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This is day two together of our look through Hebrews chapter 11. We're going to
look at verses 8 to 16 today, beginning our look at Abraham. Yesterday I talked
about this Hebrews chapter 11 being like a faith university.

Well, if it is a faith university, Abraham, the father of our faith, is the head
of the faith department at faith university. He wants to get into his class. He
teaches us about how to have faith in the midst of so many circumstances of
life, especially in the midst of the changes of life.

When things don't work out like you wanted them to or when God asks you to do
something you never expected him to, whether it's in your family or your church
or your business, one of those times in life when there is a change in front of
you and one of two things is going to make a decision for you. It's either going
to be your faith or your fear. You might be facing changes right now in your
job, with your kids, maybe it's a new baby, maybe your kids are leaving home,
maybe with growing older, maybe with moving, maybe something and being married.

How do you have faith to change instead of just fearing the change? There's no
better teacher than Abraham who faced tremendous changes and he comes out on the
other side with us calling him the father of our faith. He was not a perfect
man, but he was a man of faith.

He was a man of faith. So what can you and I learn from him? We're going to look
together these next couple of days at Abraham's four great actions of faith.

Number one, the first great action of faith in Abraham's life was he looked at
the known instead of the unknown. Listen to what verse 8 says, "By faith
Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance,
obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. The unknown was
where he was going.

The known was the Lord who asked him to go there. " Abraham's story, you may
know it very well. He's successful, he's comfortable, he's a businessman, and
God says, "Here's a change.

I want you to move. " Where? Across the street, across the town?

No, he wants him to move to a place called Canaan. For him, that was a world
away. That was a place he'd never even known or understood.

It would be the only way I could explain it to you and I is if God said to you,
"I want you to move to Mars. " That's how far away this was for Abraham. And
even though he didn't know where he was going, he knew the one who was asking
him to go.

And so he said, "Yes. Do not let your fear of the unknown keep you from doing
something great, becoming someone great, what God wants to do in your life.
Realize that life does not always come with an agenda attached.

Some of us, unless we know all the facts, exactly what we're getting ourselves
into, we do not want to get involved. Well, faith involves stepping into the
unknown. So how do you do that?

How do you step out? When God's asking you to do something and it's an unknown,
how do you step out? A couple of practical things to do is first you just look
at the first step instead of the whole journey.

Don't worry about everything in the whole journey until you've taken the first
step. God will be with you one step at a time. He hasn't promised to be with you
50 steps ahead.

He's promised to be with you in the next step. You also look at God and not
yourself. As long as you look at yourself, you're going to think, "I can't do
this.

This is impossible. " And with just you, it is impossible. But it's not just
you.

God's the one who's asking you to do this. So Abraham, he looked at the known
instead of the unknown. A second great lesson of faith in the life of Abraham is
he looked at the future instead of the present.

And so by faith, he made his home in the promised land. That's what it says in
verse 9. Verses 9 and 10 say, "By faith he made his home in the promised land
like a stranger in a foreign country.

He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same
promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose
architect and builder is God. " It's one thing to take the first step.

It's another thing to stay the course. And the Bible here says he made his home
in this foreign country. He lived in tents.

He must have thought more than once, Abraham must have thought more than once in
this dry, barren, rocky ground, living in tents, this is God's promised land.
This is where God's going to design and develop this incredible promise he's
given into my life. You see, faith is not just about learning how to get to the
promised land.

Faith is learning how to live in the promised land. And Abraham moved into this
promised land and he almost immediately faced two things in this land where God
had sent him, in this land of promise. It's the same kind of things you and I
are going to face when we live out God's promise.

God's promise, living God's promise is not a perfect place. It's a faith-filled
place. When Abraham moved into this land, he faced famine and Canaanites.

Famine, not enough resources, Canaanites, those who were already living in the
land, too many obstacles, not enough resources, too many obstacles. You're going
to face that when you try to live this life of faith. That's living in the land.

It's one thing to take the first step of excitement. I'm going to live this
great life of faith. It's another thing to realize there's not enough resources
and here I am in a tent.

