Well, I invite you to turn this morning as we're continuing our study in Hebrews and particularly chapter 11 and we come to the sort of end of the patriarch, the study of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It puts them all together today in an interesting way. The author does and includes Joseph in this. So we're reading verses 17 through 22, 17 through 22 of Hebrews 11. That's found on page 1195. in your bibles let's give our attention this morning to the lord's wonderful word to us this is a beginning at verse 17 by faith abraham when he was tested offered up isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through isaac your offspring shall be named he considered that god was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking he did receive him back by faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau by faith Jacob when dying blessed each of the sons of Joseph bowing in worship over the head of his staff by faith Joseph at the end of his life made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones and there will end this morning the reading of God's Word. Well, the author of Hebrews has wanted to encourage us and to help us understand what a life of faith looks like. That's been his great purpose here, and particularly in the challenges and the difficulties and the hardships of life, he wants to help us to understand through it all, to have a good sort of snapshot in the lives of these saints that we know about what faith looks like in all of these different circumstances and varying circumstances that come at us in this life so he has given great care in Hebrews chapter 11 to help us understand what it looks like to trust the Lord what it looks like to believe the promise what faith is that we have been wrestling with and looking at here as he captures it for us in the lives of these saints well i think we tend though when we look at all of these saints just to think that their lives must have been more easygoing and that they were much stronger people than us because these were the people who made it into the bible and i hope in the years that i have preached here i've made the case that they were just as broken as anyone else and we have studied that and looked at that but what the author is doing is giving us little snapshots here in hebrews 11 of their lives the different things they faced all with the goal that we too would live by faith we've been really focusing on abraham that has been the heart of hebrews 11 he has devoted the most time to father abraham he is the father of the faith if you will and very important to study and last time we looked at how abraham learned to live through this life confessing that he was a stranger and a sojourner in this life a pilgrim and that that particular confession came out when his wife died when Sarah died that he began to understand and appreciate just how temporary everything is and how much better is the heavenly land that's been promised to him and he embraced it he confessed it and he went after it but now the author moves to another aspect of living by faith that he summarily captures in the lives i think here in this section of all the patriarchs he rehearses some something very specific here i think you're all going to connect with well you're going to see exactly what he's doing um that they learned throughout this life another particular dimension here we're looking at as he has been working through now faith is remember the substance faith is the the reality of what we're living in hope for it is the strong conviction of what is not yet seen that's what we've been looking at trust can be very difficult, and what we're looking at here now, trust can be very difficult when God's plan for our life is not ours. See, we often say this, God has a wonderful plan for your life, right? That's been a sort of common statement that's been made. Well, what if that plan is not the plan you have? Doesn't seem very wonderful at times, does it? And this basic point has confused many followers of the lord because they've not understood as hebrews 11 is going to show us here that god is the one orchestrating all the details of your lives he's that sovereign he's that in control and in that sovereignty he is working out a plan he's working out a big plan according to the counsels of his will and he's also working out the plan individually in each one of your lives that's what's here shown to us which is a very powerful dimension in looking at this today and that he has the specific purpose today to help us understand that when he tests us in this life that he is driving us to fully submit to his divine will i think that's the overarching theme that we have here in these verses and i think this is going to be a great encouragement to you as the author intended it to be to understand how life goes and what the lord is is driving us to how many of you can look at circumstances right now that you have been faced with that absolutely make no sense things that have gone you might think horribly wrong and there is a tendency in our big plans when things don't go as planned to be terribly frustrated with the ways of god terribly frustrated with the ways of god man plots his ways but the lord directs his steps you have plans in life but ultimately your plan has to be brought in conformity to his and that's what we're really studying today as we look at hebrews chapter 11 that he is testing you throughout the course of this life you don't think of life this way but life is a testing ground he is actively committed to test you he is actively doing that and he's showing us through the lives of these saints now how they got through the tests what those tests look like how difficult some of them really were that He is driving you to faith in that ultimate promise that everything that He said that is good, He's going to accomplish no matter how difficult the trials and tests are along the way. That's what He's doing for us this morning, and that's where we are. Faith expressed in submission to the divine will is the plan of God for you. Faith expressed in submission to the divine will is the plan of God for you. And there's one little statement in this section today that I don't think you could miss. From the greatest rebel in the passage, it's when Jacob is bowed over his staff in full submission and worship through all the hardships of life. Well, that's where we are now. