Well, I invite you to turn in your scriptures tonight, your Bibles that you brought, to Genesis chapter 17 and 18. We're going to be looking at a few different sections here of both of these, of Genesis 17 and 18. And tonight we're looking at this question of what is true faith as we're working through what we believe. And Genesis 17 and 18, I thought you can look at something sort of theoretically and try to explain it that way. And then you can look at something through the lens of stories. And I am personally, as a preacher, I'm a lover of stories. I think it's evident that God gave us many stories in the scripture to help us and our children understand through the lives of real people that went before us what true faith looks like. And in particular, one of the best to study is Father Abraham. So that's what we're going to look at briefly tonight from Genesis 17, and then we'll turn over to 18 and read a few passages from there. So beginning at verse 1, when Abraham was of 17, 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you every male among you shall be circumcised you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you he who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised every male throughout your generations whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall be surely circumcised so shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He's broken my covenant. And God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her. And moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and she shall become nations. Kings of people shall come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who's 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. God said, no, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. And then down in verse, in chapter 18, And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves. And after that you may pass on, since you have come to your servant. So they said, Do as you have said. And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, Quick, three seeds of fine flour, knead it and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the young man who prepared it quickly. And he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, Where is Sarah, your wife? He said, she's in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now, Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, am I worn? After I'm worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? The Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? and say, shall I indeed bear a child now that I'm old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied it, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. He said, no, but you did laugh. And we'll stop the reading of God's word there. And tonight in the Heidelberg Catechism, we have a few question answers in Lord's Day 7. We'll just do 20, 21, and 22. I'll ask the question. We'll respond with the answer. Are all people then saved through Christ just as they were lost through Adam? No, only those are saved who through true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all his benefits. What is true faith? True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in his word. It is also a wholehearted trust which the Holy Spirit works in me by the gospel that God has freely granted not only to others but to me also forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These gifts are purely of grace only because of Christ's merit. What then must a Christian believe? All that is promised us in the gospel, a summary of which is taught in the articles of our Catholic and undoubted Christian faith. And we confessed that earlier together. Well, tonight I want to briefly consider with you what it means to live by faith, what the life of faith looks like. Often we think of faith only in terms of what we call justification before God, how we are right with God and that is a declaration that's made when we believe the gospel that we are declared righteous by faith alone as we embrace Christ and receive all of his blessings that he has for us by true faith one of the things that's important though to consider is not just the act of justification by faith but the whole life of christian the christian that is called to be lived by faith sometimes i think we we talk about justification and then forget that there's a whole life that is called following our great declaration that especially happened to abraham in Genesis chapter 15, where he was justified, that then the Lord was calling him to a life of faith, a life of trusting him, regardless of the situations he found himself in and the difficulties that he found himself in. And what you just read a moment ago, how in the world could God speak and say that somebody who is old and worn out is gonna have a baby? Did you hear Sarah say that? How do we believe those things? And so this is what we're considering tonight, the whole life of faith that we are called to, a whole life of trusting the Lord, even in the face when nothing seems like everything that he has promised, nothing seems as if it's going to come to pass, or how could it? What seems to be impossible to happen. And so the life of faith is what Lord's Day 7 is addressing. We'll look at justification by faith, and when we get to to later on question answer 60 how are you right with God only by true faith in Jesus Christ but tonight we're considering this sort of big picture look of the life of faith which helps us here to understand through the life of Abraham I'm not sure there's a better figure to study to understand the life of faith where do we begin to look at Abraham the whole thing is showing us faith the whole life is showing us faith right from the beginning when the Lord called him out of Ur of the chaldeans he was a moon god worshiper and the lord had called him out and called him to to faith called him to believe called him to trust him making seven promises to him all resting not on abraham's works but on the lord's well here in chapter 18 this helps us a little bit because we have a fascinating moment where i wanted you to see that both abraham and both sarah laughed at God's promises. That seems a little confusing for us for the New Testament. Seems to paint them a lot stronger in faith than what the Old