“By
Faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received
the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through
Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He
considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which,
figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. “
(Hebrews
11:17-19 ESV)
What does it mean to have faith? The writer of Hebrews, in 11:1 describes it
this way. “Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” For Abraham, it meant that He believed God
could, if necessary, raise Isaac back from the dead. That may seem like pretty amazing faith, but
it had been developed over more than 25 years of walking with God. God had come to him in the land of Haran, and
told him to go to a land “I will show you”.
God then made some specific promises to Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation, and I
will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who
dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed.” (Gen. 12:2-3)
Over the course of that period of
time, Abraham had heard from God on a number of occasions, and most
importantly, Abraham knew that God planned to fulfill the promised made to him
through Isaac in particular and thus far, God had kept all the promises He had
made with Him. So in spite of the fact
that God’s most recent instruction to go and offer Isaac as a sacrifice would
mean Isaac’s death, and the end of any possibility of those promises being
fulfilled through him, Abraham believed that somehow God could still keep His
promises, even if that meant raising Isaac from the dead. That was the faith that had developed to this
point.
Though he could not see how God
would keep His promise, and he did not know how it would come to pass, he
believed that it would, based upon his relationship with God up to that
time. To use the language of the writer
of Hebrews, he was assured of something he had placed his hope in—the surety of
the promise of God, and he was convinced that though he could not presently see
it, that it would in fact fulfill His promises through Isaac.
The faith that we have in God works
in the same manner. Our faith in God began
when we began to establish a knowledge base about Him based upon a wide variety
of things including, but not limited to, things we learned from our parents,
through our own study of the Bible, and through our experiences in the church
setting. If we’ve had conversations with
those much older than us about their faith experiences, and how God had been
faithful to them; those conversations help build our knowledge base, and
increase our own faith in God.
There are times when our faith has
been dramatically tested, perhaps not to the point of being willing to offer a
child to God as a sacrifice, but through times of loss, of uncertainty about
health, a job, getting married, having children, moving out of state, or other
significantly challenging times. These
times are able to cause our faith in God to increase as we personally learn
that we are able to trust Him more and more.
“Praise be to the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great
mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish,
spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept
in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the
coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now
for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness
of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by
fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him;
even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an
inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the end result of your
faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1Peter
1:3-9)
By
His Grace Alone,
Pastor
Bruce Jacobsen
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