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are now put together to demonstrate this aspect, this dimension, if you will, of living by faith when the divine plan was completely contrary to their own. When the divine plan was completely contrary to their own. And how the promises of God can play out in circumstances like that. So we're considering just, you'll have really good news now, two points today, just two points. How did that happen? Faith through God's trials and faith through God's plans. Plan, really singular. I want you to look carefully at verse 17 now of Hebrews chapter 11. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named. The author wants us to consider the greatest test of Abraham in his life. It feels like a radical one. He goes right after it. And this was not easy because this was at the end of life. He had the greatest test at the end of his life. And that takes you to Genesis 22 where the author is thinking here in hebrews chapter 11 he's honed in right on genesis 22 and you remember this well-known account i mean it's just such a well-known account uh after these things god tested abraham and said to him abraham the author's right here in hebrews he said here am i take your son your only son isaac the only begotten as some translate it whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall tell you. That is a stunning test. I want you to offer up your only son. Notice how the dagger goes right in on this. Whom you love. And you offer him as a burnt offering. We really are overwhelmed at what the Lord was asking. Not asking, by the way. Commanding Abraham to do. This was the son of promise. This is what he held most dearly in life. That he had waited years to finally receive. All that wait. All that struggle. And now God comes and says this. how could he do that it's a remarkable remarkable test there's a dagger right into his heart Calvin even said it that way he's finally enjoying in his life peace and God suddenly thunders out of heaven denouncing the death sentence upon his promised son I'm taking that which is most precious to you in life what is most precious to you in life I'm taking it and I want you to go sacrifice him by your own hand I want you to do it I want you to put him through the most extreme painful death and I want you to experience it and I want you to execute him you know this life is a testing ground God tests us in the things that are most dear to us the problem is self-evident if he follows this then it would undermine the very promise that's what human reasoning would look at this and say if I do this There's no way the promise can be fulfilled. What are we to do with it? There really are two ways to handle it. Your Abraham's shoes. And this carries right to our day. There's two ways to look at this. One is no faith. It would be to criticize God as a monster. It would be to stand back and say, at this God you serve. He cruelly treats people. This is what people have done throughout history, of course. This is what Kierkegaard said. He said, God is completely illogical and absurd here. Bold words from this little clay piece, isn't it? How absurd to ask Abraham to negate the reality that had reversed his years of disappointed hope. It's cruel, he said. So as one pastor said, in the events of life that don't go well or in which very hard things happen to us, we're faced with a choice. But the way of no faith is one choice. This pastor said, you know what the way of no faith is? It puts God on the witness stand and we sit on the bench and preside over him in judgment. That's been the way of no faith throughout history when we come to moments like this. When you face hard tests in life, is there dissatisfaction with the ways of the Lord? to the point where you say, I'm not obeying that divine will any longer. So that then the life of no faith judges God and gets angry at God and is cruelly angry with Him and bitter at Him. I think this is what's coming in chapter 12 when he says, to it that none of you lets a root of bitterness spring up like Esau in the circumstances of life that root of bitterness is brutal this is where the Hebrew Christians were in first century see they were facing persecution and they had had such a good go of it and all of a sudden persecution comes and they said what is this what kind what kind of Christ is this what kind of savior is this he said to be sitting on a throne ruling over all and he can stop this and he doesn't i'm out i don't want this forget this that's one way the other way is faith which is what he wants to really capture think of job's test for a minute job's great test another extreme example he lost everything in a minute he lost his children lost his wealth he lost his health and what was Job's confession shall we not accept evil as well as good from God in all this Job did not charge God with wrongdoing That's remarkable. That's remarkable. These tests are extreme, no doubt. But it's the response like Job of Abraham that he wants us to think about for a minute. How would you even get through something like this? What did Abraham do? God gives a command and here his face shines. Abraham takes the wood and he carries it. He takes the fire in his hand and the knife and they go together and they arrive to Mount Moriah. And we read that Abraham builds an altar there and he places the wood on it. And imagine the scene. It's an emotional scene. This was your son. He takes his son. And Isaac's asking, Dad, I don't see a sacrifice. And he takes his son and he binds him. And he lays him on the altar upon the wood. And then you have that ominous verse in verse 10 of Genesis 22. Then Abraham reached out his hand and he took his knife to slaughter his son. How could he get through that? What is God doing? Hebrews says in verse 18. 