Testament does. And in the big picture, the New Testament is absolutely saying, yes, they believe these promises. They believe these promises. But it wasn't always easy, was it? It's difficult. It was hard for them. It was hard for this family to believe. It was hard for them at times. And in fact, they struggled with doubts, didn't they? well, sure. And we're looking at that here tonight with Abraham and Sarah. Well, here in this particular scene that we enter in, and I'm focusing on Genesis 18 for a moment, and we're going to go back and forth to show you here what is being communicated about the life of faith. You'll notice as we open up chapter 18 that Abraham is sitting in his tent in the heat of the day. That's exactly what we're doing, by the way. We're sitting in the tent in the heat of the day. I find that ironic it wasn't in my notes i just get a kick out of that right now but the first thing you read is that the lord appeared to him the lord appeared to him and he lifted up his eyes and there were these men standing there and we know one is the lord we know from verse 16 that the other two were angels who had attended to the lord and were by him and abraham sees these men and he immediately runs to them and he demonstrates great hospitality to them it's a beautiful scene uh where we could talk a lot about hospitality and that's what a lot of people do when they come to this particular passage but i believe the important point that is being shown to us is the separation of abraham from what is about to happen with the judgment that's going to fall on sodom remember somebody else was sitting at the gate and when when um when the angels came to that gate what did the people of sodom want to do to them well that separation is captured there's a contrast that's made between the two seeds and here in the life of faith the first thing that's being emphasized is the separation that the lord had made in separating out a people to himself and especially as we focus in on Abraham, it was a separate life. It was a call to separation to the Lord. That's really important that we don't talk much about today. But the Christian is called to be separate. Our great temptation to be separate is to say, when things get hard, I'd love to, which is sort of the dreams we all have, to run to a farm in Idaho and be separate, right and that's not necessarily being separate is it being separate is right where you are where the lord has you where he has called you being his people living by faith right where he has you right where he's called you and so in this particular section abraham is shown as um as preparing a meal and taking care of them and loving them. In the next scene, the two angels go to Sodom, and you have this back and forth here of Abraham interceding, trying to stop the judgment for hopes that there are many righteous left in Sodom. And I want you to notice then that the great antithesis that is being shown to us here is the struggle of Abraham living in a world that is crumbling, and even in his day, a world that was under judgment. It's not so unfamiliar to us. Why do you think things are so difficult right now? Why do you think things are in turmoil? Jesus told us. All the things that scare us in Matthew chapter 24 tell us God's not happy with things. God's not happy with things. God is angry with the sin that we're born with as well as the sin we personally commit. That's why the world's in such great turmoil in many ways. And that's why we need to be pressed to a savior. But here he's showing us and he's capturing for us how the Lord has set apart a people to himself to live by faith in his promises. We forget the separation. We forget this importance. And this connection here that is important as Abraham is called to a life of faith. That's the issue that God raises in verse 9, you'll notice. In this particular section, where is Sarah, your wife? Abraham says she's here in the tent. Now, what is the Lord saying? It's time, Abram. It's time. The promised seed is coming through you. The time of deliverance is coming. And it's time that she's going to bear a son. Now, we're going to back up for a minute, for a moment. This separation was so important. The whole time, the Lord had been calling Abram and Abraham to a separate life. In the previous section in chapter 17, so the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. God comes down to Abraham with just the words he needed to hear. I am El Shaddai. I want you to notice that every time God speaks to Abraham, him. It's tender. It's gracious. And every time he speaks, he's telling him everything he's going to do for him. And as he tells him everything that he's going to do for him, he calls him to get on board with the project. You're mine, Abram. You're mine. Be my child. Walk before me. Be blameless. I am the one who's made promises to you. And then, of course, in this great section, the Lord does something remarkable. He establishes a covenant with Abraham, doesn't he? He rehearses all the covenant blessings in chapter 17 of everything that he said he would do. And if you went back to chapter 12, you would find that there were seven particular blessings that the Lord said he would do for him. He'd make him a nation. He would bless him. He would be a blessing. He would save him. We would do all these wonderful things for Abraham as the Lord had determined to do by his grace and mercy for Abraham. And here he says, I want you to understand you're in a special covenantal relationship with me. I will establish my covenant with you, Abraham, and your descendants for their generations for an everlasting covenant. Listen to this. To be God to you and to your descendants after your children. You know, maybe we've heard that too much. Stop and listen to it. Listen to it plainly. I'm your God. You are my people. I've made a covenant. My covenants, I can't lie, it won't be broken. And that covenant includes you, and that covenant includes your children. