Seeing Christ’s Day

Transcript

And I was just curious, do people know where that name, the friend of God, comes from? Anybody want to point to the scripture where Abraham is called a friend of God? And so the first verse that I thought of is in James. I think this is the one that's most familiar to us, where we're talking about faith and the necessity of works. And James refers to somebody else calling Abraham the friend of God, right? So that's obviously going to point us elsewhere. Jehoshaphat, in fact, calls Abraham the friend of God in 2 Chronicles 20. But you're right, Luke. There's actually a third place where God himself calls Abraham my friend. And I feel the same way that you do. I was absolutely floored by this. Imagine God calling us his friends. And I think that's a wonderful thought. So very good reasons to name your kid Abraham, if anybody wants to. Maybe my sister will start a trend, I don't know. For me, it brought to reality when Jesus in upper room calls the disciples, my friend. You are my friends if you do what I command you. And that extends to us. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I fall so short of being a friend when I think about his commandment. So one of the things I want to talk about tonight is the fact that we're not perfectly faithful people. We do fall short, like you're saying, Luke. And I think Abraham did as well. I don't want to spoil the punchline here, but we're definitely going to be exploring those themes. The other reason that Dassey gave is that Abraham is called the father of the faithful. And so I looked into this as well. And although that exact phrase doesn't appear in Scripture, the concept is deeply, deeply biblical. This idea of Abraham as the father of the faithful in just a couple of verses there on screen. So we won't go too deep into that. But Dassey concluded her message. She said, I was struck by what an incredible person he was. And I hope that AB grows to have a strong faith too. I think a lot of us admire Abraham as a hero of our faith, and specifically Christadelphians, because the Abrahamic promises are such a central part of our beliefs, our hope for a coming kingdom. When Abraham receives that promised land, we have that connection to our status as being heirs in So that was kind of my inspiration to talk about Abraham this evening. And there were a couple of questions that came to my mind as I was looking at his life. The first of these was, well, did Abraham always have faith? Was he always this hero of faith, or did he need to be developed? And I think the question behind that, when I asked myself, what's the significance of this question? I think what we might wonder is, are there people that are just naturally faithful? Is faithfulness something characteristic of a person like their height, or their disposition? Is there just something about a person that makes them faithful, or is this something that needs to develop? And obviously, the even more personal question behind that is, can I become a more faithful person, or am I just not the Abraham type? And so we look at scripture for our answers, as always. Did Abraham always have faith? Well, yes, Abraham is presented to us leading Ur of the Chaldees, and in that very scene, we're told it was an act of faith. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out a place that he was to receive an inheritance. Right from this very introduction, he's following his faith. But it does seem that this was just the beginning, because Romans chapter 4 speaks of him growing strong in faith. I think that's a process that implies there was some relative weakness to it. And yet, at the same time, Roman speaks of Abram as being unwavering, of being fully convinced in his faith. And Abraham was a champion of faith, no doubt about it, but it's a testament to the grace of God that he's remembered for good, because there's certainly times in his life when he seems to have missed the mark somewhat. I would propose that scripture is lifting him up as the exemplar of our faith, because through all his trials, he did remain directionally inclined towards God. He didn't depart from God. He wanted to trust God and to believe his promises and to hope for a better future. But there does seem to be a growth process as well. And so very early in the Abraham story, we have this magnificent verse in Genesis 15, verse 6, and it's cited three times verbatim in the New Testament. The references are on screen for you. And you see, by the time we get to Genesis 15, Abram's already received the promises, but he doesn't have a child. He hasn't received all the promises, right? It's an iterative thing. They continuously are revealed to him. But he knows that he needs an heir, and so he wants to make Eliezer, the steward of his house, to be his heir. And in Genesis 15, God says, no, it's actually going to be your very son. It's going to be an heir that comes from your body, verse 4 tells us. And of course, he will make your offspring as multitudinous as the stars of heaven. And it says that Abram believed, and the New Testament cites this three times. This is kind of this huge testament to his faith. But only a couple of verses later, when God promises him the land, Abram asks, oh, Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? And we might be tempted to respond, well, because God told you he would. Don't ask questions, just believe when God tells you something, right? Wouldn't that be a better faith to have? But he asks the question, and God has been faithful. I'm sorry, God is always faithful. God has been patient with the questions of faithful people many times in scripture. You might think of Habakkuk, or Jeremiah, or Moses, David, and I'm sure many others. But the most relevant for us might be Mary. And if we can just quickly think about Luke chapter 1, when she's told about the miraculous birth that would happen, she asks, how can this happen when I'm her virgin? And it's interesting because in the very same