11, verse 18. even though Isaac was the promised seed that even if he had to go through this awful thing here's what was in Abraham's mind God knows best God knows what he's doing and I will trust him even though humanly speaking this makes no sense and here's what he said in his mind god has made a promise to me god has made a promise of land and seed and he said in the previous section you'd see this if we go back to it in genesis 21 in isaac your seed shall be called god said that and now he's commanded me to do this i'm not bitter at him i will trust him because he knows best and because he cannot lie and because his promises are all yes and amen that even if i do this even if i have to do this i know i won't leave the mountain without him he'll have to raise him he'll have to raise him because he promised that. And you see the faith there? The author of Hebrews says, he accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence he received him in a figure. He concluded in his mind, as hard as this test was, it would not undermine the very good promise of God and the author of Hebrews chooses an interesting word here he concluded that God would raise him up he received Isaac back in a figure that word is a parable what it means is is that when he took Isaac back off the altar when God said not he saw in it the larger story playing out a bigger narrative than him and you know as you know God didn't make him go through this did he i mean that's the end story god didn't make him go through this there was a ram in the thicket there was a substitute and you know this story beloved god would give his only begotten son the one whom he loved and the whole thing was a parable of the cross that when Isaac received him off the altar it was a testimony that it would be through death and resurrection God's son would be given and the promise would be fulfilled and think of how marvelous that was illustrated today God doesn't require you or your children to make this payment but he tests us imagine if life just was all great and everything went great and everything was about health and wealth and everything was about building the ultimate kingdom here on earth you wouldn't know what faith looked like god's ways are far beyond us it was through this parable speaking of the resurrection that the promise would be fulfilled and god's good plan would be received and and that's where he's leading us in these tests no matter what it is god's plan is good he does all things well i think that's what um james boyce when he was dying of cancer said when he was going to die of pancreatic cancer he said god does everything well that's faith he knows better than me and he's testing me to trust him and here's the reality the promise will come about no matter what. Some of you have been tested in difficult ways. You see the heart of the test? One way is to charge God with evil and cruel, and boy, that's been done throughout history. The other is to, in the testing, trust in the gift of His Son. In the life, death, and resurrection that has secured the promise. The very purpose of God is to draw out faith that He is working something much better out. Because ultimately the truth of the matter is He's not going to require this of us. And that means He is leading us to see the incredible love that He has for us in not requiring us to pay for our sins, but that God took our sons and daughters off the altar and would place His Son whom He loved there. The author wants to drive this home. And this is my last point. That this is also true in all the plans of life. The second thing the author is doing here is pressing us to embrace God's plan for us. Well, we love Jeremiah 20. I know the plans. The plans to bless you and not harm you. Amen. But that plan may be difficult. Nobody ever talks about that. It's just we're going to walk through a bed of flowers the rest of our life. That's how we treat those promises. There's a plan for each one of you. And sometimes it's difficult. The problem is his plans are not ours. That's the problem. And we are imposing our plan. And one of the most fundamental points of all is his ways are not ours. We say this constantly, and that a life of faith where we come to in growth and strong faith learns to submit to the divine plan and worship in the midst of the divine plan. What do people do when life gets hard? They stay away from worship. They stay away from the church. That's not faith. That's not faith. He gives you rapid fire now, three. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings on, notice the order, Jacob and Esau. Well, Esau should have been first. Well, Jacob and Esau. By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of his sons, Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. He links together something these saints learned. It's the same lesson. The blessing and the passing on of the blessing of the promise was hugely symbolic for us, but meant something very real to them. As we study it, we understand the passing of the blessing, that the next generation, the Abrahamic covenant and all the promises were being passed. It's a beautiful thing that is captured for us. The problem was Isaac wanted the blessing to go to Esau. He was to him the child of promise. He was the firstborn, if you will. But remember what happened. Rebekah and Jacob go in and they make this big deception plan and they put on Esau's clothes and they deceive Isaac in old age and Jacob gets the blessing. And remember the blessing. Here was the blessing. See, the smell of my son is as the smell of the field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you and nations bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you. That's the Abrahamic covenant promise. So Isaac is