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And he says, and I'm giving to your descendants the land in which you are stranger the land of canaan as everlasting possession i will be their god so this is this is about you and your children i'm doing wonderful things for you i'm giving you the land now now if i told you tonight to just go up on the hill and look out over escondido and look to the north and to the south and to the east and the west it would be no different than what abraham heard that day it's all yours do you know that's actually true this is all yours It's going to be a new heavens and a new earth, but it is the earth. This is your land. He's giving you everything. He's giving it all to you renewed. He's giving it all to you on a new heavens and new earth where righteousness shall dwell, where no more the wicked will be. This is what he was saying. Now, it wasn't the land of Palestine, but it was the renewed land that Abraham looked for. It was the land in the end. It's Revelation 21. I saw the new heavens and the new earth. abraham knew was his the new earth whatever that will be it's going to be wonderful but what i'm making the point is god is speaking all these wonderful things to him god is saying all these wonderful promises to him and it hasn't rested at all on abraham he just keeps rehearsing the promises and he's put his claim on abraham you're mine you're mine be separate you're mine stop because we know chapter 16 he fought God he fought God with regard to the land and he fought God with regard to the seed as he tried to go into Hagar and even here he says it should be Ishmael you see and God was saying you're mine stop fighting you're mine now do you understand then why Lord's Day 7 is so helpful. What is the first question of Lord's Day 7? Are all saved in Christ as all were lost in Adam? No. Only those who by true faith are grafted into Christ and receive and accept these blessings. You see, God makes all these promises to us. God makes all these promises that he announces in his word. Well, who are they for? Those who believe, those who receive all of this by true faith. That's exactly what God is showing us in this particular passage. And so through all of this, all the benefits that the Lord has for us, here we see that through the life of Abraham, that the Abraham is being set apart through a life of faith as one who is redeemed in Jesus. Now, what is that life of faith? What is true faith? That's a big question. That's an important question. True faith, we say. Sometimes people, when I ask boys and girls and I ask children, they'll go right to Hebrews and they'll say, yeah, well, faith is the things that we just can't see. Well, that's true. That's what Hebrews 11 says, well, we've got to go a little bit more in depth. What is faith? What is he after from us? Obviously not working for our salvation. What is true faith? What does it look like? Well, that's why I think in this particular section, the Lord is helping us to see what it's not and what it is. In verse 15, and God said to Abraham, as for Sarah, your wife, You shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her. Notice, here's what I'm doing for her too. And moreover, I will give a son by her. I will bless her and she will become nations. Kings of people shall come from her. What I love about the particular emphasis there is that God doesn't stop. After he separates Abraham, he then makes this gracious covenant with him. And in that gracious covenant, he says, it is for you and your children. And all of it is pointing to a coming seed, a coming Savior, a coming mediator that I'm going to provide for you. This is what everything was pointing to with the circumcision in the covenant, where it's the act of cutting away, the symbolism being the act of cutting away sin that needed to happen from the seed, from the people. And therefore, the seed would come and deliver all of his people. And God was declaring that this was not just for Abraham, but that it was for his children. I don't know. The older I get and the way that I see the world changing, I think a lot about my children in this world. And I know you do too. And some of you have had children who've really struggled. And some of you have had children maybe who've even walked away from it at times and have struggled with this. And I think we have to really look carefully at what the Lord is telling us here and to remember His promises and to live by faith in those promises. That those children were always put in the Lord's hands. They are His children. He's the one that marked them. He's the one that commanded to bring them into this relationship, into this covenant of grace, we call it. And that God was committing Himself to care for us and our children even through all the difficulties and hardships of this life. Notice how much we're tested with regard to faith with our own children. Isn't that something? If you're sitting here now and you're a young person, you don't have children yet, you'll know. You'll know. You are tested most in this life to live by faith with regard to your children. We have to trust the Lord's promises. That's why we train them in the ways of the Lord and tell them even at their baptism, which remember, baptism, circumcision, baptism replaces circumcision because we don't need a blood sign, we need a water sign, that we tell them that they are included and members of God's family. That's one of the reasons we are reformed, by the way. We don't believe they're on their own. We don't believe they figure it out on their own. We don't believe they can. We believe they need the Lord. And we say they've been set apart by baptism to be God's own children. We teach them that while calling them to faith, while calling them to believe these promises in the same way that we have. That's the life of faith. That's the life of faith. Now, I love this because in this particular section, aren't you glad in this mess that the Lord is saying, here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do for you and your children. Here's what I'm going to do. It's his work. These are what promises are. Promises are all over the Bible. You can begin to number the promises tonight, and they're just wonderful promises. We could sum them up in the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. That's what we sum up God's promises as. The forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. You could put everything in those categories. These are the blessings that God has given to us. What is true faith? What is true faith? Well, did you notice in Lord's Day 7, how now reading