We see here in Hebrews 11.8,
it says, By faith Abraham lived in the land of Canaan. And he
did this for over 75 years. God promised to give him a land
that would be his, an inheritance from God. And God promised Abraham
he'd give the same inheritance to his children, Isaac and Jacob. But God never gave Abraham a
piece of that land where he dwelt. Through 75 long years, Abraham
and his family didn't live in a permanent place of residence.
They lived in tents because God didn't give him a piece of land
in that place to call his own. He lived like a foreigner in
a strange country. Yet God promised to establish
him in a land with a rich inheritance that would be His. That's what
God promised him. And you kind of picture Abraham
going out into this land and you almost hear the folks that
were back there in Ur of Chaldea where he left. You can almost
hear them talking. I was thinking about this this
morning. You know, they pass one another on the street. Did
you hear about Abraham? That boy's daddy has provided
for him, been a good father for him, raised him up in a good
religion, taught him well. And here Abraham has gone and
forsaken his father, forsaken this land, left us his kindred,
going out into some land he don't even know anything about, all
because he thought God was going to give him an inheritance in
that land, and God hadn't given him anything. God never gave
him anything. What a poor, fool Abraham. Well, what was it then? What
was it that would make this fellow who ended up living in a tent,
what would make him keep going even though God didn't give him
a piece of ground in that land? What would make him keep going
and not get discouraged from going back to Ur of Chaldeas? Look here in verse 10. For he
looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. You mean that when God called
Abraham, saying, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred
and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee,
God wasn't talking about that physical land Canaan? Not at
all. And Abraham knew it all along.
Abraham knew it all along. All this is written for us, brethren,
to show you and me what true faith is. In the divine call,
when God calls somebody, God makes every believer to understand
and to believe that a heavenly city, whose builder and maker
is God, is what He promises. It's not temporal blessings. It's not a temporal riches that
He promises His people. It's a heavenly inheritance that
He promises us. And that's what the believer
looks for. The title is By Faith Abraham. And I want you to see that true
faith doesn't rest in man's faithfulness, but in God's faithfulness. True
faith doesn't rest in man's faithfulness, but in God's faithfulness. Abraham
was made willing to believe that God's the builder and maker of
the city which God had prepared for him. That's what the faith
that was given to Abraham received as promise and believed God.
And by faith, Abraham believed that God builds the foundations
of this city. He believed that God would make
sure that he received the promised city and that he'd live in it.
And through God's gift of faith, Abraham looked forward to these
blessings from God. True faith rests in God's faithfulness. I want to show you three things.
I want you to see the beginning of faith, the life of faith,
and the hope we have through faith. The beginning of faith,
the life of faith, and the hope we have through faith. Abraham
believed God would make good on His promise, that He promised
him, because Abraham knew where he was and how he came to have
this faith. And that gives a believer great
assurance that what God's promised, He'll do. In verse 8 here, it
says, By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out. Abraham's
faith began because God called him. Now, I've made this point
several times, but I want to show you something here in this
that's important to understand. It's true that we know, just
as every believer is chosen by God in election before the world
begins, that God chose Abraham freely, put him in Christ, blessed
him with all spiritual blessings in heaven and places in Christ
before he ever made the world. But in time, when Abraham was
born, Abraham grew up sitting under his father's teaching.
But his father taught him to worship false gods. Look over with me at Joshua 24.2.
Joshua 24.2. Joshua said unto all the people,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, It's what the Lord God, the covenant
God of Israel, this is what He said. Your fathers dwelt on the
other side of the flood in old time, before the flood in Noah's
day. That's when Abraham lived. Even
Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nachor. And
they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham
from the other side of the flood and led him throughout all the
land of Canaan. And the Lord said, and I multiplied
his seed and I gave him Isaac. You see, because God loved Abraham
by free grace, by the same free grace He called Abraham out of
spiritual death and idolatry. True faith begins just like it
began with Abraham. The Lord came seeking him and
the Lord said to him, spoke to him in the heart, And there's
a general call and there's a particular call. You know that. I'm sitting
here right now and through this message, there's a general call
going out. You can reject this call. You
can stop up your ears and resist it. We saw Thursday night how
Stephen preached and he told the folks he preached to, ye
do always resist the Holy Spirit. They resisted the general call
that went out. That's what they resisted, because
as Stephen said, they were uncircumcised in the heart. Something had to
be done in their heart. And before that's done, they
could hear the call go out. But they did nothing but resist
it. Nothing but refuse it. Stopped up their ears. Killed
the man that brought the message. There's a call by which God spoke
to Abraham, which is a particular call. And when God speaks this
way, this particular call, He says, He calleth His sheep by
name, and He leadeth them out from wherever they are. And when
He putteth forth His sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep
follow Him, for they know His voice. Do you think that Abraham
was hearing his voice when he was sitting under the teaching
of his father? When he was hearing his father
about his father's gods? He wasn't hearing his voice.
