with me, if you will, to the book of Genesis chapter 12. We'll actually be reading from various excerpts from the book of Genesis as we give attention to what we might call a panorama or a snapshot of the life of Abraham as we begin to give attention to Abraham's life both this week and next. As we look at Genesis, we'll read Genesis 12, 1 to 9, chapter 15, 1 to 6. Chapter 17, 1 to 8, and verses 15 to 17, and finally chapters 21, verses 1 to 7. Beginning in chapter 12, now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went just as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people that they had acquired in Haran and they set to go out. to the land of Canaan. And when they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land. And so Abraham built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. From there, he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord. And he called upon the name of the Lord, and Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negev. Now turning to chapter 15, verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying this, Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless. The heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring. The member of my own household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. The Lord took him outside and said, look toward heaven. Number the stars if you're able to number them. He said to him, so shall your offspring be. Abraham believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness. Now on to chapter 17, beginning in verse one, when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I'm God almighty. Walk before me, be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you 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 called 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. 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 gone to you and to your offspring after you. And I'll 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. Now jumping down to verse 15. And God said to Abraham, as for Sarah, your wife, she shall not be called Sarah, but, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her. 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 he laughed. And he said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And now to chapter 21, verse one, the Lord visited Sarah. just as he had said. The Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. Of course, meaning laughter. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old. just as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. She said, who would have ever said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age. Now turning with me, if you will, for our New Testament reading from the book of Hebrews, 11 versus eight to 16 will be our sermon text this morning. Take note, we're covering more than one verse this week versus eight to 16. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. For if they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had an opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our gracious God and Father, we do thank you for the testimony of scripture, that your word has been given to us infallibly, without error. We ask that you would use your word this morning to set our sights on heaven. as we anticipate the coming day when we will see that city made site. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. So where's home? I think it's probably one of the most heartbreaking questions that we see at the end of the movie Schindler's List. If you've ever seen the movie, It's about, of course, the Holocaust and a number of Jews who had survived their enslavement in Auschwitz. And at the very end, of course, of the movie, the camp had been liberated. And the survivors are left sitting by the side of the road. And right there at the end of the movie, you see the Soviet soldier ride on horseback, say, go home. We freed you. And this old man stands up and goes, where's home? Nobody will have us. Nobody will take us. Particularly poignant analogy for the Christian here, especially perhaps for the young believer, right? When we first come to trust in Christ, we are told, of course, in Romans 6, that sin's dominion has been shattered. We've been pardoned of our sins, washed of all of our iniquities and the shame. We've been adopted and received into the family of God. We've been given a new identity, a new passport, if you will. As Paul calls it in Colossians 3, a new citizenship. A new place to call home. But where is home? And how do we get there? I think this is where this particular passage provides not only relevance but comfort. As Abraham and Sarah in their faith testify to the life of faith for the believer, as we all confess. that we are strangers to this earth, seeking out a home that God has promised. And in the life of faith that they model for us, it sets an example for how, too, we are to live as we seek a better homeland. I'd like us to consider three things this morning. First, we'll consider land. We'll see that here in verses 8 to 10 with God's promise of land to Abraham. Secondly, that of seed or offspring, we'll see in verses 11 to 12 with God's promise of offspring to Abraham and Sarah. And then finally, we'll consider that of a city in verses 13 to 16, so land, seed, and city. Of course, where we last left off is the author of Hebrews has been giving us a guided tour right now, at least, of the book of Genesis. We find that the whole world, the old world, had been destroyed in the flood. Judgment had come. Through Noah, God had ushered in, of course, another world, a new creation, as it were. And yet, of course, our survey of Genesis shows that sin continued to rule this new world. Right out of the gate, even Noah himself sins. Even Noah's grandson, Canaan, sins. Mankind not content to dominate the world as the generations continue to propagate themselves. They now seek to overthrow heaven itself. We make our way to Genesis chapter 11 and what do we find? The building of the Tower of Babel itself. Before God, of course, had come in response to man's sin and judgment and destruction. The flood is a picture of God's righteousness. The fact that God never winks at sin. And yet now we find here God coming in a somewhat different response. Not only does he come in judgment as he scatters the nations, he also brings an intrusion of grace as he initiates a way whereby the