true faith, what the answer is, how that helps that background? Going through the promises, going through God's grace to Abraham, going through all that he's done for us and for our children. Think about this. What is true faith? True faith is not only a sure knowledge. Goes into the head. We react against just saying that our religion's heart, it is a knowledge. it's a true knowledge of what? By which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in his word. Isn't that important? God spends all this time in our lives teaching us and training us in his word with the goal of teaching us and our children his promises. We have to have a knowledge of him. As Calvin said, we have to know him, we have to know ourselves. and people will talk about faith having three elements of knowledge, right, and assent, where that's why profession of faith is important. Someone stands up and says, I believe these things. I say it with the mouth, but the most important element of true faith is what? It is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the gospel. Remember this morning, you have to have the Spirit. that God has, here comes all the wonderful promises, God has freely granted, not only to others, but to me also, it's personal, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. Beautiful. It's a trust that that is yours. It's a knowledge of who he is and what he's done and everything that he's spoken, And it's a trust that what he has spoken is yours, you see. These gifts are purely of grace, only because of Christ's merit. So, what is true faith? Well, at this point, not really this. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed. Shall a child be born to a man who's 100 years old? I would have said the same thing, by the way. And again, you look at the New Testament. I'll get there in one second. Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? You could debate me on whether that was really non... He might have just been saying it in astonishment, as some say. But whatever the case, I think what's being highlighted here is the struggle to believe promises that seem impossible. Isn't that it? Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. Doesn't sound like faith. And the Lord comes and says, no. Sarah will. And since you've laughed, Abraham, you're going to run around calling your son laughter the rest of your days. That's what Isaac means. Isn't that funny? No, yeah, pun intended. Laughter. You're going to remember you laughed every time you look at your son. That you may know that I fulfill my word to you, Abraham. I will establish this covenant with him for an everlasting covenant. And yet, even then, I've still heard you regarding Ishmael. I'm still going to bless him too. In verse 21, we read of the Lord saying, Next time this year, I'll visit Sarah, and she will have a son. And the Lord went up at that point, and it all climaxes in verse 23, where we read that Abraham did as the Lord commanded. He circumcised himself and all his household, which is telling us he believed. He believed. It was a struggle, and he said, I trust you, Lord. I trust you with your promises. I trust what you've said to me. And I will go forward believing in a world that tells me to do everything else than that, you see. That's faith. I know you. You've revealed yourself to me and to my children. I confess you with my mouth and with a wholehearted trust in my life. I will trust your word even when everything bears down on me and everything says I shouldn't. That's faith. That's faith. You can all apply it in your particular context to the very things that you face. New Testament comes along and says, this is faith. And hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring breed. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about 100 years old or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong. There it is. He grew strong in it. Doesn't mean it always comes out strong. He grew strong in it. And he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God, see Heidelberg 21 here? Fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words that was counted to him were not just written for him. We're not just writing this to say Abraham's the great over there that you can never attain to. No, what he says here is this. It's yours too. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised Jesus from the dead. Notice it's about Jesus. Believing the promise is about Jesus. And living on this side of the cross, we've seen it. Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Remember, this is how the Lord has treated you. This is how the Lord has loved you. This is how the Lord has spoken to you. This is how the Lord has helped you. Our response should be not to be unbelieving, but believing. Believing of what? Well, that's question 22. Everything God has told us in his gospel. Everything that he's revealed to us in the gospel. Believe it. All that is promised to us in the gospel. The new identity means that everything the believer is now is because God has set him apart as separate to a knowledge of him and has called him through all these wonderful promises to live by faith until the day when the Lord Jesus returns. And then there's no more need for faith. We're going to be able to see him with our very resurrected eyes. And that's the glory of what is to come. So walk before me, says the Lord, and be blameless. You're mine. You're my children. Believe what I'm doing. Believe my promises. I am El Shaddai, which is in this particular passage. You lack nothing that is good in this life and in the life to come. Let's pray to the Lord tonight. Heavenly Father, thank you for helping us to understand true faith. And thank you for the gift of faith where we could never exercise this trust in your word on our own. But to believe your promises, to believe in everything that you've spoken concerning the work of your beloved son. And that you have told us to trust you with regard to our children, even in the darkest moments, even in the hardest hours. We will not waver in unbelief by your grace. But we will be fully convinced that you, O Lord, are able to do what you promised. So then work in us and in the lives of our children by your spirit to have true faith. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.