giving that blessing. Remember what happened? And Jacob scarcely leaves. Esau comes bolting in. And they both realized Isaac had been tricked. And Esau says, but I want the blessing, dad. And the author looks right there in the narrative. In Genesis. And he says, Isaac said, son, I've made him lord over you. What the author saw is Isaac didn't fight, even through the deception, because he submitted to the Lord's will. The same thing happens with Joseph. Jacob gives the final blessing, and the blessing should have gone to the older son Manasseh, and just as he's giving the blessing, he goes like this. And Ephraim gets it. And Joseph panics, no, no, no, no, dad, not like that. I know, my son, I know. The point is, you're not in control of your life. And you think you are. And you don't control the plan of God. All sorts of things are happening that we're not happy with. And he is the one working out the counsel of his divine will as life plays out. His ways are not ours. His thoughts are not ours. His plans are not ours. He does things directly contrary to how we have things planned out. And even when we think we understand God or even when we think we get it, he then surprises us and takes us the opposite way. And he chooses the route you would never choose. Even if it's 400 years in Egypt. One pastor said, today he makes, now think about this in American terms, today he makes Christianity burn brightest in poor, downtrodden places in Asia and Africa. Well, America is the burnt over district with all this blessing. He takes, and I add, the small things when we're focused on the big things. Think about all we talk about to make the church a success. And he chooses the small thing. He chooses the surprising route for us. When it would just seem so much easier if he had done this. But he's after faith. I could go on and on. And you all can apply this. The heart of this is what the author of Hebrews captures. Here's the image he wants you to capture in your mind. by faith, Jacob bowed over his staff and worshipped. The rebel, the greatest rebel in all of his life who fought the will of God and who went and did his own thing and suffered a lot for it is championed in Hebrews 11 as the man of faith when he's leaning over his staff and he's worshipping, saying, essentially, not my will, but your will be done. It took a lifetime to get him there, but he got there. And that's an encouragement to you if you have children running, by the way. And sometimes he's testing us as parents that way. No matter how the plan is playing out, no matter how difficult it is, no matter the way it turns, this is the posture of faith. When we submit to the divine will, when at the heart of our prayers is not my will, but your will be done, it takes on a whole new meaning. Abraham in obeying the divine command. Isaac in recognizing God's sovereign choice. And Jacob too. Do you see it? His plan is good. Our plans are not. And he is ever testing us to trust him. And I close with this. One last little encouragement. By faith, Joseph at the end of his life made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones. 400 years of bondage. And Joseph says, but they're coming out. They'll come out. And I'm going to leave my bones there as a testimony. But I want them to go to the cave where Abraham is buried. It's a remarkable testimony of faith left to Israel and to us. Joseph was embalmed and entombed as a god in Egypt. Do you know what we still do in studying these Egyptian pharaohs when we find them? They believed. They believed in their legacies. They believed in their greatness after death. They believed in these things. Joseph told Israel, he said, the exodus is coming. And when it does, I want my bones going out of there. You're going to carry my bones out too with you. And I want to be buried in the cave testifying, I got a better inheritance. I got a better inheritance. Put me in the cave. My bones will not leave though until Israel comes out as God promised. Because they will come out. See? You live by faith. and in death still speaks because he was waiting for the divine plan to be fulfilled and his words were a testimony of the better inheritance so i hope you see the big picture today we're close with this all of you are being directed in a plan god has for you all along the way there are going to be tests are you exerting your will over him it won't go well some of these tests will be hard some will make no sense and you'll be challenged to submit to the divine plan in the face of hard realities. But he who promises is faithful. Nothing can change the good outcome. He's promised that. All things indeed work together for good. I promise you that. I promise you that. There will be a resurrection from the dead. There will be a city waiting for you. And Christ has secured that. And the best place you can be today is trusting Christ, trusting in the Lord. And that will be most evidenced in your life. Hear me. When you come in a posture of submission to worship Him, making that the priority of your life, it's a test as to where you are. How important is the divine plan in the posture of worship and saying, I trust you. That's why we're here. That's why we come. To be fed with the word of life to give us confidence, to give us faith. Now, faith is the reality of what we're hoping for and the strong conviction of what is not yet seen. Even when everything says differently, I will trust Him. This is my God, and I will trust Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for instructing us and helping us. How wonderful that You are sovereign, that Your plan is good, and that You're drawing out from us faith by the work of Your Spirit. And so wherever we are, whatever You have, May we learn to be in the same position as Jacob in a posture of humble submission before You. And we say, Lord, with all sincere hearts today as we were taught to pray, not our wills, O Lord, not our wills, but Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name, amen.