Hall of Faith - Pursuing God's Promise

I'm very privileged this morning to be starting a new series, as you can see up on the screen, because as a church, we're going to spend the next four weeks in Hebrews chapter 11. And I'm sure this is a passage that many of you know very well. It's our very own Biblical hall of Fame. And when preparing this sermon, I thought I'd look up the rules across a range of different sports, some of the world's major sports, about how do you get into their hall of Fame? And what I learned was there's a heap of rules.

It's very complicated, especially US Sports, about who's eligible, what they had to have done, what they've achieved, how they're assessed, how they're voted on. Over multiple years, it gets very complicated. But we don't call this list in Hebrews the Hall of Fame. We call it the hall of Faith. And that's because the rules to get in are simple and there's just one, and that's to live a life of faith.

So this morning, I'm going to look at two different hall of Faith entrance, Abraham and Sarah together. But before we do that, let's read through our key text. This is a long one, so stick with me here, but it'll come up on the screen. Hebrews chapter 11, starting at verse one.

Awesome. Faith shows the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command.

That what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. Abel's offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man, and God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith. It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying.

He disappeared because God took him. For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood.

He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith, Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith. It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in tents.

And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child. Although she was barren and too old, she believed that God would keep his promise. And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead.

A nation with so many people that like the stars in the sky and all the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count them. All these people died believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on Earth. Obviously, people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own.

If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. What an incredible passage. And we could keep on reading because the author of Hebrews goes on to tell more and more amazing stories of people of faith, some of which we're going to unpack as a church over this coming month.

And I think that if anyone asks you about Jesus for generations and you want to look in the Bible, you just pull out this passage. Because we see here faithful people of God across generations and God's transformative power across those generations throughout this whole story. But as we begin just for this series, I want to pull out three foundational ideas very, very quickly. So I'm just going to touch on them because they're just to keep in mind as we go over the next four weeks and work through this series. Firstly, Hebrews 11, one can gives us a simple but powerful definition of what faith is.

It tells us the faith shows the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we cannot see. Now, I'm sure for those of you that grew up in church, that was a memory verse for you as a kid at some point. It certainly was for me, because it's just such a simple and important concept. The faith shows the reality of what we hope for.

It is the evidence of things we cannot see. And we know that many people, if they don't know the truth of Jesus will think that faith is pointless. Blind optimism, just a pointless hope. But that's not what Hebrews tells us and shows us. It says the faith is about seeing the true reality through the spirit and not just what we can see physically in our own lives.

But the author of Hebrews doesn't leave it there, doesn't just tell us what faith is, it goes on to show us what it really means in practice. And so that's the second thing we want to call out in this passage, which is it shows us what faith looks like in real life. We can look at Abel, we can look at Noah, we can look at Enoch, we can look at Abraham, Sarah. And if we want to see what genuine faith looks like, we read their stories and we can be inspired in our own lives by the way they put their faith in God. And this idea, I think is really important for us as a church in line with our new vision of Jesus for generations, because we see that the faith of these people throughout the Bible comes from the reality of looking ahead to what was promised.

They didn't let what was here and now call the shots in their lives, but they were looking generationally, they were looking with a vision of eternity in mind. And that's what enabled them to take big, bold steps of faith right where they were. And the third thing I want to call out is like any good author, the author of Hebrews gives us the so what? What does having faith in practice mean? And we'll see over the next few weeks how these actions of faith transformed people's lives and the generations to come, including right through to today, the story continues.

And even as well as that, we see in verse 2 it says that their faith earned them a good reputation. And in verse 16 it says that God is not ashamed to be called their gods. How like, how great a summary of our lives if we can step in faith like God saw their faith and God honoured it. And so with those three points, what faith is, what faith looks like and what faith results in. We're going to spend some time, like I said, over the next month looking at some of these stories and we're going to see hear a call to live a faithful life with that vision in mind that's being planted on this church.

So let's start in on our hall of faith is for this morning. Let's talk about Abraham and Sarah. And through their story, we are going to see what it means when operating faith to pursue God's promises. So let's return to verses 8 and 11 should be on your screen again. It was by faith that Abraham obeyed God when so obeyed.

When God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance, he went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and too old.

She. She believed that God would keep his promise. And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead. A nation with so many people that like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there was no way to count them. So the first thing the author in Hebrews describes about Abraham is Abraham leaving his home and moving, even though he didn't know where he was going.

So let's jump all the way back to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis and look at this story for real. So we look at Genesis 12, starting at verse one. The Lord had said to Abram, leave your native country, your relatives and your father's family, and go to the land that I show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth, his livestock, and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran and headed for the land of Canaan.

