Concrete Faith | Joel Gregory

0:00 I'm so thankful to tell you that down in the southwest at Baylor University last night, thousands of students gathered outside as the fame has spread. And not only that, down the road an hour and a half at Texas A&M University, thousands of students in that 60,000 student university were outside in the open praising God and pleading for revival. We're seeing God move in this country. And I wanted to bring you that report from down in the southwestern part of the country. It's so good to be back with you here once again. We were blessed down at Bailey University when Pastor Tim came and preached an amazing message at our national preaching conference. Thank you again for coming to preach to us and blessing our people there. I want you to open the Word of God with me to the book of Hebrews.

0:53 Hebrews, the 11th chapter, we're going to look at verses 8 through 12, which is a digest, an abridgment, a synopsis, a condensed version, you might say a cliff notes version, of the life of the Father, of all the faithful, and of Sarah, who in many ways in this passage is the mother of all the faithful. Hebrews 11, and the message, if I were to write a title over it, I would call Concrete Faith. If you have the word of God, Hebrews 11, this digest of the life of Abraham. Reading verse 8. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.

1:52 And he set out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he stayed for a time in the land that he'd been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise. for he looked forward to the city that has foundations whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power to procreation, even though he was too old and Sarah herself was barren because he considered him unfaithful who promised. Therefore from one person and this one as good as dead, descendants were born as many as the stars of heaven and the innumerable gardens of sand by the seashore. An example of concrete faith. Would you pray with me again?

2:59 eternal God God of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, indeed God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I ask you that now these words written in a world that was would be anointed in the world right now that is. these words from over there would come to life here.

3:40 And I pray that not just by the letter only, but by the presence of your spirit, you will speak to the needs of every heart here and beyond here. I pray it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. man. Since I am as the pastor alluded to a seminary professor, I guess I could tell a story about a professor's unusual story. He had taught for decades at his seminary training ministers.

4:14 He got the nickname Dr. Love. And the reason was every time he preached, he ended with a soliloquy on Christian love. It didn't make any difference. It was a wedding, a memorial service, a civic club address, a baccalaureate, a graduation, anywhere he always ended, Christian love. After decades of that, he got the nickname, Dr. Love. Well, Dr. Love retired. And as a professor, he'd really never done anything with his hands, but held a pen. He said, I want to make something. So he taught himself how to tear up his old concrete driveway, put down some rebar. he poured the concrete he finished it and he had that fulfillment that comes from doing something with his hands when right then a group of neighborhood kids chasing a dog ran through his concrete left kid prints dog prints and professor love lost it he went into the garage got out a garden hoe chased them down the block and said i'm going to kill you well his wife was looking out a window she said how could you do that you've always been dr love And he said, Madam, that was Levin the abstract.

5:24 This is Levin the concrete. Our text begins with an abstract definition of faith in Hebrews 11.1. Many of you know it, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But how does that look in a concrete life? Not a perfect life, but in a concrete life. That's what brings us to the story of Abraham, Abraham? Now get this, he was as far on the other side of the cross and resurrection as we are on this side. 4,000 years ago, we say it was from Mesopotamia and Ur, literally, today we would say from Iraq. He belonged to a group of moon worshipers when suddenly the voice of Almighty God came to him and said, Get up and get out, and I'll show you where.

6:31 And he got up and went. In fact, he's the first person in the Bible whose faith is specifically mentioned. He believed God, and God wrote it down as righteousness. Interesting, three great world monotheistic religions look back to him. the Islamic faith the Jewish faith and the Christian faith Jesus genealogy and Matthew goes back to Abraham I want us to look at his life tonight look at it practically to see how does faith concretely act theologically yes it's the substance of things hope for evidence of things not seen but how does it act in concrete I'll hand you these things and I'll take my seat Concrete faith Enables you to go with God Without knowing Next where Do you see this in verse 8 As God spoke he was going If you looked at the grammar of verse 8 The idea is that even as the voice of God Was ringing in the ear Of this 75 year old Iraqi And his father terror He was on his way Going a Jew who was a contemporary with our Lord Jesus Christ philo-Judaist put it this way writing a biography he said Abraham left home so quickly to go to an unknown place that he would think he left an unknown place to get back home it's an amazing thing I'd like to know how God spoke to him he did not have a mind either holding scripture or seeing scripture at the earliest this would have been 600 years before the first books of Moses were written.

