Hope Church LV Sermons
Not by Sight :: The Test of Faith
If you are visiting with us this morning, we are in a series as a church family, studying verse by verse through Hebrews chapter 11. And the name of the teaching series that we're currently in is called not by sight. Ordinary people, extraordinary faith. And for the past seven weeks, we've been in a conversation about what living by faith is all about. And thus far, we've talked about a lot of different things, but some of the things we've talked about are what living by faith looks like in terms of reward. The Bible teaches us that as we live by faith, God will reward us. We've also talked about living by faith and what's that looks like in a dark and hopeless world. We've also talked about living by faith being a journey, that it's something we're all on together, a journey of faith with our heavenly father. We've also talked that living by faith doesn't mean that we all have perfect faith. And the way that we've unpacked these principles is by examining some characters from the Old Testament, men and women who lived long ago, but who lived their lives, independence on God by faith. And this weekend, we continue the conversation. And this weekend, we're going to look at another biblical reality that all of us need to be aware of as we live by faith. And it's this, our faith will be tested. All of us who are believers, as we live our lives by faith, we will experience times of trials and of testing. But before we look at our primary text in Hebrews 11 this morning, I want to lay for us a biblical foundation as it relates to what the Bible says about our faith being tested. And very quickly, the way I want to do that is by answering two very, very simple questions because I want all of us as we look at Hebrews 11 in just a moment to be on the same page. I want us to all have a proper context to draw from. So very quickly, two questions to lay a foundation. Here's the first question. Will my faith be tested? It's a great question. Will my faith in God? Will your faith in God be tested? And the simple answer is absolutely. In the book of 1 Peter chapter 1, the writer is writing about the assurance of salvation and the assurance of heaven. And in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 6, the writer says this, look at it on the screen. He says, "In this you greatly rejoice, meaning heaven and salvation, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials." Let me give you a couple statements in the context of will my faith be tested? First of all, my faith will be tested in various ways. My faith will be tested in various ways. As you and I navigate through life, our faith in God will be tested in different forms and in different places. Maybe your faith will be tested on the job. As you go to work every day, you're going to encounter trials and tests of your faith. Maybe it's at home. Maybe it's something that happens at home that is ultimately a test of your faith. Maybe it's just in the world. As you live your life, our faith will be tested in various ways. But a second way I would speak to that is that every test of faith is temporary. Every time our faith is tested, what you may be walking through right now. Listen, it's temporary. First Peter chapter 1 says, "For a season, meeting for a little while, our faith will be tested." That's very important for us foundation of this morning. All of us will have our faith tested in various ways, but every test of faith is temporary. A second important question to lay a context for us this morning is this, "Why will my faith be tested?" What's the purpose? Why would God orchestrate this so that my faith would be tested and I would experience a trial? Well, the writer goes on in first Peter chapter 1 to say this, "So that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Two reasons our faith will be tested. Here's the purpose. First of all, to prove my faith. Our faith will be tested to prove our faith. The word proof means genuineness. And as you and I navigate through difficult circumstances, it will either prove or it will disprove our faith. The Tyndale commentary says this, "God allows the trials in order to find out by testing the genuine element in men's professed faith." Why are we tested? To find out if our faith is real. Our testimony in a moment of happiness is significant, but I believe in a moment of difficulty. Our testimony is louder and clearer to those who are watching. I wrote this in my notes. It is in the authenticity of one's faith in a difficult situation that impacts others for the glory of God. One of the reasons our faith is tested is because it proves our faith. But secondly, our faith is tested to perfect our faith. One of the reasons we encounter trials is because God wants to perfect our faith. God's ultimate desire, His general will for every person, is that you and I will be conformed to the image of Jesus. And He will use many things to conform us. He'll use His Word, He'll use other people, He'll use life experiences, but He will also use trials and tests to conform us to the image of Jesus. Look at this reality on the screen. There are areas of my life that would never be conformed to the image of Jesus apart from difficult circumstances. Words like pain and struggle and sacrifice are not things that we like to associate with, but