Hebrews: Hall of Faith

Turn in your bible as Maggie comes up to read, Genesis chapter 12. So you want Genesis chapter 12, and then if you can whip to the other end of the Bible and put your finger in Hebrews chapter 11, that would be really good. Genesis chapter 12 and then Hebrews 11, and Maggie's gonna come and read Genesis 12 to us. Genesis chapter 12.

The Lord had said to Abraham go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

So Abraham went as the Lord had told him and locked went with him. Abraham was 75 years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife, Sarah, his nephew lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Penan, and they arrived there. Abraham traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Murah at shechem. At the time the canaanites were in the land, the lord appeared to Abraham and said, to your offspring, I will give this land.

So he built an altar there to the lord who had appeared to him. From there, he went on towards the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the West and AI on the east. There he built an altar to the lord and called on the name of the lord. Then Abraham set out and continued towards the mega. Now there was a famine in the land and Abraham went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarah, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife, then they will kill me, but we'll let you live. So you are my sister so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you. When Abraham came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when pharaoh's officials saw her, They praised her to Ferrow, and she was taken into his palace.

He treated Abraham well for her sake, and Abraham acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. But the lord inflicted serious diseases on pharaoh and his household because of Abraham's wife, Sarah. So Ferrow summoned Abraham. What have you done to me? He said, why didn't you tell me she was your wife?

Why did you say she is my sister so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go. Then Ferrow gave orders about Abraham to his men and they sent him on his way with his wife and everything he had. Now let's turn to, Hebrew's chapter 11 and verse 8. So we're working our way through Hebrews, and we're here in, talking about this first part of Abraham.

So Abraham Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place, he would later receive as his inheritance obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land, like stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to a city with foundations whose architect and builder is god.

By faith, Even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was unable to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this 1 man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who said such things who say such things show that they are looking for a a country of their own.

If they'd been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly 1. Therefore, god is not ashamed to be called their god for he has prepared a city for them. So if you wanna keep open, the passage, in Hebrews, that would be a great help. We'll refer to the Genesis passage as well, but obviously, mainly focused on on the Hebrews passage.

So it's probably easier to keep that 1 open in front of you. Let's pray together. Father god, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the chance we have this eve, this morning even to, study it together, to look at it, for you to speak to us through it, by your spirit, take your word, put it in our hearts and our minds, that we might leave here this morning wanting to be more like Jesus. In Jesus' name, our man.

So my name's, Phil, as Pete said, I'm 1 of the elders of the church. And we're thinking as we go through series, in Hebrews 11, if you've been here for the last few weeks, about faith. And we all, and you'll have heard this before. Lots of preachers use this, but we we all exercise faith in some way, don't we? We all have faith in some way.

If you are hitting 70 miles per hour on the a 3, for example. You know, the bit you get through to the chessington turn off and then as it widens out near ishia and you put your foot down, you're exercising faith that when you have to press the brake pedal, not many miles further on, that it will work. That you don't just keep on careening forward at 70 miles an hour. You know, if you visit the doctor and the doctor describe some tablets. Firstly, you're exercising faith that he or she knows what they're doing.

But secondly, that the manufacturer of the tablets has done it correctly. They haven't added some stuff in or bought them cheaply off the internet from some country that doesn't make them correctly. It's what we're doing, isn't it? In fact, it reminds me while we're on the topic of medical things. I was in hospital, I don't know, I'm gonna say 18 months ago, Kathleen will tell me some of the time, but, it was roughly then.

And I was gonna have a biopsy, and I was in the the little ward thing. And if I tell you that everyone else there was there were 8 or 10 of us, we were all middle aged men or older, should we say, you might be able to guess what I was having biopsy, but If you don't, it doesn't matter for the purposes of the story. You're I'm I was sitting there in this little cubicle with those terrible hospital gown, 1 of those gowns on And I was right outside was the nurse's station. And I'm sitting there quite relatively happily waiting. And the anesthetist comes along and he says to the nurses, okay, we're about to start.