I'll step out in faith, we say, but there better not be any problems. Well, let
me tell you, there will be problems no matter what you do. The question is,
would you rather have the problems that go with getting stuck where you are or
the problems that go with living a life of faith?

What can you and I learn from Abraham about finding the strength to stay in that
place of God's promise, to live in that land of God's promise, even when we feel
there's not enough resources and there's too many obstacles? What you'll learn
is that he built his present upon the foundations of the future. Look back at
verse 10, "He did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with
eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

" It does not work to build on the foundations of the past. It doesn't work to
build on the foundation of the present. You look all the way through the past
and present to the future, God's future, and upon that you build.

That's what helps you to survive the problems and the struggles and the
difficulties of this life. You build upon the future promise of God. He's
talking about heaven here, this city with eternal foundations.

He's talking about eternity here. So you don't build on the temporary. You build
towards the eternal with the eternal in mind.

That's how to live a life of faith. That's what you and I learn from Abraham.
Then we learn a third thing.

Number three, he looked at the promise instead of the problems. This is the
story of Isaac being born. There's several verses about this in Hebrews 11,
verses 11 down through verse 16.

"By faith Abraham, even though he was past age, and Sarah herself was barren,
was unable to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made
the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants
as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the
seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them
from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their
own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had
opportunity to return. Instead, they're looking for a better country, a heavenly
one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city
for them. " At the beginning of these verses, Abraham, Sarah waited 25 years for
this promise of Isaac the child to come into their lives. And then Isaac was
born.

Wow. Now, how did this faith success, by the way, come into Abraham and Sarah's
life? What happened in those 25 years?

Sometimes we tend to over glamorize faith, as if people who live a life of faith
never have any doubts, never have any struggles. They have devotions 10 times a
day. They always have a smile painted on their face, but that's not how it
works.

Abraham is the father of our faith, but look at how he got there. Before Isaac
was born, he had another son named Eliezer. It wasn't his son actually, it was
sort of like his cousin's son kind of thing.

And he said, "Let's make him my son. God, you count him as my son. " He was
trying to settle for less than God's promise, and God said, "No, it's not
Eliezer.

" And then he had a son named Ishmael by his wife's handmaiden, his wife's
slave. Sarah agreed to this. We won't get into that whole story now, but the
idea behind this is they both felt, "We're going to have to do this ourselves.

God's not sending the son. Let's figure out a way for it to happen, a
do-it-yourself kind of faith. " So God says to Abraham, "No, it's not Eliezer,
it's not Ishmael.

" And then he sends Isaac, that moment of recognizing you can trust in God. And
when Isaac came, they recognized it wasn't them cheating, it wasn't them
figuring it out themselves. And they realized God did it.

You don't feel when you read the story of Abraham like Abraham worked things out
or Sarah planned things right. You look and you say, "Isaac, wow, God did it. "
Now you may know the name Isaac means laughter, because Sarah laughed when she
heard that she was going to have this baby.

She's 90 and Abraham's 100, you'd have laughed too. But then God sent something
ridiculously wonderful into their lives when he sent Isaac. This unexpected,
this unexpected blessing of God that came from a faith that they'd struggled
with for 25 years.

One of the questions I have for you is, are there any little Isaacs in your
life, promises that you're living that you felt impossible? It might have to do
with a ministry in your life or your family, or it might have to do with a kind
of character that God has brought into your life, or a love for God's Word that
he's brought into your life. Promises that you're living that you felt were
impossible.

As you watch those promises grow, they should be living reminders of the
graciousness, the faithfulness. God has brought me laughter and everyone who
hears will laugh with me. God has brought you joy.

God has brought you that Isaac. God can be trusted. Now tomorrow, we're going to
look together at Abraham's fourth great action of faith.

But today I'd like to end by talking to the Lord together. Father, as we read
this story of Abraham today, we pray that you give us faith to go and you give
us faith to stay. The faith to go, to step out, to go to that place of your
promise, but then the faith to stay in that promised land, even though there are
obstacles, even though there's not enough resources to realize you are working
in that place.

Give us the faith to go and give us the faith to stay, we pray. In Jesus' name,
amen.