listen, pain, struggle and circumstance will conform a selfish and arrogant person to the image of Jesus faster than anything else. That's significant. It changes the way you walk through the trial when you understand that the reason for the trial is to prove your faith and to perfect your faith. God has a greater purpose in what you're walking through. Look at this summary, my Warren Wearsby, and then we're going to jump into Hebrews 11. In the School of Faith, we must have occasional tests or we will never know where we are spiritually. Not every difficult experience in life is necessarily a personal test from God. Sometimes our own disobedience causes the pain or disappointment. Sometimes our hurts are simply a part of human life. Learn to distinguish between trials and temptations. Temptations come from our desire within us, while trials come from the Lord who has a special purpose to fulfill. Listen to this. Temptations are used by the devil to bring out the worst in us, but trials are used by the Holy Spirit to bring out the best in us. Our faith will be tested, but the reason for the tests, the reason for the trials, is so that you and I may be conformed to the image of Jesus. So with that biblical foundation in context, turn in your Bible to Hebrews chapter 11, and I want to read this morning verses 17, 18, and 19. If you don't have a copy of the scriptures this morning, we're going to put these words up on the screen for you so that you can follow along with us as we read God's word together. Hebrews 11 verse 17 says this, "By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son. It was he to whom it was said, 'In Isaac, your descendants shall be called.'" Verse 19, "He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type." Now we've talked about the life of Abraham and Sarah prior in this chapter, but the story we're looking at this morning, this example of a test is probably one of the most famous stories in all of the scriptures. In the original account of this story is found in Genesis chapter 22, but to really understand the significance of Isaac and how it relates to Abraham and Sarah, you have to move back a little bit in the scriptures to Genesis chapter 12. You see God gave Abraham and Sarah a powerful promise, and here's what he said, "I'm going to give you a place, and I'm going to give you a people." He said, "I'm going to give you a land, and I'm going to touch the world through your seed, through your family line." There was only one problem. Abraham and Sarah were almost 100 years old, and they had no children. They were way past a point of childbearing, but God gave them a promise and said, "I'm going to give you a son, and I'm going to touch the world through your seed." And there was a time of waiting after the promise came, and there were some times of disobedience, there were some times of confusion during that time of waiting, but ultimately God gave Abraham and Sarah this promised child, and they named him Isaac. And he was the one from which the world was going to be blessed, and the world was going to be touched. They saw him as the promised son from God. And then in Genesis chapter 22, God asks Abraham to do the unthinkable with his son Isaac. Flip back with me to Genesis chapter 22. I want to read three verses, and it's exactly what God told Abraham to do with his son. Genesis 22 verse 1, here's what the Bible says. Now, it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham," and he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." You can imagine for Abraham, this son who had been promised, who had been given from God. Now God is changing and saying, "I want you to go, and I want you to sacrifice your son." But nonetheless, Abraham will bathe, and it says, "The next day he took two servants in his son Isaac, and they went on the journey." And when they saw the place, when God said, "That's the spot," Abraham told the servants to stay back, and he said, "Me and my son Isaac, we're going to go to the mountain, we're going to worship, and they want to come back." And the Bible says that Abraham put the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders, and Abraham took the other supplies, and they started the journey to the mountain. They got up there, and Abraham literally took his son, and he laid him out on the altar, preparing to kill him. As God had said, and the Bible teaches that as Abraham raised the knife to kill his son, at that moment a messenger of the Lord spoke to Abraham and said, "Don't do it." And Abraham looked over and saw a ram whose horns were caught in a bush, and the angel of the Lord said, "Go get that, that's the offering, you don't have to kill your son." And so they went and found the ram, they put him on there, and they killed him, and they had the burnt offering. One of the most significant stories in the Scriptures about faith, about obedience, and about sacrifice, and this morning, what I want to do is I want to give you three statements that I think really pull out for us some principles from this test in the life of Abraham that we can take and we can apply as you and I walk through our test and our trials on a daily basis. So here's the first statement, if you're taking notes, let me encourage you to write this down. "When my faith is tested, I am to respond in a way that honors God. When my faith is