We'll take the first person in and so on. It's the guy in bed 11, isn't it? Who's having a bit of his liver out as well. And the nurse said, no, I think it's the 14, the guy in 14. And all I'm doing is looking, okay, what bed am I in?

And my faithful is dissipating very quickly. Into the system. But I went ahead. Now why? Well, I think the answer is because I don't know anything about brake systems or what should be prescribed or how tablets are made or where surgeons should cut.

So I look at my experience, normally when I press the brake pedal, my experience is that it slows the car down. Normally when I take the tablet, I get better. And I haven't had any surgery before, but, they're not all struck off these surgeons, so I assume they actually know what they're doing. We rely on our experience, don't they? Therefore, I think, because we go through life, we tend to want to touch, we tend to want to feel, we tend to want to experience things before we put our faith in them.

It's it's why isn't it in in scripture when you when you read about Thomas And he he's really not convinced by the other apostles who've seen the risen Christ, John chapter 20 verse 25, Thomas said unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side I will not believe it. He needed the experience for himself. So Jesus appears to him. And as soon as Thomas puts his fingers into the nail holes, he doesn't need to bother with the side. Soon as that happens, he declares my lord and my god.

He has faith because he experienced meeting the risen Christ for himself. So surely, we could say it's it's rather unfair, isn't it? That he's he's been called doubting Thomas for the last, whatever it is, 2000 years or something. Surely, we could just call him because we're all the same as him, rational evidence led, data dependent Thomas. And that would be okay.

But what does Jesus say? Jesus says in verse 29 of john 20, because you have seen me, you've believed blessed of those who have not seen and yet have believed. See, what Jesus is talking about there and what to 11 of Hebrews is talking about, it's the same thing. It's a faith not based on experience. Not based on touch and sight, but on what is sometimes called saving faith.

You know, this is a belief or a trust in Jesus as your lord and savior when you've never met him. It's when you rely on his death on a cross to take the punishment for your sin, but you weren't there to see it happen. It's a faith that means you believe he rose from the dead and he now sits at the right hand of god, the father in heaven, but you haven't been there, and you haven't met anyone who's been there and come back. That's the faith that Hebrews is talking about. When it says in Hebrews 11 verse 1, faith is confidence in what we hope for.

An assurance about what we do not see. It's an amazing thing. And the reality is you see, if we displayed that faith in any other walk of our lives, I'm going to believe in something I can't prove, I'm going to believe in something that I I'm gonna believe in something I wasn't there for. People would think, you know, we need some help. Before Jesus came, the nation of Israel have the law of god, and they'd added their hundreds of additional laws and rules What were they doing?

They were getting rid of that sort of faith, and they were bringing in a faith that was based on a on a performance basis. You know, a belief in good works and religious practices that earned your righteousness. And you see, to the large extent, the letter to the Hebrews, part of the goal of that letter is outlining to Jewish Christians that they needed to trust not in the works of their culture, not in those religious practices, but in the death of Christ on the cross for salvation. There's no way back says Hebrews There's no way back to the Jewish religious system. And in fact, there's no benefiting going back because it was by faith alone that they were now saved.

Chapter 10 of Hebrews is all about justification by faith. Re read it for yourself later today. It's saying that we're made right with god by way of a swap Jesus takes the punishment on the cross for our sin. That's called atonement. But that doesn't finish there.

We take his righteousness onto us. That's called imputed righteousness or it inferred righteousness. It's given to us. Listen to chapter 10 verse 10. We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

Now listen to that, hear that. See, it doesn't say you've just been forgiven. Goes further than that, we've been made holy. We've been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Christ once and for all. So the writer having explained justification by faith in chapter 10 saying this is all you need.

You need this swap. He takes your punishment for your sin, you take his righteousness, In chapter 11, which is where we are, he goes back in history and shows us a whole group of people who were justified not by undertaking a series of works, not by, a series of religious practices that they did really well, but by this type of faith. And if we're Christians here this morning, and we possess this god given faith then the impact on our lives will be enormous. Because of it, not in order to get it. Very important that.

We don't obey to be saved. We obey because we've been saved. And as we look at Hebrews 11, we're going to continue to ask the question and we've asked it every week. What is what is there about this faith that is pleasing to god? And this morning, we're looking at the example of Abraham and Sarah.