chapter, Zechariah asks a similar question, and he's struck dumb on account of it. And it's a faithless question in the case of Zechariah, where you get the sense with Mary, she's asking this just out of wonder, you know, how could this be? Where Zechariah, he doesn't believe it. He's saying, in fact, the angel, when he strikes Zechariah dumb, he says, is because you believed not my words. That's Luke 1 verse 20. So I don't know what the case is exactly here with Abram. You have this remarkable faith and then a question. And God tolerates the question. He has the vision of the burning lamp and the smoking furnace as evidence. So just something to kind of hold in our minds. I think Abram always had faith, but we'll see how it grew and developed through his life. So a second question we might ask relates to Ishmael. Did Abram act in faith when Ishmael was conceived? So I'll lead off by saying that Jesus teaches lifelong monogamy, of course, as being the divinely ordained model for marriage, right? When the Pharisees ask him about divorce, he cites Genesis 2. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Jesus endorses that. And he's not rebuking plural marriage directly, but he is endorsing this creation ideal that doesn't make room for any other people, the man and the woman. So Abram is violating this by taking Hagar. And the discord that results in the family is immediately evident, right? Hagar despises Sarai. Sarai starts to abuse her and cast her out into the wilderness. It's clearly not a good scene. But God doesn't rebuke Abram or his Congress with Hagar. And if we withhold judgment, just for a moment, I'd like to at least try to understand Abram and Sarai's thinking without trying to justify their actions. So consider this. God has spoken of Abram's offspring 11 years prior to the event with Hagar. So he's been waiting a long time already. Sarai has never born children, and she is now post-menopausal, so no chance by natural means. And Abram is told that the child would come from his own body, but nothing's said about Sarai. There's no promise that Abram's offspring would come from Sarai. So those are just facts. The other kind of relevant cultural context here, again, not justifying, but this idea of surrogate pregnancy was something that was known in the near Middle East in these times. It was a tested practice. You can see here some of his attestations. So none of this is to say that their plan was justifiable, just that it may have seemed like it was the only way by which the promised outcome might be achieved. Ishmael wasn't born because Abram doubted God's promises. He just didn't fully understand his role in responding to God's promises. He was looking for maybe there's something that I need to do to make this happen. So this does represent an opportunity for significant growth in Abraham's understanding, and it's also a lesson for us about when faith does not require human works. God didn't explicitly tell Abram to go and do this, and in fact his actions violated the creation ideal. So God gives us instructions about how to behave, and if we think that we need to fulfill God's promises by doing something that's contrary to his instructions, clearly we're off course. So I do believe that the couple were wrong to take matters into their own hands here, and Scripture uses this account to teach us we can't achieve spiritual outcomes through natural means. So in my mind, when Romans 4 is talking about Abram growing in faith, this is something he had to learn about faith, is that God will be true to his promises no matter what, even when things seem impossible from a natural perspective. But that's not the way things went. Ishmael was born, and I think it's very possible that Abraham did not or Abram at the time didn't understand the full impact of this idea that the flesh cannot accomplish spiritual promises until much later. So if we come back to the timeline of Abram's life, Ishmael was 13 years old when God comes to Abraham in Genesis 17. In Genesis chapter 17 verse 7, he says, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you. I think Abraham's thinking Ishmael because he doesn't have any reason not to. He hasn't been told that Ishmael isn't the promised son. In Genesis 17 verse 8, God says, I will give the land of Canaan to you and to your offspring, and he's thinking Ishmael. In verse 10, this is my covenant between me and you and your offspring, the covenant of circumcision. Abram's thinking Ishmael. It's not until the blessings come to Sarai in verse 15, and it's confirmed that she should be the mother that Abraham cries, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. And you can absolutely sense the mental anguish that Abram is going through here, having grown this child and loved him and believed him to be the promised heir. This answer to so many prayers, the fulfillment of promises, all of that understanding has been placed into Ishmael. And now he's being told that that's not the way that God works, that God isn't going to use his fleshly machinations with Hagar to produce the promise, that God would produce the promise on his own terms. And I just think this must have been absolutely mind-bending for Abraham. And go back and take a look at the text, but there's nothing in there that would suggest to me that Abraham would have known otherwise. And his response in verse 18, oh, Ishmael might live before you. I think that says everything about how he was absolutely floored by this. And so the whole Ishmael account, it's a cautionary tale for those of us who are inclined to seize the initiative and to presume to produce what we supposed to be the will of God in our lives is. And I do believe that even faithful people can make bad decisions when they're relying on the flesh to achieve a spiritual outcome. Let's return to the dialogue where Abraham, and now he's Abraham, he learns that Sarah's to become pregnant. In Genesis 17, verse 17, he falls on his face and laughs. And we spoke