tested, when your faith is tested, when you experience a trial, we are to respond in such a way that brings glory and honor to God. As we read the account in Hebrews 11 and Genesis 22, there's no paragraph in here that talks about Abraham complaining or pitching a fit or lashing out in frustration or in anger. Here's what we see. We see Abraham walking through a very, very difficult circumstance in such a way that brought honor to God." Our King Hughes says this, "Abraham's faith produced immediate obedience. His obedience came at the same instant he heard the call to offer Isaac. He did not stall and he did not procrastinate. There was no arguing with God, not bargaining, no equivocating, though every fiber of his natural being rebelled against what God was calling him to do, though his feet felt like lead, he did not turn aside." And in Abraham, we see an example. From the moment that Isaac was born, Abraham said, "God, I want to honor you." To the moment when God asks Abraham to do this outlandish thing of murdering his son, Abraham said, "God, I want to honor you." This phrase in verse 17 of Hebrews 11 offered up Isaac is in the present active tense, meaning an action that is completed in the past. Signifying that from the moment God spoke to Abraham in his heart, he had already murdered his son. It could be said this way, "While he was still in the trial, he obeyed God." That's significant. "While Abraham was still in the process of understanding all that was included in this test, he immediately obeyed God. His heart attitude above everything else was to honor the God of heaven through this trial." We see in the first part of this story a right response to the test, a right response to a trial. And we read this and we look at Abraham and think, "Man, Abraham had it all together." Abraham is like a hero to us. He had the whole thing figured out, but listen, the attitude that Abraham had of wanting to honor God didn't start when God put him through this trial. He did not hear about this test and decided to get his priority straight. No, this attitude of honoring God in the test is consistent with the way that Abraham lived his entire life, because you see, Abraham found the value of not operating and living out of his emotions, but operating and living and rooting his life in the truth. And here's why that's significant, because every person in this room is going to walk through a trial. You may be in one right now, there may be one coming this week, and in that moment your response is not going to be what you decide then. It's going to be decided in the days, the weeks, the months, and the years leading up to that moment as you choose on a daily basis to develop a discipline of not being rooted in what your emotions are saying, not being rooted in how you feel, but being rooted and grounded in the truth. That's significant. It's a daily decision for you and I to say, God today, I am not following what I feel, I'm following Jesus. Look at this life application statement on the screen. If my life is not rooted in the truth before the test, I will follow my emotions during the test. It's true for every person. If you are not consistently living a life that is rooted and grounded and abiding in the truth, when you walk into a test, your reaction is going to be to trust in your emotions and that will always end in disaster. We see it all around us. People who are spiritually immature at the sign of inconvenience quickly lash out in their emotions for a person who's angry and they hit any sign of inconvenience. Their natural reaction as they trust in their emotion is to figure out how they can find some kind of worldly pleasure. In most cases, someone who's lonely, who encounters any kind of trial, who trusts in their emotions, they lash out by finding an unhealthy relationship. For other people who have a hidden sin or something they're trying to be secretive about, when they hit some kind of trial from their emotions, what happens? They find themselves in isolation. That is the consistent pattern of humanity when we root our lives and our emotions and how we feel we naturally respond in sin. But we see an example here from Abraham that wasn't like that. Abraham found the value of living life rooted in the truth and therefore his response in the midst of the test was honoring the God. That's significant because you must know if you are not rooted in the truth your emotions will control you during the trial. We have to guard ourselves and the way we guard ourselves is by rooting and abiding our lives in the truth of God. I wrote this in my notes. Walking by faith is not based on how I feel. It is based on what's true because you know it and I know it. When we get in a circumstance in a trial, we're overwhelmed. We're overwhelmed by our emotions. We can't even think straight. We're so overwhelmed. But in that moment walking by faith is not about how I feel. Walking by faith is based on what is true. And we see from Abraham a man who understood what was true and for us unless there is a devotion to the truth, we will be living out of our emotion. But when we do walk in the truth and we walk into a trial because we're so grounded in the truth of God, we have a clear understanding of the God who is with us in the trial and the gospel that we are carrying in that trial. And here's what that