But when God came to him in mercy and kindness and grace and spoke
to him, then he heard God's voice. Then he heard God speak. He heard
the Lord speak to him. And he followed him. And this
is a particular call, it's effectual in the heart. And we read here
verse 8, By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out, when
he was called to go out into a place which he should have
to receive for an inheritance, he obeyed God. And knowing this,
for Abraham, when I said knowing how his faith began gave him
much assurance. Knowing that he wasn't seeking
God, knowing that he was in idolatry, knowing that he was spiritually
dead and trespassing in sins, knowing that by his own understanding,
by his own seeking, he had never found out who God was, and yet
knowing that God came to him freely and sought him out and
spoke in his heart and gave him the commandment in the heart,
that lets Abraham know for a sure and certain fact The same way
He sought me by grace and in power, He's going to surely bring
me into this land that He promised to bring me. And so Abraham could
go out there and even though he didn't get an inheritance
in that land, even though that folks could have said anything
they wanted to about Abraham. He wasn't looking for anything
in this land. God had told him there was a city, a heavenly
Jerusalem, and that's what he was looking for. And because
God called him when he was an idolater and gave him life and
faith to believe him, Abraham knew, God will bring me into
this. It's very important the way faith begins because if it
begins by you doing something, by you seeking God, It could
just as well end with you leaving God. But when God seeks you,
and He seeks me, and He gives us life and all these spiritual
blessings in Christ, and gives us faith to believe Him, knowing
what we are by nature, we know this thing's sure and certain.
It's going to come to pass. He's not going to let me go.
And that's what I want you to see secondly. Faith begins with
God, and it results in obedience to God. But by the same token,
if it's obedience, if it's our strength that makes us obedient,
we could just as well be disobedient too. But listen to this, listen
to this, verse 8. It says, By faith Abraham, when
he was called to go out into a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, he obeyed. And he went out, not
knowing whether he went. He obeyed God. Faith that begins
in the heart obeys God before he ever moved a muscle. He believed
God before he ever moved a muscle. But faith that believes God in
the heart is going to outwardly obey God. Going to outwardly
obey God. So Abraham, we see here, went
out. And faith in the heart, to trust
God in the heart, believes the Lord will provide. He's the Lord,
our provider. And faith believes that. And
that's why it says, Abraham went out not knowing where he went.
He didn't have to know where he was going because he knew
the Lord would provide for him. But throughout the believer's life,
our faith grows more dependent upon God as we behold more of
God's faithfulness in spite of us. Now, this is what I'm talking
about when I say this is how God causes obedience, works obedience
in the hearts of His people. Every step Abraham took revealed
to him that God is faithful. Because Scripture say, if we
believe not, He abideth faithful. If we fail, in believing Him,
if He's come to us like He came to Abraham, He abideth faithfully.
He won't let us go. He will not let us go. Let me
give you an example. Look at Genesis 12. Look at Genesis
chapter 12. Verse 1. Now the Lord had said
unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred,
and from thy father's house, unto a land which I will show
thee. Abraham left his country. He left the people of that land.
But he didn't leave his father's house. Look at Genesis 11. I hope I'm giving you the right scripture
on that one. Genesis 11, verse 31. Alright, let me read this to
you. This is where I am. Terah took
Abram, his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and
Sarah his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went
forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land
of Canaan. And they came unto Haran and
dwelt there. And the days of Terah were about
205 years. And Terah died in Haran. Abraham
must have told his father and his family about God's promise
to him. When you heard the Gospel preached
to you for the first time, didn't you want to tell somebody? You
want to tell your family. You want them to rejoice in this
too. And Abraham was the one though who was called of God.
His family wasn't called of God. He was. But his father, Terah,
took Abraham and the rest of the family and moved as far as
Haran. And it says, to go into the land
of Canaan. That's where they were headed.
Abraham obeyed God, but not perfectly. He couldn't crucify the flesh
that loved his father and loved his family. And he couldn't bear
to part with them. So he tried taking them with
him into Canaan. He tried to take them with him.