So God says to Abraham, go to a new land, and here's a promise of your future. But I want to point out that Abraham isn't a young guy. If you thought Chris was old at 63, then Abraham is 75 in this story. He's old and he's wealthy, he's established. And so when Beth and I had just gotten married, which is a horrifyingly long time ago now, we moved to Sydney for a couple of years so Beth could do her masters.

And that had its challenges, of course, but it was actually pretty easy. We had no kids. I was in an entry level job. Beth was going to study, so that was easy from that sense. But if we were going to move now, it'd be much, much harder, I can tell you that.

And I can tell you, I know that, because everybody, every time we go on holidays in winter, we go to holidays, and then we start looking up real estate, we start looking up schools, and we think maybe we should move here every single time. But the reality is, like, just moving away with our kids from established support, moving away from our church community, moving away from our jobs, Beth's got a business. It just gets harder and harder. And I'm talking, like, for me, that's a fairly trivial move. It's literally just up the road.

But. But Abraham is established, he's wealthy, he has a household that he brings with him, and he's moving away from the place he knew his whole life, far away, without a clear destination in mind. And essentially he's gone from established to living as a foreigner in tents. And that's an amazing step of faith for a promise that must have seen a long way away. And that's what we mean by pursuing God's promises.

It's about taking action through that next step of faith. And Abraham's faith wasn't a passive hope that God would come through. It was an active hope that literally pursued God's promises into an unknown land. And I'll just read. It's on the screen, but I'll read James 2:22 really quickly because it describes Abraham's faith so well.

It says, you see, his faith and his actions work together. His actions made his faith complete. So by taking that action and pursuing God's promises, Abraham, clearly you can see that the whole Bible has set in motion a legacy that impacts generations. One thing that I praise God for is that he hasn't called me, at least not yet, to move in that same dramatic way. And I praise God a lot for that.

I know some people here have done those sort of dramatic moves across the world. But even if we aren't called to do that, there are still powerful lessons for us in this story. Abraham and Sarah's lives. They give us a model for how we can take action and pursue God's promises right where we are. And the first step I want to call out is obedience.

And I love how direct and simple that passage. We've read it twice now, so we won't throw it up again. But how direct and simple the Bible makes starts with the Lord told Abram to leave. And then when God stopped speaking, the next thing it says is, so Abram departed. Abraham heard God's word and obeyed without Delay.

And you know, we might not hear God's instructions as clearly as Abraham did. I haven't had a promise like that in words in my life. But we do have something Abraham didn't, which is we have the Bible. We have God's Word at our fingertips, and that shows us what true obedience looks like. And it's also just full of promises for our lives.

So when we read the word of God and we respond in faith, we are following that same pattern of trust and obedience that Abraham modeled for us. And through Abraham's step of faith think we see another critical part of pursuing God's promises, and that's trusting beyond our own understanding. So Abraham left without knowing where he was going, and he followed a promise that must have felt impossible. He's 75, and these promises are a lot about the future. And I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I make big decisions, I create a pros list and a cons list.

I don't know if you guys do that. I'm sure you've seen it happen. But I was thinking, what would this look like through this move? And essentially almost everything I could come up with was in that cons list. That cons list got longer and longer and longer.

And on the pro side, it just says God's promise. That's about all that's on there. And so to Abraham's community, this must have looked like madness. They must have been thinking, this guy's going to be either back in a hurry. That's if he survives this crazy move at all.

But to Abraham, his faith wasn't based on the logic of the world. It wasn't based on the advice of the people that didn't understand God's promise. It was based on his trust in a faithful God. And this kind of faith, a faith to trust God beyond logic and human reasoning. That's at the very heart of pursuing God's promise.

It challenges us to move beyond what we can control or fully understand. And it means believing that God's ways and timings are better and higher than ours, even when everything around us says otherwise. But how do we actually develop that kind of faith? That's certainly a challenge for my own life. And certainly I can't just switch off, sort of switch off that rational part of my brain and put it aside and pretend it doesn't exist.

That's always going. The bit that there's logic and wants to do pros and cons and raises doubts and thinks about at 3am after the kids have woken, you up and you can't get back to sleep. All the things that might go wrong, that doesn't just switch off. And I think I'm going to call back to one of those three points I mentioned at the beginning for this whole series. That's where that heavenly perspective comes in.

So, and then we see that in Abraham and Sarah and it talks about that in Hebrews, that they understand what truly mattered wasn't the current challenges and issues, but what God had for store in the future. Like it says, they were willing to live as foreigners in the land that God had promised them. It wasn't their land yet they are foreigners. They're intense because they knew that the ultimate promise was bigger and eternal. And you see that didn't become the Israelites land for many generations following that.