Only the first bit, there's more on Abraham next week. But we're we're looking at example of Abraham and Sarah, and not only will we marvel at their faith, but I think we'll see 4 things. That the passage shows us are ways in which this faith pleases god. And the first 1 of these is saving faith is obedient. See in Genesis 12, we find Abraham and Sarah.

They're childless, but they're settled in the town of Haran in a place called, and I'm gonna struggle with this, uh-uh of the chaldeans. It's interesting when you when it was read to us. I don't know if you notice, but just as an aside, really, it calls him Abraham and Sarah I, and then later god changes their name. Now why does he do that? Well, we're not really told, but Abraham, a sorry, Abraham means exalted father.

And they were childless. So that was probably quite embarrassing because the names meant something. People would have asked about it. Sarah meant my princess, which possibly possibly described her character a bit. But it's changed to princess.

Just meaning princess of everyone, princess of the world, if you like. Abraham's name is changed from exalted father to mean father of multitudes because of the promise that god makes. I'm just gonna refer to them as Abraham and Sarah even though sometimes I'm back in where they were called something else. It's too difficult to keep going backwards or forwards. They're living in this place.

It's a pagan place and they live there happily, frankly, with their extended family until Genesis 12 verse 1, where it says the lord said to Abraham, go from your something. Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. And then it sort of explains that in Hebrew's 11 verse 8 that it's all about faith. It says verse 8, by faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he later receive as his inheritance obeyed and went.

So Abraham showing us there that living by faith means living for god and obeying him. A beach in faith is pleasing to god. But what I think is interesting about it is it's written in such a matter of fat way in Hebrews, isn't it? You know, in in in a way we could almost miss what a phenomenal example of this, Abraham is because it just says he was called to go to a place and he obeyed and went full stop. That's it, really.

But would we have been as relaxed as that in Abraham's situation? If you were asked to leave your extended family where you've been for years, you're part of a community and just go and pick your stuff up and off you go. And more importantly, I'm not gonna tell you where yet. Would you would you be as obedient as Abraham straight off the bat? Are you up for that?

Mean, if we move only a few miles down the road, we look at things like commuting time and house prices, transport links, and proximity of family, and local schools. All of that stuff comes into our heads. Abraham just goes. Abraham's faith meant he obeyed god and he left to go who knows where, although in this instance, you could probably get away with saying god knows where. Because he does.

I mean, imagine on the day that they're ready to go. Abraham and Sarah packing up and the removal men come, and they pack all the stuff away, and the guy says, yeah, Powell, I've got I've got no destination on this sheet. Where are we going? And he perhaps says, I think we're just going to go over in that direction and we'll keep going and we'll take it from there. I mean, I can tell you that is not a way to get a good quote from a removal company, but it is obedience.

And it's having faith in god wanting the best for you. It's having faith in god's sovereignty over your life. Abraham didn't know where he was heading, but he knew who was taking him there. Now look, I guess it's not impossible if you're in your twenties here, possibly early thirties, you know, you're zealous for god, and You you're keen for an adventure. You've got no ties.

No career. No flat ownership. You're fact your whole life sounds horrific to me, but I think if I would stop and go and see Pym, but, you need a correct no. But that if that's you, then you might say, yeah, I'd go. God calls me.

You know, I'd go. I'd obey like that. But what about if he was 75? Abraham's 75, and he had a wife. Would you be up for just following god at that age?

No information as to where you're going? Abraham just does it because faith is being obedient to god even when we don't have all the information we want. Even when we seem to be too old to be of any use. Abraham 75, he's already stepped down from home group leading. He's not on the stewarding rotor.

It certainly wasn't anywhere near a band. He would be completely the wrong image. He was playing a bit more golf. There were some good good things. He could come to church quite late.

He'd go straight away after the service. Nobody would miss him. His life was okay. And suddenly god says, okay, fine. Time to move country.

Actually, I'm just gonna pause there. Let me just talk about retirement for a minute because it it I was thinking about this when I was doing this to the reading about on this sermon. And Catherine and I would have looked at a book on retirement together when we're on holiday. Retirement from your secular job, fine. Retirement from god and god's people and serving god is not fine.