curse will itself be undone. And God does this by calling one man, Abraham. While the nations now scattered each pursue their own ends, God chooses one man through whom will come a son who will conquer the serpent, who in light of the promises of Genesis chapter 3 will crush the serpent under his feet. Right? If Genesis 1 to 11 gives us a panorama of all of human history and civilization, beginning in chapter 12 and all the way through the end of Genesis, that the camera zooms in and focuses on one particular family over the course of four generations, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And with Abraham, of course, we find the man of faith par excellence. We think of the heroes that we want to emulate today. I know growing up as a kid, you'd ask, who's your hero? Everybody would say Michael Jordan. I think I said that at once, at one point as well, even though I hate basketball. And I've never really enjoyed it at all. All for the saints of old, and even when you read the New Testament, Abraham is the hero of the faith. considered having us read Romans 4 in its entirety as our New Testament lesson. Because that is Paul's entire focus, that Abraham is the man of faith for the people of God, even in this day and age. Abraham models faith in several particular ways here in verses 8 to 10. First, we find that Abraham models faith in his obedience. You see that here in verse 8. He testifies to an unseen reality. As you recall from those opening verses of Genesis chapter 12, appears to Abraham and tells him to uproot his family and move to a place he has never seen. Remember that connection to verse 1 of Hebrews 11. What is faith? It testifies to those things that are unseen. And the Lord says to Abraham, come or go to a place that I will show you. He doesn't tell Abraham to whip out his GPS and make all his way to Canaan. He says, I'll show you along the way where it is that you will go. Abraham woke up every day not knowing where that final destination would be. Again, Abraham does not know where he's going. This shows us that Abraham is a man that walks by faith. He anticipates the promises of God, even though those things have not been fully realized. Nevertheless, we find that by faith, Abraham obeys. We can call this the obedience of faith. The central theme of the book of Romans, if you remember Jared's Sunday school lesson several months ago. Obedience is the expression of faith. It's the proof of trust, right? Of course, we would distinguish between faith and obedience, between faith and works. But at the same time, these things are inseparable. That's why James will say, do you have faith? Well, show it. Where's the evidence, where's the fruit? The way in which we express our trust in God is by obeying him, and Abraham obeyed God in heeding God's word to him. There's a second aspect in which Abraham models faith for us, and it's found in the pilgrimage of faith. We find that here in verse 9. Imagine how disorienting it would be to be uprooted from your home. I have several friends who grew up in military homes moving from place to place. They feel somewhat dizzying or disorienting. There's no real place that you feel like you're able to anchor into. You feel like you're lost at sea. It cultivates a longing for something that perhaps you can't quite put your finger on. I think our own home shapes our identity more than we realize. So to be homeless, it creates a certain restlessness, a desire to find a place to anchor down. I think we need to be reminded that the prosperity gospel of the past few decades has warped our understanding of faith, even if we've never bought into it wholesale. I think for many of us, the idea of faith is something that brings immediate peace and stability and happiness. And I think there are aspects where that is true. What the author of Hebrews is bringing out here is that faith actually instills a certain restlessness, a certain unease, a certain homesickness, the certain sense that I do not belong here. It's a song we sing with our youth during youth group, right? This world is not my home. Abraham trusted God and now he feels like a stranger everywhere he goes. I think what's worth noting is that when you read the book of Genesis, Abraham feels like a stranger even in the land of Canaan. When Abraham enters the land of Canaan, the Lord says, I'll give this land to your children. Abraham is something like a gold miner or you imagine Neil Armstrong planting the American flag on the moon. I hope it was Neil Armstrong who did that. I'm not good with my US history. Abraham, he's like a gold miner. Everywhere he goes, we saw that in Genesis 12, he makes it to Shechem, which is located in the north. What does he do? He builds an altar. It's like planting a flag. This land belongs to the Lord. He goes down to Bethlehem, the center of the promised land. What does he do? He builds an altar. Property of Yahweh. And he continues to move further south to Hebron and to the Negev. What does he do? According to Genesis 12, he builds an altar. But he never builds a home. He builds an altar and he keeps moving. He continues to live in tents. He keeps going. Even when his wife dies, you read this in Genesis 23, we find that Abram, still living in the land of Canaan, tells those around him, he asks, he says, could somebody give me a piece of property, a place to bury my wife? Why? He says, because I am a sojourner and a stranger here. Canaan is not my home. Kind of makes sense because of course the Lord had promised to Abraham, I'll give this to your children. This is the place that I will show you. So you think, okay, well the land of Canaan might not feel like home to Abraham, but certainly to Isaac or to Jacob who were born in Canaan, this will feel like home. But as you continue to read your way through the book of Genesis, we find that these individuals, as Hebrews 11 calls them, fellow heirs of the promise, nevertheless on their own deathbed say the same thing. Jacob in Genesis 47 says, I am a stranger and a sojourner. Restless, wondering towards his final destination. Recognition, of course, that he has not finally arrived. Well, you might say, well, you know, Jacob says that to Pharaoh as he and his family have had to relocate to Egypt. But we find even the Lord himself telling Israel on the verge of the conquest in the book of Leviticus. When the Lord outlines all the laws that Israel is supposed