earlier about Romans 4 and how Abraham grew in faith. And I think in this moment, he was teetering on the brink of infertility. I mean, the most generous reading of Abraham's laughter is wonderment and surprise and not unbelief or questioning or doubting or anything like that. But his plea for Ishmael suggests that Abraham is still coming to terms with this new promise. In fact, this is almost taking him back 13 years ago into his life and putting him into this, what was a seemingly impossible situation at that time. And it's extremely regressive for Abraham so he's still kind of interpreting and trying to understand this. And God refuses his plea. It's not going to be Ishmael. It must be Isaac. And in fact, names Isaac and the Hebrew word for Isaac means laughter. So there's an interesting parallel there. And we'll come back to that in a moment. But Abraham's laughter isn't the end of the story. Romans says he did not weaken in faith and goes on to name the exact biological factors that caused Abraham to laugh at the outset. Now, if you believe that Abraham's laughter meant nothing, that he didn't have any doubts or questions, then no problem. But if Abraham's laughter represents some level of incredulity, these verses would seem to be contradictory. How can you laugh and you also say he didn't weaken in faith? And so let's just hold that tension for a moment because I think there's a good parallel here with Sarah. If we come to chapter 18, this is the account where the angels come to their tents on the plains of Mamre. And in verse 12, Sarah overhears God through the angels speaking to Abraham, making the promise of Isaac. And she says to herself, after I'm worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? And God says, well, why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? So clearly there's some, I think it's a little easier to make the case that Sarah doubted in her laughter. And to her, God's promise may have seemed absurd. This wasn't like a situation where it was unlikely or she could somehow produce the child. Like she was post-medical, she couldn't have children. She knew that it was out of the realm of possibility for her. You know, I'm saying this, of course, nothing is impossible for God. And this is the opportunity that God has to say, is anything too hard for the Lord? No, even impossible things can happen through the Lord. So I think all of us, or most people would agree that Sarah's laughter did express doubt in some way. It wasn't a perfectly faithful response just because of the text and how the Lord replies to her. So people seem to have a harder time acknowledging that there was anything similar in Abram's reaction, even though there's that very close parallel in each of the chapters, each of them laugh, each of them talk about the biological factors that would have made the fulfillment of the promise difficult. But because Abram is held up as the sterling presentation of faith in the New Testament, I think we try to make allowances. I think one interesting point to make on that is that just as Abraham is commended for his faith, despite the shall we call them biological headwinds, Sarah also is commended. Hebrews 11 states that her faith is explicitly the means by which the promise is bestowed. It's by faith that Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. So even if Abraham and Sarah's initial reaction was incredulity, and as God-fearing people, clearly they weren't mocking God's promise by laughing, but their laughter seems like it could have been on the spectrum of disbelief, and yet they believed God despite the physical limitations of their own bodies and are given a son whose name means laughter. So that's really interesting to me that God provides, he's changed Abraham and Sarah's name, now he's also giving their son his name, and it means laughter. I don't know exactly what the significance is, but I have an idea. So laughter can be both a terrible and wonderful thing. It can be terrible in mockery, and it can be wonderful as an expression of joy. God's promises can seem both terrible and wonderful. It's terrible when Abraham has to confront the fact that Ishmael is not the heir, but they're wonderful when he receives a son from the wife of his youth. It's terrible for us when we have to confront our natural sinful ways, and it's wonderful when we receive Jesus Christ, the heir of all things, into our lives. And so I think in Isaac's name, we're getting the tension and the conflict of God's promise of expectation on one side. A promise is something that hasn't been fulfilled, and an expectation can be very difficult. Living in the unfulfilled promise can be very difficult, but then there's that wonderful joy that we look forward to, and we have perspective joy presently because we believe, because we can see the realization even though we're still in that expectation phase, I'll call it. So personally, after meditating on these passages, my conclusion is that Abraham was very surprised by this, and he was surprised to the point of not quite getting it. I think he really struggled with being told that Ishmael would not be the heir and that somehow his wife would bear a son. But despite that, he's described as being fully convinced. And so I don't think Paul in Romans 4 is denying the laughter. He's interpreting Abraham by this direction of his faith, the steadfastness and the consistency that he shows, not that momentary struggle. So my takeaway from all of this is that faith is something that emerges, faith is something that matures, and it persists. And that's why Romans 4 can say that Abraham did not waver, even though Genesis shows these moments of struggle. Paul's describing Abraham's steadfast allegiance, his holding onto, his willingness to grapple with really hard things that God told him and asked him to do. And so the lesson for us is that faith does not appear fully formed. We can't expect to have this Abrahamic faith right from the very beginning, yet faith is, God is working with us to develop our faith as we go, to grow our faith. And finally, if we're struggling with our faith, we can still please God by just holding on to faith. So Hagar and Ishmael is the first part of the class, and I think it really sets the stage for the life of Isaac, and really the pinnacle of Abraham's life and his trials of faith is in Genesis 22, where he's asked to sacrifice his son. So that's the next thing I'd like to look at. I think this is probably a good place to pause if there's any questions or comments. I think I was getting my chronology a bit mixed up. The Abimelech incident is in chapter 20, and we read of the Lord closing the wounds of all the house of Abimelech in the verse 18, chapter 20 verse 18. So yeah, there was no chance that Abraham wasn't the father, so to speak. Yeah, but yeah, thanks. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Richard. Thanks for all the comments. Let's carry on. I have a couple closing thoughts here I want to make on Genesis 22, and hopefully have some time for some more discussion at the conclusion here. So this really is the kind of the climax of the whole story, I think, in Genesis 22. God tests Abraham. He says, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt sacrifice. And with everything we've considered, the 11 years and then 13 years, to now, now I don't have an heir because I'm being told to sacrifice. It's hard to overstate what this must have meant for Abraham. And so in addition to my adorable nephew, Abie, one of my other inspirations for this class was a book that I've had on my shelf here in my office. I found it in my college library on one of those book racks. They were selling it. I don't know why I picked it up, but it's always intrigued me. And it was written by this Dutch philosopher named Soren Kierkegaard. And he wrote in the 19th century, and he believed that the Lutheran people of Denmark, they didn't properly appreciate the faith. And so he used this story of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah as kind of an emotional shock therapy to kind of wake them from their spiritual doldrums and think about the costliness of faith. So he urged his readers to enter into the experience of Abraham in this chapter and to contemplate the mental anguish, the full emotional force of this chapter, because he thought that a lot of Christians of his time were missing those points. And so he writes that people construe the story of Abraham in another way. They extol God's grace and bestowing Isaac upon him again, but the whole thing was only a trial, a trial that word may say much or little, and yet the whole thing is over as quickly as it is said. When mounts a winged horse, the same instant one is at Mount Moriah, the same instant one sees the ram, one forgets the Abraham road on Anas, which walks slowly along the road, and that he had a journey of three days, and that he needed some time to cleave the wood and to bind Isaac and to sharpen the knife. And he's suggesting that in our Bible class is just not enough time for us to understand the experience. We need to spend three days with Abraham on the road, walking alongside his son, camping overnight and maybe looking across a campfire at his son and thinking about the thing that God had asked him to do, thinking that at the end of this he has to raise the knife against his own son. And it's a wonderful text that just really hits you with difficulty of what God asked Abraham to do. And so we should be thinking about this full depth of emotion, the confusion, the sorrow that Abraham was experiencing. So they travel and Isaac says to his father, my father, he says, here I am, my son, my son, my father, behold the fire in the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering? Such a difficult question. And instead of attempting to answer this impossible question, he simply trusts God. He says, God will provide. And I've always read this thinking that Abraham is dodging the question. He's like, it's like a non-answer. But I think that's a very superficial reading. After meditating on this passage, I am more inclined to read this as Abraham just confessing his own inability to provide a solution to an impossible situation. Now, if you think about the sort of person Abraham was when he joined with Agar, he would be looking for a ram in a thicket at this moment. It's like, oh yeah, where is the work? But instead of looking for a way to resolve the situation, he trusts God to provide. He believes God. So they carry on. And so let's continue. I'm just going to read the rest of the story, picking up in verse 9. So they went both of them together. And when they had come to the place which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there. He laid the wood and he bound Isaac his son and he laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham reached out his hand and he took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. He said, here I am. God said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram and he offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of the place the Lord will provide, as it is said to this day, on the Lord it shall be provided. So there's a lot of things that could be said. And I'm sure we've heard classes on this chapter before. My goal isn't to expose at Genesis 22 or even pick out the the typology, the parallels between Isaac and Jesus Christ, which are indeed beautiful. But there's one remaining point I want to make tonight as we consider this event and the supreme act of faith in Abraham's life. And it relates to this question, Jehovah Yaira. And I've always thought that this means God will provide. We even have a popular hymn, Jehovah Yaira, my provider, your grace is sufficient for me. This idea of God is provider. And all the modern translations back up this translation. But the word Yaira is usually translated with the sense of seeing or looking, beholding, if you will. And metaphorically, sure, that