The idea that you work for many, many years and save up money so that then you when you stop, you basically just go traveling and eat and drink and indulge yourself. It's frankly pretty obscene, and it certainly is not Christian. The point here is that we should have faith and we should be ready to obey god even when our culture sees someone apparently too old to be really of any use. Or even when we feel it would be quite nice to slow down and do nothing. God can use any 1 of any age for his work.

In fact, when you look at the Genesis account, he doesn't he really starts with Abraham at 75. See, I hope we're quite excited by that. God can still have a major work in mind for you even as you get older. But it wasn't it wasn't just calling Abraham and Sarah out of where they were living and talking about where they should go. It wasn't just about where they were going.

It was also about what they were leaving. He was calling them to leave a pagan nation, to be different, to be distinct, And 1 of the greatest challenges to the church in this country, I think, today, is that we too are in the middle of a pagan nation. And yet so often, we're indistinguishable from it. We're not distinct. We're wanting to fit in.

If you bring a friend to Cornerstone, who's not a Christian, I hope they're challenged by it. I don't know what you think, whether you think they are, or is it just like taking them to any club? But hopefully a warmer welcome. As a Christian, do you stand out amongst your family and your friends? Abraham was called by god to leave his country and be different for god.

Are you different for god? The second thing Abraham shows us about a faith that pleases god is this. Saving faith makes us citizens of heaven and therefore strangers here. This is the better country stuff. This is really important.

Hebrews 11 verse 9, by faith he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is god. He's 75 years old. He's reasonably wealthy. He believes in god's promises.

He sets out to somewhere else. But more than that, he accepts that god is calling him to be a stranger, to be an alien in the world. He was basically a nomad from then on, Abraham, and let's not kid ourselves. The lie life of a nomad is not romantic. It is really hard.

I went camping with my kids 1 night ever before, you know, in Apollo apes when in the old days when we used to have those days away at polyopes. And that was enough for me. The idea of wandering around at 75 years old with your wife camping is, you know, it's just not attractive. And remember, he's got this whole entourage with him. And they haven't heard from God.

He has. They are all looking to him, saying, are we there yet? Where are we going? How long do we have to stay in tents? For months, for years, they wandered.

They get to Canon, serves in Genesis 12 verse 7, and the lord appears to Abraham and says, to your offspring, I will give this land. So at last he's thinking, okay, now we're talking. If you're gonna give the land to my offspring, this must be where we're gonna, you know, stay. 3 verses later, verse 10, Now there was a famine in the land, and Abraham went down to Egypt to live there for a while. He must have been thinking what is God doing?

I have to leave. I have to come here. We've been here seconds, and we've got to leave to get food. Famine comes to go to Egypt and actually gets very messy as we read. Abraham basically gives his wife away to pharaoh on the basis that would protect him.

He says, you know, let's say I'm, your brother because You're too beautiful, Ferrow will want you. Incidentally, they are half brother and sister, same father, Abraham and Sarah. So he's not entirely lying. But he's not harmed. He gets wealthier.

Ferrow's giving him I can't remember what it was, donkeys or something, a cattle, stuff like that, camels. So he gets more wealth, gets Sarah back off they go, and it says that they go to the great trees of Ma'amre at Hebron where he pitched his tents again and built an altar for the lord. Still no real base, nowhere to call home, no fulfillment of god's promises, no offspring. Hebrews is saying, look, Abraham had been promised to land, a land that his descendants will inherit. And finally, when he gets there, what does he do?

But it's easy to say what he doesn't do because he doesn't build anything. Doesn't build a castle, doesn't build a settlement, doesn't build a city, He's a stranger in the world, even though god blesses Abraham and creates a nation through him. Do you know how much of the land Abraham actually owned in the end? None. Right at the end of his life, he buys a burial plot which seems to require a lot of negotiation.

It requires a burial plot for him and his wife. A faith pleasing to god means we need to recognize that we are strangers in this world. We're passing through this world. It is all about heaven. We are citizens of the kingdom of heaven, of the kingdom of god.