But by God's divine predestinating hand, God stopped them in Haran. And there he removed Abraham's
father. Tira died in Haran. I give you
another case. Abraham and Hagar. God promised Abraham a son, Isaac. And time went by. Sarah was old. Time went by. They didn't have
a son. She said, go to my handmaid,
Hagar. So Abraham went to his handmaid,
Hagar, and had a son named Ishmael. God came to him and said, Ishmael's
not the son, Abraham. Send that boy away, pack up everything
and send him away with some goods. But he and his mother got to
go. He's not the son of promise. But you see, the Lord commanded
Abraham to follow Him. And He commands us to follow
Him. And He commands us to follow Him in holiness, to sanctify
ourselves, to separate ourselves from anything that will cause
us a hindrance between us and Him. But the Lord is the One
who does it. The Lord is the One who does
it and that's how He causes us to believe Him and trust Him
and follow Him. Look here with me at 1 Thessalonians
5.23. The Lord commands the believer
to walk in His truth, to separate himself from all else, but the
Lord constantly reminds us throughout the life of faith that it's His
faithfulness and not our own which accomplishes it. Look here,
verse 23. And the very God of peace sanctified
you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless until the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. By faith throughout his life
as Abraham witnessed God sever every earthly tie. Painful. I don't doubt it was Abraham
soured greatly I'm sure when his father died in Horan. But
God said, separate yourself from your family. You're going in.
You're going in this place alone. And God worked it so that that's
how he left. He took Lot with him. But where
did Lot end up? Lot ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah.
And God allowed Lot to go for the purpose of showing him how
he saved people out of a land like Sodom and Gomorrah. But
he did it. He removed the hindrances. And
Abraham saw it. And Abraham saw that Abraham
believed God, but he didn't believe Him perfectly. And Abraham saw
over and over and over how unfaithful he was in himself, how that he
tried to take his whole family with him, how that he didn't
wait on God to provide the promised son. Over and over we see it,
and yet Abraham constantly saw that in spite of it, God did
His goodwill and His pleasure in Abraham, worked it in Abraham.
And that causes a believer to behold and realize, I can't sanctify
myself, I can't make myself holy, but God can separate me from
everything and anything that hinders me from worshiping Him.
And He does. And when that happens, this whole
life of faith Faith and sanctification is so united. It's so united. Because as we believe more and
more on Christ, and we see God's faithfulness, more and more we
understand that He truly is our holiness. And we cast all our
care on Him. And God works it through painful
experience, but He works it. And we figure this out as we
go, little by little. That's what Paul meant when he
said to the Corinthians that He'll confirm you unto the end
that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of
His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He called us. He removed us. He brought us out. He separates
anything and everything that would hinder us walking with
Him. And every time He does, little by little, we behold He
is all. He is everything to me. He truly
is my wisdom, because I have none outside of Christ. He truly
is my sanctification. I would cling, and we cling to
everything. It's harmful to us, and we want
to hang on to it until God straightens out our hand and makes us let
go of it. Until then, we won't let go of it. But as He does
it, we behold Him more and more faithful. And we behold that
He's everything to us, righteousness, redemption. And then we have
this hope, a hope through faith as well. And this is what Abraham
kept seeing more clearly and more clearly, that this city
that God promised him, truly is built by God, is He's truly
the maker of this city, and it has sure foundations that can't
be moved. And Abraham saw this more and
more as he went. Its foundations, this city's
foundations are built by God on the chief cornerstone, Christ
Jesus the Lord. He's the living stone. He's the
stone rejected of the builders, rejected by his brethren. He's the stone that is despised
by men. But though he was rejected by
men and despised by men, he was chosen by God, elect and precious
to God and to his people. He was precious to Abraham. And
this stone at which the disobedient stumbled as a rock of offense,
this is the stone that Abraham stood on firmly. It's where his
faith rested. It's the foundation in which
God's everlasting love is sealed up. It's the foundation in which
God's sovereign election has its beginning and end. This is
the foundation of God's Word, all His promises to us. It's
built upon this foundation, Christ Jesus the Lord. And this is that
stone who, when he was leaving his apostles, he said, in my
father's house are many mansions. He says, I'm going to prepare
a place for you. And if I go prepare a place for
you, I'll come again for you. When He said that, He was going
to Calvary's cross, and He went to the cross and He prepared
a place for us at the cross. He made room for us in God's
presence by justifying us and by bringing in an everlasting
righteousness for us. And He went to heaven, and right
now as He uses a word, His word, and a message about Him to call
out idolaters just like Abraham and give them life, spiritual
life and understanding to follow Him as He weans us believers
more and more in this world as we travel through this world.
He's preparing a place for us because this foundation is Christ
and this foundation is our brethren. who were built on Christ. Isn't
that what Paul said to the Ephesians? You're built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief cornerstone. Listen to Revelation 21.14. This
is what John saw. The wall of the city had twelve
foundations and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the
Lamb. When you go on a vacation, You
know, your parents, you've worked hard all year, and it's been
a hard go of it, and you go on a vacation. Children, you've
worked hard in school and been wanting to go somewhere and just
someplace new. And so your parents take you
on a vacation. And you head out on this vacation,
and you don't know where you're going. You've never been there
before. You just headed out someplace new. They're taking you. And
the fellow who gave you the directions, you stop and get some directions.
