Transcript Document

Presentation 14
Presentation 14
Introduction
In Ch. 11 the writer brings role models before his
readers. They have been carefully chosen to illustrate
that the faith to which God calls us is a faith that
believes without seeing. This is not a Kierkegaardian
‘leap in the dark’ kind of faith but a faith that rests on
a knowledge of God’s faithfulness and is persuaded
that he cannot break his word of promise.
This was the kind of faith the writer was calling his
readership to exercise. He was seeking redirect their
gaze so that they did not dwell upon the gathering
clouds of impending persecution or upon their past
contentment with Judaism and its ceremonials but
rather to be gripped by the promises of the gospel
and the future blessing that would be theirs.
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Noah’s Faith
In v7 we are introduced to Noah cf. Gen 5v28-9v29.
God told Noah he would sent a great flood that
would cover the world. This was an event that lay
outside of previous human experience yet Noah
began to make provision for his safety and that of
his family. Why? Because he believed God.
Noah was mocked and ridiculed as he laboured just
as God’s people have been mocked down through
the years when they have shown themselves
committed to God’s work and word. However,
Noah was not deflected from his task. Why?
Because he believed God.
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Noah’s Faith
In what way did Noah’s faith ‘condemn the world’?
Cf. 1Pet. 3v19-20, 2Pet. 2v5. The world refused to
believe in anything that lay beyond their
experience or the boundary of human reason.
The story of the ark reminds us that salvation and
judgement are simultaneous events. The cross
testifies to that as will the second coming of Jesus.
The writer draws our attention to a righteousness
that comes by faith. Noah’s right relationship with
God came as a result of trusting God and in
particular in trusting in his provision of a place of
safety and deliverance. Cf. Rom. 4v13, 9v30-32,
10v 6-9
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Abraham’s Faith
In v8 we find a character who takes up more space
in this hall of fame than any other. Abraham - a
man in whose life God developed faith to a very
high degree. Again and again in scripture Abraham
is held up as the man who believed God!
‘Its too good to be true, what’s the catch?’ is a
common response of many. We are sceptical of
extravagant offers that guarantee the enrichment
of our lives. Surely no one would make us rich at
their expense! No one except God, who promised
to do precisely that, 4000 years ago, when he
called Abram to himself in the aftermath of a
major anti-God movement at Babel. Gen 11.
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Abraham’s Faith
We might expect people living in the post flood
era to reel from the discovery that they would in
fact be held accountable by God for their
behaviour. Surely their fears would have been
heightened as they stumbled across the ruins of a
previous civilisation wiped out by the great flood.
In answer to the question, ‘Where can we find a
place of safety?’ they had replied, ‘We will trust in
our own ability and wisdom’. This led to the
construction the tower of Babel, a defiant
structure, a clenched fist raised to heaven which
said, ‘We can do without God, and live
independently of him.’
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Abraham’s Faith
Clearly not much has changed from that
day until now. Men still believe themselves
to be experts at building shelters for their
own protection. They trust in the building
blocks of scientific, technological, social
and religious achievement.
Now God’s call to Abram, was to reject the
fragile and crumbling structures of human
construction in which the bulk of humanity
were prepared to place their confidence
and to travel towards the more substantial
shelter which he would provide.
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Abraham’s Faith
When we begin to look at God’s shelter-promise
made to Abram we find that it is framed in
covenant language. Unlike human covenants
today, such as marriage, that involves two people
making promises to one another’s advantage,
God took upon himself the total responsibility of
the covenant with Abraham.
Look at the language used in Gen. 12 v2-3, “I will..
I will... I will”. It is God who is doing all of the
promising. God is the only labourer on the
building site. No one else is asked to contribute to
this shelter. This shelter-promise of God can be
unpacked in a number of different directions.
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Abraham’s Faith
We could examine the physical provision of God,
a land, that must addressed the more immediate
practical concerns of a man exposed to isolation,
loss of identity, and physical danger. But by far the
greatest of the promises is found in v3 ‘all the
peoples of the earth will be blessed through you’.
What is meant by this blessing which extends
beyond Abram and his family? Peter answers that
question in Acts 3v25 where he points from this
specific promise to its fulfilment in the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus. The thrust of Peters’
teaching is that a safe hiding place, has been
constructed though Christ’s death.
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Abraham’s Faith
God has done what no human construction
team could ever do. He has built a place a safety
where we can enjoy forgiveness, acceptance and
eternal security. Is it not fanciful to suggest that
Abram had some grasp that God was promising
him just such a shelter? No! Look at Gal. 3v6-8.
Paul tells us that the gospel was preached to
Abraham in this very promise.
When the gospel is preached today God calls
men and women to run into his shelter provision
and to travel towards the city with foundations,
whose architect and builder is God. Heaven!
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Abraham’s Faith
If the shelter was built by God, how did Abram
benefit from it? The epistle to the Galatians
commends Abraham because he believed God.
His response was one of faith. He turned from
the security of human accomplishment to the
promises of God and he said, ‘I will run into that
tower!’ Authentic faith is not an intellectual
armchair belief It doesn’t produce loungers who
sink into 9”of foam, but travellers who pull on
their hiking boots.
“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”. Heb. 11v8:
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Abraham’s Faith
Authentic faith is active. It draws men to obey the
word of God. For Abram, obedience involved a break
with the past, Gen.12v1 ‘leave your country your
people, and your father’s household and go to the
land that I will show you’. There is a familiar N.T.
Parallel in Jesus’ words, “If anyone comes to me and
does not hate his father and mother, his wife and
children, his brothers and sisters -yes, even his own
life - he cannot be my disciple”. Lk. 14v26
God does not intend us to sever our links with or our
families but these love-links must no longer to be
allowed to control our lives. Responding to God
involves an allegiance shift. It means putting God first
and this Abram set out to do.
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Abraham’s Faith
We may deduce that wholehearted obedience didn’t come easily to Abram.
From Gen.11v31 it would appear that Abram’s family had set out along with
him, not necessarily because they shared his concern to obey God, but
perhaps they did so in order to moderate his obedience.
Once they’d come half-way [to Haren] they may have thought themselves to
be in a strong bargaining position - ‘Abraham look at the sacrifice we have
made for you coming this far, surely you can make some concession for us?’
Haren
Damascus
Shechem
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Nuzi
Babylon
Hebron
Beer-sheba
Abram
Ur
Abraham’s Faith
The pressure to half-hearted obedience,
influenced by a readiness to accommodate the
wishes of family or friends, is one that many of us
may experience.
God refused to allow Abram to rest content in a
halfway house of obedience. Had he remained
there, he would have stopped short of God’s
shelter and provision!
Similarly, when God in his mercy has begun his
work in our hearts, he will never settle for
anything other than our wholehearted obedience.
He longs to bless and cannot bear to find us
stopping short of that blessing.
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Abraham’s Faith
Paul in his Galatian epistle holds up Abram as an
example of a man who sheltered by faith in Christ.
Paul also expresses a horror that his readers had
evacuated that shelter for one of their own making.
They’d become re-infected with the self-confident
spirit of Babel. They’d decided to run onto the
building site. They thought they could contribute to
their own safety by observing of a number of
religious duties.
Whenever we start thinking like that we too are
stepping out of God’s safety shelter and onto a
building site of our own making. We are no longer
trusting God to keep you safe but trusting in our
own abilities.
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