That's what we need to have in our minds. That is the better country that we're going to. Yet it's so easy, isn't it for us to get comfortable here? We want to be comfortable here. We want to own property and pass it on to our children, but it actually is not just about property, even though it does talk about land a lot.

There is a constant battle inside of us, isn't there? Between knowing that your your citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and that gives you great assurance and great hope for the future, and you look forward to it, and you love it, and you want to be in that better country. And at the same time, at the same time, you wanna belong here. You don't wanna be a stranger and an alien. There's always a tug in our heart where we want to fit in wherever we are.

You know, we wanna be like the people that we talk to at the school gate, don't we? We want to wear the same clothes. We're sometimes envious of them. We want the same cars. We want the ability to head off to the gym and the spa like they seem to be able to do whenever they want.

Or we want to be like the people we work with, all the people we place sport with or, you know, whatever it is. We can't just seem to keep in our heads, the kingdom of heaven, We we still want to be. We wanna belong here. We have a deep seated desire to be like everyone else we hang out with. You see that particularly with teenagers?

You know, young teenagers, they wanna fit in with their peers, they wanna be like all their friends, they wanna have everything their friends have, they wanna do what their friends do. So 1 of the reasons I think, by the way, that bringing up kids as Christians in a church like Cornerstone, where there are so many kids is so important. It's tough for them in the week at school. But at least here with with whatever we've got, I don't know what the current figure is, a hundred and something kids going out. Into a Sunday school.

At least here, it seems normal to be Christian. Very, very important for kids. Even the Israelites in the Bible wanted to be like everyone else, didn't they? God. Yes.

We know you're there, god, but can you give us a king? They say, can we have a king? And we know that was a disaster. Abraham's faith made him willing to be different from those around him because he knew his citizenship was in heaven, not here. There's a story I've I've told before about, James Garfield, James Garford, I think he was a general.

He became the president of the US in the 1800s. In 18 81, he visited, the UK, And he attended the Metropolitan tabernacle, which was spurgeon's church, to hear spurgeon. That's why he went. And he took an entourage, as you'd expect, a whole bunch of Americans with him, and here's an extract from the talk that spurgeon gave that evening. And it's bang on this point that a, the Hebrews is making.

Spurgeon said this, the Christian life should be 1 of waiting. That is holding with a loose hand all earthly things. Many travelers are among us today. They are passing from 1 place to another viewing diverse countries. But as they are only travelers and are soon to return home, they do not speculate in the businesses of the city of London.

They do not attempt to buy larger states and lay them out. They do not try and make gold and silver. They know that they are only strangers and foreigners, and they act as such. They take interest in the affairs of the country in which they are traveling as maybe becoming of those who are not citizens of it. They wish well to those among whom they tarry, that means sort of stay with.

But that is all. For they are going home. Therefore, they do not intend to hamper themselves with anything that might make it difficult for them to depart from our shores. Fantastic, isn't it? That's what this is talking about.

Do you clog up your life with stuff that makes it difficult for you to look forward to heaven, perhaps because you're enjoying life now. 1 day we're going home, 1 day we're going to a better country. Let's keep that at the front of our minds. Third element of faith shown to us here, and these the next 2 will be a bit quicker. Is this 1.

It's displayed by Sarah, this 1. And the third element is this. Our faith is in the 1 who is faithful. Our faith is in the 1 who is faithful. Verse 11, and by faith, even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.

See, Sarah is now being offered as an example to us. And I have to say when I first read that, I struggled a bit because I remember that story, you know, isn't it like 3 people turn up? And they say to them, and this is when they're much older. This is not right at the beginning, they say within a year you're gonna have a child. And Sarah laughs, and I can remember that story, and I had to look it up.

And it says Genesis 18, so we're quite a few chapters on. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, after I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure? Then the lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah a laugh? And say, will I really have a child now that I'm old? Is anything too hard for god?

See at first glance to me, Sarah appears to be a skeptic, not a hero of the face. But I think what Hebrews is clarifying here is that Sarah's faith isn't in her own body. It isn't she was biologically too old. Her faith is in a god who is faithful. By the time this, happens, she's 90 years old.