produces. Here's what that manifests, a desire to honor God. Even though it doesn't feel good, it doesn't seem right. We are drawn through the truth to honor God in our circumstances. I love the way the Psalmist said in Psalm 19, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." I believe when that's your heart cry. When that's what you're longing for, you can change the trial, you can change the people around you, you can change the job, you can change the environment, but your heart cry doesn't change because your heart cry is all glory and honor and praise. That's your heart cry. And regardless of what's changing around you, that does not change. But that starts by a life that is rooted and abiding in the truth. And how it must break the heart of God to look down on so many of His children. And He sees our heart and He knows that for some of us, our ultimate desire is not closeness with God. Our ultimate desire is closeness with other people. And shame on us for taking serious honoring people and not taking serious honoring God. We all do it. Depending on the people who are around us and how much money they have or their social status or what we think about them, we will treat them differently and sometimes spend more energy trying to honor them than we really spend on a daily basis trying to honor the God of heaven. And for some of us this weekend, here's what we need to pray. We need to pray that God would allow us to fall out of love with honoring people and fall in love with honoring Him. That's significant. I struggle with that. I'm sure you struggle with that. Abraham's response points us in a direction that he took serious honoring God. He's looking at his son Isaac on the altar and saying, Isaac, I love you. But nothing rivals my desire to honor my heavenly Father. And I believe as he navigated through this test, honoring God was on the forefront of his mind. When I am tested, I am to respond in a way that honors God. Is that on your radar? As you think about the early moments of your day, is your heart cry, God today, if I do nothing else, God can I honor you with my life? Would you be pleased? Would you be praised? Would you receive glory by the way that I live my life today? That's a right hard attitude because even before the test shows up, it's already inside of you. It's already what you're hoping and desiring for. Here's a second statement that I think we learned from Abraham. When my faith is tested, I am to see past my ability to God's ability. When my faith is tested, when I encounter a trial or you encounter a trial, I am to see past what I can do, to what God can do. A typical statement that comes out of my mouth, I don't know about you, when I encounter some kind of trial is, what am I going to do? The past two years I've walked through two huge trials. In 2010, my wife had a miscarriage. She was about ten weeks pregnant and we lost the child. That was a trial. This past year, they found skin cancer all in my hand and so I've been going through surgeries and treatments and medications and checkups for about the past two months and I'll be honest with you. At the moment, both of those things landed on me. Naturally, what I said in my heart was, what am I going to do? But that's wrong. That's a wrong response. That's a wrong hard attitude but I say that to say this, naturally all of us have inside of us this desire to figure out or to perform or to display or to express our individual sufficiency all by ourselves. But listen, living by faith flips that whole paradigm because in a moment of trial, it's not me asking the question, what am I going to do? It's asking the question in a right spirit of saying, "God, what are you going to do through this thing I'm walking in?" Totally different perspective. Major Ian Thomas said this, "What God demands in your life is what He Himself will faithfully accomplish." In every demand, God makes upon us. There is a hidden factor that is absent in the reasoning of fallen humanity. It is God Himself. God engineered us in such a way that the presence of the Creator within the creature is indispensable to man's humanity so that we will be distinguished by a quality of life and behavior that allows no possible explanation but God Himself within us. That quote is what we need to lay over everything we're walking through. And Abraham got that principle. Abraham was able to see past what he could do to the point of what God can do. That's why he said, "God, if you're telling me to kill my son and I kill him, you have the power to raise him from the dead. God, I don't have that ability, but you have that ability." But what if Abraham didn't see it that way? What if Abraham was in the middle of this test and all he could draw from, all he could think about was his resources? What if that had been the case? We would be looking at a totally different situation. Abraham would be saying, "God, my son?" The promise is coming through Isaac. The dream is coming through Isaac and God, "You want me to kill my dream?" For this makes no sense to me. I can't do this and in his flesh and in our flesh sometimes when we don't see to God's ability, it seems like obedience to God means misery in the future. That must be what it would have felt like for Abraham if he viewed the trial through his flesh. He must have thought, "God, obedience to you means misery