And I find that this happens in my own life when I, when I remember to look up and think about God and think about what God has promised and what God's going to do and what really matters. It doesn't make the daily challenges go away, but they reduce in size. They don't look quite as big at 3am they don't look quite as big when you wake up in the morning. And that long list of cons, that list dimension that just gets longer and longer, it actually just feels smaller and smaller. Essentially, Abraham and Sarah's faith meant they made decisions as if the impossible, as if God's promise was already true.

So we've just read a bunch of Hebrews and a bit, and if you don't jump back to Genesis the way it's described in Hebrews, you're going to think Abraham and Sarah nail it the whole time they just keep getting everything right. They're listed in the hall of faith and the summary makes them look incredible. Strength to strengthen first they make that amazing move to a new country in faith that we've just talked about. And then God helps them have a child when it's completely impossible. And that's great.

Though it does sound like the standard to get in the hall of faith is incredibly high. So let's keep reading. We're going to jump to genesis 15, 4, 6, which is the next bit of Abraham's story that's referred to in Hebrews from verse four. Then the Lord said to him, no, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir. Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, look up into the sky and count the scars if you can.

That's how many descendants you will have. And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. What a great promise. And we see that Abraham believed him. And so the author of Hebrews now talks about this next bit, which is in Genesis 21, verses 1 to 7.

The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God said it would. And Abraham named their son Isaac. Eight days after Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded.

Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born. And Sarah declared, God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age.

What an amazing story. Abraham and Sarah are just far too old to have children. It's impossible. Yet they believe God and he moved miraculously to fulfill his promise. But if you were following along, particularly if you're following on a paper Bible, it's a bit more subtle on the screen.

There's quite a bit of text between those two. Chapter 15 and Chapter 21. A lot happens. And one thing I do want to note is that the Hebrews was originally written to Jewish Christians, so they knew the story of Abraham. It's not like the author of Hebrews is trying to hide anything.

His audience knows this story better than we do, really, with the way they studied these things. And we don't have time this morning to read all the details on these scripture chapters. So I'm just going to summarize them for you. So after that promise of a child and a Abraham's amazing declaration of faith that we read in chapter 15, they keep getting old. They're already too old, but they keep getting older and older and they begin to doubt.

And as an aside, I used to do plenty of recruitment in the public service. And one of the things that is kind of out of fashion a bit, but one of the things people used to say is we want to hire people with a bias to action, people that will always take action rather than stand back. And this describes Abraham and Sarah perfectly. We saw that when they, God said, leave your home and they left their home. They're doers, they're eager to make things happen.

And so in these chapters, we see that they try to fulfill God's promise in their own way. So because Sarah was too old, they decided that Abraham should have a child with a young servant and even setting aside that the servant clearly had very little agency in this decision, this plan is way outside of God's design for marriage and relationships. And unsurprisingly, despite the fact that both, both Abraham and Sarah agree, fully agree to this plan, it just causes ongoing strife and conflict. God then reaffirms his promise essentially a couple of times, telling them again that they would have their own child and that He Himself would make it happen. And they both laugh at this at different times.

It just seems so impossible and so unbelievable, it's laughable, so to speak. But in chapter 21, which we read, we see that God is true to his word. He turns that laughter of doubt, that laughter of disbelief, laughter of despair, almost into a laughter of joy. Sarah even says that everyone who hears about it will laugh with her. So we see that in this second example, Abraham and Sarah actually get it wrong.

They didn't operate in obedience. You can see that through the fact that they stopped honouring their marriage and relationships with their servant. And we can see consequences the whole way through that. And secondly, they lost their heavenly perspective. Instead of trusting beyond their own understanding, they try to make sense of God's promises in human terms and then try to do it themselves.

So rather than trusting God's promise and trusting it was real and acting as if it was real, they acted out of doubt and tried to do things in their own strength. And we learn here that taking action isn't the same as trying to force the impossible to. To happen in our own might, in our own strength, even when there doesn't seem like many logical options. So what could Abraham and Sarah have done differently? And they could have taken action here but in obedience and trust.

So obedience would have meant honoring their marriage and respecting their servant. They should have focused on strengthening their bond as a couple. I know having kids, at least in my life, and I've seen it in many lives, test your bond as a couple. So before that, they should have been strengthening it. The second thing they could have done was acted as if God's promise was already reality, even if they couldn't understand how it could happen.

And that might mean something different for everyone. But for them, they should have been getting their house already for a child. They should have been preparing their inheritance not for a servant, but for their own family. Steps that would have shown trust beyond understanding and a deep belief that God would keep his word. The funny thing here, though, is that this is actually the part of the story that gives me the most encouragement in these passages, which does sound A little weird.

But firstly, as an aside, it just gives me so much more confidence in the accuracy of the Bible. Because if you're the person transcribing a copy to another copy, or you're writing down the oral tradition for the first time, and one of your key figures, the father of faith, essentially the founder of the Jewish people, made a mistake this big. You're going to be tempted to leave it out or downplay it, just de emphasize that they're great. But the Bible doesn't do that at all. It's real, it's raw, and it shows us God's power in real life.