It was 25 years since god had first said to Abraham, I will make, you know, great nation from you. Nothing had happened. And I think her laughter is and it's internal, it says the laughter, but I think she's basically saying what me? Is he serious? But Hebrews are saying, even though physically it's impossible, she believed and she had faith in a god that keeps his promises.

And I think that's interesting for us because the idea of having faith in a god who is faithful is is in a sense much more linked to where we were at the beginning about evidence led. Cause when you put your faith in Christ dying on a cross, When you put your faith in a heaven that we haven't seen, far from being sort of cause for whether we're slightly, you know, need some help mentally, It means that we're saying no, because we can look at god. We can look at the promises that god has kept. We can look at the 1 who is faithful and that is real and that is tangible. We can look at a god who through history has kept his promises and say, that is the god that I have faith in.

See, god isn't a god who makes a promise and then If it hasn't happened to our timetable, well, we we need to assume we've misunderstood something, or he's changed his mind. That's not how it works. Be patient. Trust god. A few, I I think Paul prayed for them earlier.

There's been a few people away leading this camp for girls, Karen, Sarah Pierce, I think Grace, you're on it when you, I think there's some others. And, sara, sorry, Karen was doing a talk on Sarah. And so she was round at our house, and I persuaded her to give me her notes before she went so I can have a look at this. And it was really good. And actually, I'm sure it had a great impact on the evening and and and on the girls there.

Actually, just before I carry on, reminded me of another story. About 25 years ago probably, I got a phone call from 1 of the very big central London churches from the office of the pastor. I've been not say who. And they said, can you meet this young chap? We need to find him some somewhere to live in Kensington or somewhere, you know, mad.

And, so I met this guy and I said, what do you do at the church then? And he said, oh, I, I do all the notes for the sermons. So when you take the notes, he said, then I prepare all the sermons, all the background, all the read the other passages, do it, and then present it, and the preacher just puts it together at the last minute, and That's true. Could we have 1 of them? Yeah.

Well, Karen was mine, actually. So that's what I'm saying. And it works very well. So I no. No.

It's a terrible idea, but, anyway, I read her notes. She said this, and I thought, I'm just gonna give it a credit and read it because I couldn't put this any better. She said this. Waiting is never easy. And sometimes we can begin to doubt.

Did god really say that? Is that really what god is telling me to do? Have I heard him correctly, or is this just what I want to happen? So I made myself believe that he'd said it. Now, aren't we just like that?

I know I am. You know, God makes a promise in the Bible, for example, I'm thinking, okay, that's fine. The problem is I need it a little bit more pacy. I need it at, you know, my speed. And so I gets diff it gets it gets hard if I have to wait.

I mean, 25 years, these people were waiting, but you see Sarah was the same as me, actually. Because she didn't wait that long. She gave God a few years, and then she says, okay, let's get Abraham to have a baby with Hagar, my maidservant. An ishmael's born. And then we can move the whole process along a bit because I own Hager so they'll own the baby.

It's her thinking. But it's a disaster. God doesn't need our interference. If you have to wait 25 years, god's gonna keep his promise. The result of them having faith in a faithful god is verse 12.

So from this 1 man, and he is good as dead came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashell. Fourth, finally, saving faith changes your perspective. Look at verse 13. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. Abraham and Sarah believed in god's promises, but they didn't see them fulfilled. Yes, they had a son, Isaac. But that is a long way, isn't it, from having descendants as numerous stars in the sky? Abraham was to be the father of the nation of Israel, but did he see that fulfilled?

No. Simply says in Hebrews that all these heroes of the faith were still living by faith when they died. So we need to let our faith change our perspective because our lives are not about now. They're not about rewards now. They're not about us seeing results now.

It's Wyin versus 14 and 15. It says, you know, they could have gone back. They could have given up. They could have gone back to the other country. They they would have had the opportunity, had they wanted it, but it wasn't about their life now.

It wasn't about being comfortable. Was about what god had for them. But think about what's happening now as we sit here. All those kids are in Sunday school, hearing about Jesus every week. There is a whole team of Sunday school workers out there.