for me." And I would just imagine in the room this size, there are some people and you're looking at your trials through your flesh and here's what you're thinking. Obedience to God means misery in the future. You got to see past your ability. There are some people in the room and God may be telling you and calling you to drop everything you're doing and do everything you can to restore your marriage. But you're saying, "I don't see how that's possible. I don't see how that can happen. I don't see why that needs to happen." And obedience to you seems like misery in the future. See past your ability. There are some people in the room and you may be stuck in a job you want to get out of but you know God has called you to that job. And for you right now, obedience to God seems like misery in the future. See past what you can do. There are other people in God may be putting something in your heart to leave this context and go serve in another context but that seems impossible for you. You think in your heart obedience to God means misery for me. Listen, see past your ability. If obedience to God seems like misery for you, you do not trust God and you are not living by faith. Because God may be challenging you to surrender something that you think is holding it all together for you so that you can see He is the one who is holding it all together. For Abraham, Isaac was the thing that was making it all work. Isaac was the thing that was holding the promise together that was going to be the blessing. He was the promised child and God asked him to do something to test his heart to see if Abraham only trusted in that which he could control or if ultimately Abraham really trusted in God. And I would imagine for you there may be some things God is testing you in and here's why he's testing you. He's testing you to see do you trust in what you control or do you trust in him? Those things aren't holding your life together. God is what ultimately will hold your life together. But Abraham chose instead of viewing his circumstances through his flesh, he walked by faith. Look at his response. We're going to put it on the screen from Genesis chapter 22. In verse five it says this, "Abraham said to his young men, 'Stay here with the donkey and I in the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you.' Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac's son and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, 'My father.' And he said, 'Here I am my son.' And he said, 'Behold the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burn offering?' Abraham said, 'God will provide for himself the lamb for the burn offering my son.' So the two of them walked on together. He didn't view it through his flesh. Abraham didn't have the thought that obedience to God meant misery for him. He walked by faith. Here's the way we've said what living by faith is in this series is going to be on the screen. To live life, not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in his very life in me. That is lived out in Genesis 22, verses 5 through 8. That's what Abraham did. It wasn't trusting in his ability. It wasn't trusting in his resource the way he could do. It was trusting in God's ability and what God could do. This morning God may be leading you to hold the knife over some stuff and say, 'God, even though I don't make sense to me and it goes against everything I feel, Lord I trust you and I surrender this. Lord, I lay it before you and I put my face on the ground and say, 'Lord, whatever you would choose to do, Lord, ultimately these things do not hold my life together. God, you hold my life together and I surrender.' And even though my flesh is saying this is a moment of crisis, the truth in me is saying, 'God, I can trust you.' Look at this life application statement. Moments of crisis should fuel our faith, not shake our faith, because we have a God we can trust. My wife and I have begun the process of international adoption and we are kind of into the process. And as we have started that, we're looking to adopt a child or children from East Africa. And as we began that process, there were a lot of people I just wanted to get some counsel from, some people I wanted to know about the agency they chose, how they walk through it, what the fundraising component looked like, all those pieces that go into adoption. And through that, I connected with some old friends who are right in the middle of adoption right now. And they just went a couple weeks ago to meet their child for the first time. They took their first visit to meet their child. And my friend was kind of recapping the story and he talked about just the excitement in their heart when they boarded the plane. I mean, after over a year of walking through the process, they were finally going to get to go to the other side of the world and look eyeball to eyeball with their new son. And so they fly across the globe and they land in the city and they go, they go to the orphanage. And that morning, my friend just said, there was so much emotion. Just tears and excitement and nervousness about getting to meet this new child for the first time. And they got to the orphanage. And one of the ladies who worked there escorted them into the room and she pointed out and said, that is your son. And once again, they just begin to cry because there's just so