But even more encouraging for me is this. Abraham and Sarah got it wrong. Like I said, they acted out of fear and doubt. They did the wrong thing in direct response to God's promise. God gave them a promise, not just from reading the Bible, but in words to them.

And they stepped in the wrong way. But what happened? And we see it in Hebrews, God's promise still came true. And not only that, Abraham and Sarah are listed in the hall of Faith. Abraham is even called the Father of Faith.

And every time I read this list of heroes, I'm reminded of one key truth through the Bible. And it's not just Abraham and Sarah. You see it in a few others. But it's that God's promises are stronger than our failures. So despite our weaknesses, our doubts and our mistakes, even when we try to help God or go the wrong way, his promises remain true.

And that's because they don't depend on us. They depend on Him. And he is faithful. God's promises are stronger than our failures. So that's lots of info.

That's great, but what does that mean for us today? What should we do in response to these stories? How can we walk in this kind of transformative faith? Because that's what I want to do in my life. I'd love to step out in this sort of faith that leaves a legacy for generation.

A faith like Jesus for generations. A faith that impacts our children, their children and beyond. And it's clear, I think, in these passages that God calls us to take action, to move forward in obedience, with confidence that God's promises are not only going to come true, but are already true. Now that's easy for me to say. I'm reading this and I'm going, cool.

That makes sense. I understand that the text is clear, but as I was writing this sermon, I found myself asking, you know what? That's great. I understand it. But what holds me back?

What Holds me back from living this way. And there's just a few things I was thinking through and praying through. First one was, am I not sure? Are we not sure what God wants us to do? And I think the answer here is clear.

Let's get into his word. The Bible, like I said before, is absolutely full of promises for our lives. Let's get in there, let's pray, and ask God to speak his promises directly into our lives and what they mean for us. Also, God's placed an amazing vision on this church, an amazing vision of impact for generations that can help guide us in that next step. The second thing that came to mind is, am I holding back?

Are we holding back because we're unsure of our role in the promise? Do we even have a role? Is it all God? But God's telling us here, he wants us to move. He wants us to take action.

He doesn't want us to be a quiet, have just a hope that just hopes. He wants us to have a hope that leads us to do something, to step forward in faith, in what he wants to do. Are we holding back because we worry we might get it wrong? And obviously we've got to pray when we take steps of faith, and we've got to move, try to move in obedience. We look at God's Word and we stay aligned with what he wants us to do.

We look at the fruit of the Spirit and say, is this displaying that? All those sorts of things. But we can remember most of all that even if we do make a mistake, like Abraham and Sarah, God's promises are stronger than that. They're stronger than our failures. Abraham and Sarah got it wrong with the child, and still they're in the hall of faith.

And still God came through. And are we holding back because life is hard. And I can tell you that at times, particularly everyone's better now. But we had the flu over the last sort of week and a half. It's been a really rough week, let's put it that way.

But we know, and sometimes life just gets in the way and it's hard to do anything other than just survive. But what this passage is calling us to do is sort of lift our eyes up and say, these problems aren't going to go away and they're not going to become easier. But if I can focus on God and what really matters, that gives me the strength and the courage to take that step that he wants me to take.

So the call this morning. Morning. And it's going to be repeated over the next few weeks. As we look through the hall of faith is let's be a church that steps out in faith. Because that's the only way that this vision that God's put on this church makes any sense.

It's not possible in our own strength and it's not possible without God. But for a church that works with God and pursues his promise together, it is possible. And that's really exciting. Let's pray.

Dear Lord Jesus, I just thank you this morning for these faithful people that are here to hear your word, Lord. I just pray your work in each of our hearts and lives, Lord, that we can take these amazing steps of faith, Lord. They might seem scary or impossible, they might seem unreliable. People around us might say, that doesn't make sense, Lord. But I just pray that you'll help each one of us understand the promises you have have for our lives and just have the courage and boldness to take that first step, Lord God, to make our faith real by taking action in the way you want us to, Lord God.

And I just pray that you'll really just speak in all of our hearts over this next month as we see what faith is in action, Lord. Because we know we want that for all of our lives, Lord God. We want to make a difference as a church. We want to make a difference in this community across generations. We don't want to be be a flash in the pan that comes and goes and disappears and no one notices that we were ever there.

We want to make a difference for your kingdom. And Lord, I pray for the same thing for our individual lives. Lord God, none of us wants to just sit back and not not matter, Lord. But we know that to you we matter. And that with you we can make an impact in the lives of our families and our friends, Lord, in your mighty name, amen.

Sa.