Why do they bother? Why? Really? Why it bother? It is a pretty thankless task.

Yet amongst those children, or if you want to look further ahead, their children, sometime in the future, might be a giant to the faith. They might be people who will love god and plant churches, become great preachers or missionaries. Yet the reality is for those Sunday school teachers, they won't be alive to see that fulfilled. Most of them, certainly not Rory. You know, why work so hard for something you won't be able to take any pleasure in yourself?

Because this face is about an eternal perspective. It's not about now. So those are the 4 aspects of faith we see this morning. Obedience, being a citizen of heaven, looking forward to a better country. Having a faith in the 1 who is faithful, and keeping in your head an eternal perspective.

Those are all amazing things, and they're fruit of a god given faith. And do you see the conclusion of it all verse 16? Therefore god is not ashamed to be called their god for he has prepared a city for them. I don't know if you when you first read that, that's an odd way round, isn't it? I've always thought people are always urging as particularly, you know, preachers are saying, you know, don't don't be ashamed of god.

In a Paul in Romans 1 says I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Whereas don't be ashamed of it. You know, when you go into work tomorrow or you've seen some friends or whatever it is and they ask you how the weekend was, don't dodge Sunday. That's what we're told, isn't it? But that's not what this is speaking about.

Yes, we have to find the courage to speak up, be truthful, talk about Jesus, but here is the other way around. It's saying because of this faith, God is not ashamed to be called your god by you. That's fascinating. Because it's not saying if we have these 4 elements of the faith that we've looked at this morning, then god won't be ashamed of you. That's not what he's saying.

It's not performance based. When we mess up, god doesn't put his hand in his, sorry, his head in his hand and say, you know, can't believe their mind. I hope they don't mention me. What does this verse say he's not ashamed of? He's not ashamed of us calling him our god.

In other words, if we display in our lives this saving faith, then he's pleased to be called our god, to be known as our god. It's an evangelistic thing. We want people to look at our lives and say, I want to know their god. The problem we have though, and we all know it is that god would be ashamed to be called our god if he took account of our sinful hearts as we sat here. If he took account of our behavior this week and next week, frankly, you know, even with this faith that we have, we know we're not perfect.

We're sinful. It's not just a question of, we know, we slip up sometimes. We're sinful. And that's why that's why this passage is so fantastic. That's why this passage is so reassuring because so did Abraham and Sarah.

No, Sarah encouraged her husband to sleep with Hagar that they might have a child because she couldn't wait. Abraham is so weak that he does it. Abraham himself lies not just a pharaoh. There's a bit later on. Genesis 20 tries to give her away again to protect himself, to a a bimolek.

It would be easy to imagine, wouldn't it, that god would be ashamed to be called the god of Abraham and Sarah. And the same with us. If we aren't perfect, how can a pure god say that he's not ashamed of us? The answer is because of Jesus. This is where we started this morning, where we're finished.

In Christ, we have his righteousness and that has nothing to do with works. It's nothing to do with the quality of how we live. It's nothing to do with whether we obey a lot or a little. It's nothing to do with whether you make sacrifices in your life for Jesus. It's nothing to do with actually whether you can hold this better country in your head.

It is all to do with our faith in him. When god looks at you this morning, he must see the righteousness of Christ He must see the perfection of Jesus because only then can he say I'm not ashamed to be called their god. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful picture of a story of Abraham and Sarah that we see their imperfections. We see that in so many ways they're like us, they're impatient.

They aren't trusting. They try and do it themselves. And yet at the same time, they show many good traits They are aware that this world is passing, that they're not, it's not about this world is not about being citizens of the here and now. It's about being a citizen of a better country to come. Father, we thank you that by your son, we can be saved only by him only in facing him alone, Nothing else do we need help us to focus on that, help us to love him more help us in our hearts to, have a faith that because of that faith, causes us to want to serve you, to want to obey, to do the things we've just looked at, but help us never to add those things as if there were as if in some way they're necessary to get to heaven.

Lord Jesus, it is only through you that we can go to this better country. In Jesus name, our