting it down to 10.
Of course God knew what would eventually happen, so why have this conversation? Because Abraham was God’s friend, and God was sensitive to his feelings. He wanted Abraham to express his compassion, to share his feelings, to participate in what God was doing.

It’s the same with us. Read the Psalms and see how David and others expressed their deepest thoughts, doubts, hurts, pain, to God.

Just leave time to hear from him, it is a relationship, a friendship!

He Believed God

When Abraham complained that his only heir would be Eliezer, his servant, God again assured him of his promise:
Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Quoted by Paul in Romans 4:3,9,22 and Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23.
Romans 4: Paul refers to this passage 3 times to prove that faith has always saved his people, before circumcision, before the law, and that our salvation is entirely by faith, not by works of the law.

Abraham clung to his belief that he would be the father of nations, and even the Messiah that would bless all people through him!
Hebrews 11:19 even tells us that when God told him to sacrifice Isaac, the ultimate test, he considered that God was able to raise someone from the dead, his belief in the resurrection power of God!

When we believe what God has said, we are credited with the righteousness of Jesus!

Doubts and Weakness

No one, including Abraham, is immune from doubt. He deceived Pharaoh, and later Abimelech, saying that Sarah was his sister (although she really was his half-sister, Gen 20:12).

However, Hebrews 11 doesn’t mention the weaknesses of the heroes of faith, only their faith.

Romans 4:17-25
As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. He is our father in God’s sight, in whom Abraham believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist. He believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: So will your descendants be.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body to be already dead (since he was about a hundred years old) and also the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, because he was fully convinced that what God had promised, he was also able to do. Therefore, it was credited to him for righteousness.

Now “it was credited to him” was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

He did not weaken in faith, he did not waver in unbelief…but was strengthened in his faith…

Having doubts, or talking to God about them, isn’t unbelief.

The Hebrews 11 narrative is a picture of how God sees us through Jesus’ righteousness that we have by faith, not through our failures. He sees what we can be, not what we were and are.

Examples

Gideon, hiding in the winepress, dominated by fear, is called “mighty warrior” by the angel, which he would become.

Paul was a major persecutor of the church, yet God saw what he would become.

He Obeyed God

Abraham obeyed, even though he didn’t know where he was going, the process, the challenges and tests he would have along the way. But God often does that with us, doesn’t he? I.E. Philip and the Ethiopian on the road in Acts.

James 2:23. James quoted this passage to illustrate that real faith produces works, when Abraham obeyed God, and was willing to offer Isaac on the altar. He said that Abraham’s faith was made complete by his actions. James also writes in 2:19: You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe – and they shudder.
Obey the Gospel. The Scriptures often use belief and obedience interchangeably as in Romans 10:16 …not all obeyed the Gospel
2 Thessalonians 1:8, …those who don’t obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These are powerful statements that real faith results in obedience.

Conclusion

Remember the 3 things Abraham did:

• He heard God’s voice.
• He believed what God said.
• He did what God asked him to do.

The Lord also calls us to go. Matthew 28:19 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. JD Greer video