The fellow who gives you the directions tells you, oh, where
are you going? Well, we're headed to such and
such city. Oh, that's a, man, I've been
there. That's a wonderful place. That's a great city. You're going
to enjoy that. Let me tell you how to get there.
Starts giving you directions how to get there. You don't know
him. You don't know that fella, but
you trust him. I trust he gave me good directions. I'm going
to follow him. I'm going to go the way he said go. And the more
you go, the closer you get. What do the children always say?
What do you always start out? Are we there yet? Are we there
yet? Because you anticipate and get to that city. You can't wait
to get there. You just keep going. Abraham walked through this life
by faith. And every step that Abraham took,
he anticipated this city, getting to this city that he looked for.
Abraham looked for a city, a heavenly city. Is that what you're looking
for? Is that what you're looking for? By faith, Abraham knew this
city was far better than anything God could give him on this earth.
Do you know that? Do you know that? Do you believe
that? By faith, this city was Abraham's
hope. This is the city of his Redeemer. This is where he wanted to be.
Is that where you want to be? Well, this is what the Hebrew
writer tells us in Hebrews 12, 28. If you believe God and you trust
God, he says, wherefore we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved,
Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly fear. Look over at Hebrews 13, 14.
For here have we no continuing city,
but we seek one to come. That word sojourned is how Abraham
journeyed as a stranger. in a strange land. Just a pilgrim
on his way through. We're just passing through. And
then, if you're a believer, look at 1 Peter 2, verse 11. And I
say this with Peter and with Abraham and with the Hebrew writer.
This is what God's messengers are sent to declare to us. 1 Peter 2, 11. Dearly beloved. And we are dearly beloved. I
beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly
lusts which war against the soul." That was a fleshly lust that
made Abraham want to take his father with him and his family
with him into Canaan. That's a fleshly lust. He wanted
something God said he couldn't have. When we want something
God says we can't have, that's a fleshly lust. So let us abstain
from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. You know what
a hindrance Lot was to Abraham? Lot was constant trouble to Abraham,
warring against his soul. Having your conversation, your
conduct honest among the Gentiles. Honest. I'm seeking a country. Honestly, I'm seeking a country,
fellow. When I say I'm not interested
in what you can give me or what this land has to offer, I'm honest.
I'm seeking a country. Let's be honest among the Gentiles. And honest in our manners. Honest
in not lying and covetous in these things. That whereas they
speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works,
which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation."
What good works? What can we say Abraham found?
He found grace. He found God's graciousness and faithfulness
throughout his days. And he stayed the course and
he followed God by faith. And he didn't turn to the left
hand or to the right hand. He followed God by faith and
he walked with God. And when God worked in him to
sanctify him, Abraham let those things go. Even though his father
died in Haran, he didn't stay there. He left. He, God, removed
him. Removed him and he left. When
the Lord said, Ishmael's not the son of promise. Load him
up with some goods and send him on his way. That had to have
been hard. But Abraham loaded him up with
goods and sent him on his way. Every step of the way, God caused
Abraham to be obedient and Abraham was obedient to God. These are
good works. Those are good works. That's
how we show the world Good works. It's not good works the world
thinks about. It's walking steadfastly, following
God, trusting Him. We hear phrases like over there
in Isaiah, we looked at a few weeks ago when he said, this
is the fast that I've chosen to loose the bands, to unloose
wickedness, and to feed the hungry. Naturally, we think of physically
loosing the bands of somebody, feeding the hungry. But God's
Word is always relevant in every age. Now, if you take His Word
to mean to loose the bands of wickedness, to take off the heavy
burdens, and to take the oppression off of folks, if you go down
here to the prison, and start sneaking in and setting prisoners
free, you're going to be the next one they lock up. But the
message of God's free and sovereign grace is the message that sets
captives free. He uses to set them free. He
takes off the oppressive yoke. He sets them free. He feeds the
hungry. He clothes the naked. And until
we understand that He's the one that does it, There won't be
any good works. We won't be showing any good
works at all, because we'll be doing what we're doing to be
seen of men. But by faith, Abraham obeyed
God, and he followed Him, because he looked for that city. We're
going to see this more and more through this chapter, and then
when we get into Hebrews 12, we're going to see it. Running
the race with patience, looking to the author and finisher of
our faith. who for the joy that was set before Him. He's our joy and we're His joy. And for the joy that was set
before Him, He endured the cross and despised the shame and sat
down at the right hand of God. Tell me a better work. Tell me
a better work. Those are the good works. Those
are the good works. That's how the world sees our
good works. They hear about them, and they
see we can't be moved from them. It's a work. It's truly a work. And it's done by faith. Done
by faith.