8:15 How did God speak to him? Did he speak to him in a vision by day? Up in the sky over that Mesopotamia? Did he speak to him in a dream by night like he spoke to his great-grandson Joseph? Did he speak to him with a growing sense of disgust with the worship of the moon? He looked around and said, it's got to be more God than this. Or did he speak to him in an audible voice?

8:42 Some years ago, a president of a major U.S. denomination, after its presidency one year, surprised everybody by turning it down. The second year, and a cynical reporter said, did God tell you that in an audible voice? And he said, no, he spoke a lot louder than that. Some of us know what it is for God to speak. A lot louder than that. Abraham got up and walked out into the desert with his father, Tara, who died at Haran. And then Abraham and Sarah just kept walking. The interesting thing is he didn't give any excuses. If I'd been Abraham, I think I would have thought of an excuse. First of all, there's no precedent for anything like this. Remember, Abraham didn't have the example of an Abraham. Now let that sit in a minute. We can read this. We can know the story of millions of people of faith. He didn't have any of that. That's why he's the father of all those who believe. However, God spoke to him. He started walking with God, going without knowing where. He's the first. And you know, it's interesting to be first. If I ask you who's the first person to step on the moon, you'd probably say Neil Armstrong. But who was number two? Not many people can tell you that. Being first is first.

9:57 Who was the first person to break the cutter wall in baseball? Jackie Robinson. Not many people can tell you. The second, Abraham is the first because when God spoke to him, absent any written scripture, he just got up and went. And you know, if I'd been Abraham, I would have come up with some excuse. I'd say, I'm 75. At a time when most of us hoped to be collecting social security, he faced another hundred years of social insecurity. he said oh i want the rocking chair and god said get up and go do you know if you don't want to do what god says you can always find an excuse there's a story about a hill country man his neighbor the appalachians came and asked to borrow his axe and he said i can't loan you my axe i'm eating peas he looked at him and said no no I want to borrow your axe and he said I'm sorry I'm eating peas that that exchange went back and forth several times and finally his neighbor wilted and said what does eating peas have to do with borrowing your axe and he said well you don't want to loan your axe one excuse is as good as the other Abraham could have said there's no precedent for this sort of thing.

11:16 But he got up and he went with God without knowing where. Now here's where I wish I could sit down at your kitchen table over a cup of coffee or tea and ask you. Where is God asking you to go next? But you don't know where. concrete faith enables you to go with God when you do not know next where the life of faith is not getting a roadmap of your life a kind of heavenly GPS in which every stop is already marked that wouldn't be faith let me put it this way during World War II in the United States Navy there was something called sailing under sealed orders. Back in those days, before much of the technology we have today, in order to keep the destination of a troop-carrying ship secret, the captain on the bridge would receive an envelope, and on the outside of that envelope were numbers, degrees of latitude and longitude, those lines.

12:29 And he was to sail in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific to those numbers and then open the envelope. Often inside of it, there was another envelope with another set of numbers zigging and zagging, going next without knowing where. That's an image. That's a metaphor for what the life of faith is. Let me make it personal. I was eight years old, Condole Baptist Church, 4736, Bryce Fort Worth, Texas. I got up, walked out of my seat told the pastor I'm trusting Jesus with all my heart and you know what church it's as if I looked up and said the envelope please gave me an envelope and it said put me on in beautiful believers baptism and I came out of that water wet and it's as if I looked up and said the envelope please and my life has been a life of saying the envelope please I was 16 years old a sophomore in high school when sitting in a teenage vacation Bible school like lightning coming out of a cloudless night I was called to preach and I said the envelope please and the rest of life has been a willingness to say the envelope please the life of faith is going with him without knowing where And you know what? It's a blessing that you don't because many of us would never start if we knew we ever stopped.

14:06 Could I say that again? If you told me at 16 years of age what it would meant to follow Jesus as a preacher, I would have said, thanks, I think I'll try the law. He gave it to me one envelope at a time. You might say, well, Ur, Abraham was from Ur. Ur. Sounds like he forgot where he was from, Ur. Anybody would want to leave Ur. No. Ur, if I could say it, was the New York City of its day. It had a great river turning, Harvard. high rises. Well, Abraham was a wealthy man. We read he had 318 servants who went with him. That's a big household staff. Nobody left Ur to walk nowhere, but Abraham did.