could mean provide. If Hannah says, see to it that Clara gets some lunch, she's asked me to provide a meal for my daughter, right? She's not asking me to watch Clara have lunch. She's saying see to it. So I think in that sense, see to it could mean provide. But the modern translations by just going ahead and saying, you know, the Lord will provide or on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided as ESV has there in the bottom right. And kind of glossing over that literal sense of seeing that's present in the text. So I think that's a key point to understand a New Testament passage that we sometimes find to be a bit cryptic. In John chapter eight, verse 56, we read, Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He sighed and was glad. And just to I think the context is here. Jesus has promised his followers that he would they would not see death. And you see that the Jews object to that. And they kind of repeat what he's saying, but they misstate what he said. They kind of misrepresent him as saying that his disciples would never experience death, that they would never taste death, which is not at all what meant. Seeing carries the sense of realizing God's full intent. Seeing death would be like death in the ultimate sense, like death that you don't come back from, whereas tasting is more akin to what we would call sleeping in Christ. We have this expectation to be resurrected, not entirely annihilated in death as followers of Christ and those who keep his word. The Pharisees accused Jesus of exalting himself over Abraham, which is how Abraham gets invoked in the whole discourse. And Jesus responds, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me. And Jesus knew glorification was coming. It was promised to him. But he also knew that he couldn't seize it by his own initiative. And that's perhaps something that he was tempted with in Matthew 4 when he goes through his temptations. And that's precisely the lesson that Abraham failed with Ishmael. But I believe he had learned it by the time that Genesis 22 rolls around. He's not taking things into his own hand anymore. And Abraham really truly believed that God is faithful to keep his promises. So Hebrews 11 verse 19 tells us that he expected to receive Isaac from the dead again. He expected that Isaac would only taste death and not see death in that absolute ultimate sense. So, you know, it might not be totally explicit in John at this point, but I think the Genesis themes are at least sort of aligning with the text of John 8. So as we start to integrate those concepts, I think the concluding thoughts become somewhat less mysterious. We understand that Christ is this metaphorical lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Revelation 13 verse 8 says. And there's some sense in which the redemptive promise of God has always been fulfilled for those who trust him. There's some sense in which we are alive in Christ and will live forevermore even though we each must first taste death. So kind of bringing this back to Abraham and Genesis 22, Abraham knew he'd have his son back because he trusted the promises. In Genesis 22, we see that Abraham fully expected that an offering would be provided. He says God will provide the offering when Isaac asks, you know, where's the lamb? So it seems his expectation was that he had to go through with this terrible act that God had asked of him and later receive his son by resurrection. But nevertheless, he was fully believing in the promise. So later, when the angel stays Abraham's hand and the ram is identified, Abraham realizes that what was only previously an expectation, it's now become a reality. He's realized it. Isaac would live, Isaac would produce offspring as multitudinous as the stars of heaven and the sands of the earth. So let's see here. Yeah, so okay. So how exactly did Abraham see Christ's day? It's hard to imagine that he had a vision of Golgotha and the crucifixion of Christ and he saw it with all the detail. I mean, it's possible, but we're certainly not told that. And in our time, we might not have God appearing face to face and speaking to us the way that he did with Abraham and fulfilling promises in our lives quite the same way. But we do have that vision of Christ's day to look at in perfect clarity that perhaps Abraham lacked. So I think we can take courage in our expectation of Christ's return being realized as well. And so I think understanding that this idea of Jehovah Jireh kind of God's seeing to it, that we don't have to take things into our own hand. We don't have to do what Abraham did with Hagar. We can trust God when he says he'll provide for us. He really and truly will. And I realize there's so much left unsaid with all of this. But let's just conclude with this thought, because I think it's a really powerful one, that there will be a realization of the things that we hopefully wait for, those things that we hopefully have an expectation for God to fulfill. There's all sorts of things in life that we hope for that God has not necessarily promised. We hope that we'll be healthy. We hope that we'll always have food on the table and a roof over our heads. We hope that we'll fall in love or we'll have children. And if they come, that the children will be in the faith. We don't know how things will turn out, but God has given us magnificent promises for our future that are absolutely reliable, 100%. And so we have to learn, like Abraham, to forsake the strength of our flesh, that these spiritual outcomes that God has promised, he will bring to pass. And so I just thought of these verses, 2 Timothy 4, which speaks about those who love his appearing and loving something that hasn't happened yet. This kind of tension that we're held, this suspension that we're held in as we wait for the promises to be fulfilled. And there's a hymn in our hymn book that captures this beautifully, which I'd like to share as well. And we'll just conclude with this. Hymn 284, the third verse.