much emotion that goes into an experience like that. And the staff member walked over to the young boy and said, this, I want to introduce you to your new parents. And she began to try to escort the boy over. And as soon as the boy saw his new parents, he began screaming and crying and wanting to run away because he was terrified of people with white skin. And you can imagine how this must have landed on the parents. I mean, they put all this energy and time and love and care and they're standing in front of this orphan saying, I want to love you like you don't even know. I want to take you to a life that is better than anything you could ever imagine. I love and care for you so much. Please just realize that. You see the picture. When I heard that story, it changed the way I thought about the gospel. Because you got a picture of parents, a loving father and a loving mother who want nothing more than to take that orphan out of hopelessness, out of poverty and out of loneliness. But all the while this orphan is running and screaming away because he's scared of what it might look like. Church, we are spiritual orphans with the Heavenly Father who is saying, I want to love you and provide for you and give you a life that we never imagine. But here's what we do in most situations. We run away and we scream because we think obedience means misery. All the while our Heavenly Father is saying, you don't understand. And if you could see it the way I see it, you would be drawn to run and embrace what I have for you with a reckless abandon because it's greater than anything you can ever get your heart around. And I have a life for you like you've never even imagined. Look at this reality on the screen. The path of obedience is ultimately a path of joy. The path of obedience is ultimately, I didn't say immediately, but ultimately, a path of joy. And we must get to a place as believers where the sufficiency of Christ is a reality for us. And we must know that when God calls us to something, when God asks us to obey Him in some form, it's for our good in the long run. And we can't see it through our flesh because through our flesh obedience appears to end in misery. But when we view it through the lens of the truth and the lens of the gospel, obedience ultimately ends in joy. When we are tested, we must see past our ability to God's ability. One more statement out of this scripture and will be finished. Thirdly, when my faith is tested, I must remember that God is working from and for eternity. When you and I are tested, we must have the perspective that God is working from and for eternity. We see in this story the moment before Abraham murders his son, God provides a ram, a substitute. God steps in. And here's the reality. The whole time that Abraham is navigating through this trial and he's thinking all the different thoughts about murdering his son and maybe some questions, I don't know what all went through his heart and mind. The whole time, guess what God saw? God saw the ram. God saw that. God knew what was coming and all the while as Abraham and Isaac are making their way up the hill. God is sovereignly orchestrating the ram to be caught in the thicket at the exact moment that Abraham and Isaac needed it. God sees the whole thing and before you and I get so caught up in our trial or test and think it's impossible and there's no way this is going to work and I'm overwhelmed by emotions. Remember, God sees the next scene. He sees it. He knows what's coming next and he wants to leverage everything going on in the test for your good and his glory because he's just not operating from today. He's operating from eternity. He sees it like it's a film strip. He sees the first scene just like he sees the last scene and he knows when you walk out of this trial what's next and his desire is for you to honor him through it. But there's one other aspect that speaks to God's eternal perspective in the story. You see the story of Abraham and Isaac is not the last account in Scripture that we have of a father sacrificing a son on Mount Moriah. You see thousands of years later a greater father or Heavenly Father led a greater son to Mount Moriah and this son was a promised son. He was a beloved son. He was an only son and he carried the wood for the sacrifice up the hill on his back in the form of a cross. His name was Jesus and on that day once again God provided but guess what God provided. He provided forgiveness through humanity through the horrible crucifixion and death of Jesus. And as all this is happening with Abraham and Isaac you have to know God could see what was going to happen to Jesus and with great love and compassion God thought you know what Abraham you don't have to kill your son because he's not an acceptable sacrifice because there's a day coming when I'm going to have my son killed because he is an acceptable sacrifice a perfect lamb and substitute to provide forgiveness for the sins of humanity. And I say that to say God sees the big picture. Don't think he's caught up in the moment like you are. He is working from and for eternity. Because of that in the test we should desire to honor him and in the test we have to see past our resources to his resources and pray that in the long run he conforms us and makes us into the image of his son. We've been invited to walk by faith not by sight.