14:53 You know Jesus treated people that way. You ever think about it? Here's James and John, Zebedee Fisheries Incorporated. When he walked by that day, they didn't say, there goes the hypostatic incarnation of the Trinity. No, he was a carpenter from Nazareth. And he said, follow me. And they left the boat and followed him. Here's Matthew. He was an IRS agent. Follow me. Here's a friend of mine, Rebecca Naylor, eight years old. Her father was pastor at First Church Columbia, South Carolina. He gave an invitation. The eight-year-old came down the aisle and said, God has called me to be a missionary surgeon to India. I'm sure everybody went by and said, oh, how sweet. And they thought, she'll get over that. She didn't. to Baylor, to medical school, to Bangalore, to build a hospital, a nursing school.

15:52 Rebecca Ann Naylor, one envelope at a time. Somebody here tonight, you need to put your thumbprint on this passage. God is calling you to go next, but only he knows where. But wait a minute, I need to move on. Not only does concrete faith enable you to go with God without knowing where, along with that enables you to wait on God without knowing when.

16:23 If I had been Abe, every morning out in that desert I would have said God when? You promised me a land I don't have one. I'm living in a tent and you promised me a son. I don't have one. God I'm 80. Where's the land and where's the son? God I'm 84, 85, 86. Maybe it's time to have a baby. We'll call him Ishmael. No, 90, 95, 6, 7, 8, 99. And God says, now. you can read it over in Genesis 17 and 18 Abe's 99 Sarah's 90 really it's kind of a funny story late Calvin Miller had a poem about it you're going to have a baby, Abe God said now now come close to me somebody walked in these doors tonight and the big question mark in your life is when?

17:37 You wake up in the morning saying, when? When will I know what you want me to do with my life? When will I know if you want me to spend my life with someone? When will I know when I get a job? When will I know when I get another job? When I'll retire? When, Lord? Well, here's a holy hint about how to live that way. just as he went with God without knowing where. He waited on God without knowing when.

18:06 The language of Scripture says literally, he settled down in tents as a permanent resident alien. That's the literal translation. This man who lived in a three-story house on earth settled down in tents as a permanent resident alien. that means he settled down to a life of permanent impermanence waiting for God to say when there was a famous cartoon decades ago in the New Yorker it was Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden and he looks over to Eve and said hey we're living in days of transition that's always the case waiting on God to say when have you ever lived in a tent very long I lived in a tent for a month on South Potter Island, right at the tip of Texas. I was a sophomore in high school.

19:02 And we were down there doing marine biological research in the intercoastal canal. And for some crazy reason, Pastor Tim, they made me the camp cook. That was a bad decision. It was better. And I remember cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I found this out. There was sand in everything. Sand in the bacon. Sand in the eggs. Sand in the beans. Sand in the hot dogs. It gave a whole new meaning to the word sandwich. I mean it was it was all sin I did not feel permanent. it's over in Peter where it reminds us that if we're people of faith we will always be strangers in this world system we used to sing a little chorus this world is not my home I'm just a passing through my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue well today I think we'd have to sing this world is not my home, but I've got a few CDs and I must see my broker one time more. I mean, we're settled down instead of seeing life as a permanent resident alien. And you say, Abe, how do you live that way? Joel, how do you live that way? Well, you see it right here.

20:21 You can accept the impermanence because what does it say? He was looking forward to a city which had foundations. God left him out kicking over those sand dunes long enough that he understood if I had all of this, I'm looking for permanence in God and God alone. and you know what that enabled him to do he leaped over the whole Bible and he lands in the book of Revelation standing there with John the last surviving eyewitness apostle who saw a new Jerusalem coming down with 12 foundations he leaps over the whole of Holy Scripture and says the only thing permanent is God let me tell you something who's walked who's walked and I've been up and I've been down and I've been level with the ground.

21:15 Institutions come and go. Schools come and go. Families come and go. Friends come and go. Only God stays. And life will teach you that in the school of life. You live a life of permanent impermanence because you come to recognize that that city which comes down from above is the only thing that is permanent.

21:43 Are you trusting that? Are you leaning into that with all your weight? If you walked in here tonight saying, Lord, when you're in good company, Abe asked him that. Asked him that for a lifetime. And that leads me to the last thing I want to say. Concrete faith enables you to believe God when you don't know how.

22:10 It not only enables you to go without knowing where and wait without knowing where, it enables you to believe him without knowing how. That seemed to be Abe's biggest problem. He seemed to pack up and go. He had a little problem waiting for when, but the biggest problem was how because he had this ridiculous promise. Baby, Abe, you're going to have a baby. You're going to have a son, and I'm going to give you a land. And year after year, he didn't have either one. If you go back and read the story of his life, you know what he tried. He told God, he said, look, Eliezer is my head steward, chief of staff. Since Sarah and I don't have any children, we're going to leave it all to Eliezer. And God said, no. It's going to be a son of your loins. well then Abraham and Sarah had a sort of a committee meeting she said this this isn't going anywhere Abe here's Hagar it'd be okay she could show up down at the obstetrician's office but I can't do that and when Abe was 86 Ishmael was born. But God said, that's good. I'll make him a big nation, but he's not the one.

23:39 And 14 years later, God said, now. It's a great story. Those angelic vistas showed up at the Oaks of Mamre. Remember, Sarah was in the tent and she overheard the promise that they were going to have a baby. Remember what she did? so when he was born they named him Hebrew Isaac which means laughter but get this God got the last laugh you know I think about those I think about those 318 servants they were not alone Abe was not out there with Jesserah 318 people you ever wonder what they thought when they first went out there and they said folks we're going to walk around here for years where are we going and Father Abraham don't know, and they said, oh man, he's losing it. Well, can you imagine what they thought when he came out and announced, hey, I found out how long we're going to be here.

24:33 We're going to be here until Sarah has a baby. They said, the old man has a sunstroke. We're dead. But then one night, out of the tent of Sarah, came the cry. And those 318 said, great is the God of Abraham. Thank you. Somebody came in here tonight with a big howl. Yes, you did. It's impenetrable. You can't get over it. You can't get around it. You can't go through it. It's howl. You don't see howl. You think your problem is so peculiar that even God got dizzy and fell off his throne. He doesn't know how to deal with your howl. A friend of mine preaches here often. I'm going to quote him, Pastor Tim, Dr. R.T. Kendall.

25:30 Faith is faith in the face of the facts. Can I say that again? Faith is faith in the face of the facts. Fact is, 99-year-old men and 90-year-old women don't have... Babies.

25:51 Fact is, if I want to pull off an exodus, I get a strong young Hebrew. I don't go to the backside of nowhere and get an 80-year-old assistant shepherd. If you'd looked at Moses' business card, he only had two lines. 80 years old, ex-prince. If I'm going to kill a nine-foot-tall Philistine giant, I'd go get the tallest member of the Jerusalem NB 18. I wouldn't get son number eight with a slingshot. If I was going to propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ, I wouldn't stop that one man who hated Christians more than anyone else and was murdering them and said, Hey, Saul, I'm going to make you Paul. And you're going to write 13 letters and found churches in Western Europe. faith is faith in the face of the facts. Now I want you to come to me.

26:42 Listen. Abraham had a promise and a problem. Promise, I'm going to give you a land and a sun. A problem. He was 91, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. If Abraham had something in the bottom of his shoes that left prints on the side, one foot would say promise, the other problem. Promise, problem. If you're going to live a life of faith you will live in that tension between promise and problem. Believing that God knows how. You need to listen to him. I don't have time tonight, but in Genesis 22, you get all three, where, when, and how. When he took that boy Isaac, the rabbi said he could have been anywhere from 16 to 35 years old. Take him to a place I'll show you.

27:39 Slit his throat and burn him as a sacrifice. You talk about promise, then. Problem. Knife in the air. Abraham, Abraham, stop. There's a ram over here with a GPS in his head. over and over Abe had to go without knowing where listen to God without knowing when and believe God without knowing how but wait a minute we're not here at Times Square to worship Abraham we're here because we sang about one who said before Abraham was our we're here worshiping one who even though he was descended from Abraham said Abraham saw my day and rejoiced.

28:35 but in the human DNA of the Lord Jesus Christ were markers from this Mesopotamian who went without knowing where waited without knowing when and believed God without knowing how There are some of you here tonight for whom one of those questions right now is the looming question. Where next, Lord? When next? How? Next. It may be this very night that in this very altar or where you are, you need to give one of those three to him.

29:25 You know who you are. This has your thumbprint on it. You came in here where? You came in here when? You came in here how? he's worthy of trusting him and you can live a life of concrete faith would you bow with me please all over this house the ministry will come in its own way but I didn't come here to make a speech about Abraham I came here more like an attorney to argue for a verdict and that is somebody one somebody you you know who you are you're living at the intersection of where or when or how you're at a crossroads you're in a Y on the road you're in an hour of decision and that's where this word about concrete faith meets you Lord now as we listen to your spirit as the power of God touches the innermost secret place in our lives.