to keep, the Lord tells them, hey, when you enter Canaan, you're not to sell any of the property. Why? Leviticus 25, you should not sell the land because you are aliens and strangers with me. Canaan is not the final destination. When David crowns his son Solomon as king in 1 Chronicles 29.15, you would think, After the conquest, after the exodus, after the subjugation of the Canaanites, perhaps the people of God would see Canaan as their final resting place. Yet, what is it that David prays at Solomon's coronation? David says this, we are but strangers and sojourners here. First Chronicles 16, 18, one of David's psalms, he says this, as the Lord speaking to you, to Israel, I will give Canaan as a part of your inheritance. What's the point? Canaan was just a foretaste, but it's not the full inheritance. One of the things that we've seen through the book of Hebrews is that all of these promises given by God in the Old Testament are given in shadowy form. You have the high priests under the Levites who are just a picture of the high priest to come found in Christ himself. The priesthood is just a shadow of a greater reality. Likewise with the sacrifices of the Old Testament, they are just a type and shadow of the ultimate sacrifice purchased by Christ. And what we find here, and this is the point being made in these verses, in verses 8 to 16, is that even the land of Canaan is just a picture of the greater Canaan to come. Paul says this very thing in Romans chapter 4, that the promise given to Abraham and to the offspring of faiths, speaking of us, is that we would inherit not simply Palestine, but the world. So we've set our sights on the wrong thing if we're waiting for the nation of Israel to be reconstituted as the final in-breaking of the end of the world. What we find is that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, even David himself are anticipating something far greater than simply a sliver of land in the Middle East. They're waiting for a city that has more secure foundations. A city whose maker and builder is God. Abraham dies, never having received the promise. So we saw Abraham dies confessing, I'm still a stranger in this land, but he never loses heart. This is what I think gives a third aspect to faith and considering Abraham faith, certain expectation, and even Abraham on his deathbed, he saw himself as a pilgrim in this land. Then the point that the, that Hebrews is making here is that Abraham's expectation, his sights were not simply set on the land of Canaan, but something of greater permanence. Hebrew says it's what? It's the city of God. It's the new Jerusalem. It is the heavenly kingdom. Abraham dies still looking for a home, still having his eyes set on the horizon. Of course, what good is a home without a family? And this is what we see Hebrews beginning to highlight even further. It's not only Abraham's faith, but Sarah's. We find that faith is not simply the providence of men, but it's something that women are called to do too. Several women are listed in Hebrews 11 as being women of faith. There appear to be several roadblocks to God's promises, several obstacles that have to be overcome. Of course, the first is Abraham's homelessness, which we have talked about, but there's also the problem of Sarah's barrenness. Consider the heartbreak. that Sarah had, to long for a child more than anything, to wait your entire life, and even towards the end of your life, to feel like perhaps this will never happen. I think it's one of the most poignant aspects and situations that we see in the Old Testament. Over and over again, the stories of the Lord coming and comforting what? Comforting the barren woman. You think of Leah. You think of Hannah. You think of Elizabeth in the New Testament. Over and over again, there seems to be a special place in the Lord's heart for the barren woman. You even think of Isaiah, self rejoice, oh barren woman. You think of Hannah in 1 Samuel who is so psychologically devastated over her barrenness that the town priest thinks she is drunk because the way in which she's praying, she's pouring her heart out to God in tears. And Hannah was young. Sarah is 90, Abraham nearly 100. It's a problem not just of infertility, but of age. Verse 12, considered as good as dead. What power could Sarah have to conceive, much less bear and raise a healthy child? I don't think we should let this pass us by. I think it's one thing just to read the story and go, Oh yeah, she was old in age. She hadn't had kids, but you put yourself in that situation. You feel how heartbreaking the story is. But even in considering the heartbreak, we now understand the laughter that transpires. God promised. So Sarah believed didn't happen right away. The promise first comes when, when Abram is 75, Sarah 65. And of course, Sarah does not conceive for another 25 years. And even in the midst of the promise, it says that Sarah believed. It doesn't mean that she wasn't bewildered by the fact. You think of the repeated stories that happened in the book of Genesis. We only read one segment of it. But when the Lord appears to Abraham and says, well, you know, you're going to have a son this time next year. What's Abraham's response? He says he falls on his face laughing. Again, it's not a laughter of unbelief, but it's a, really? Do you know how old I am? I'm a hundred. My wife's 90. That's Genesis 17, the following chapter when the Lord appears again and says, it's going to happen this time next year. We're told that Sarah overhears the conversation behind the curtain and she bursts into laughter and the Lord calls her out on it. He says, why are you laughing? What's your response? Well, I didn't laugh. He goes, no, but you did. And of course, the year later when they have a son, what do they name him? Laughter. It's Isaac. We're reminded of the psalmist. You have turned my morning into dancing. You've loosed the rags and you have clothed me with gladness. The sheer, the joy that comes with the birth of laughter himself, the birth of Isaac and from laughter comes children without measure. As many as the stars are in the heavens. So we're reminded of the Lord's promise to Abraham. God promised Abraham and Sarah land and children. It's interesting when you consider the initial command that the Lord had given Adam and Eve in Genesis 1, what is it? Be fruitful and multiply, right? Have children, fill the land. And we find the problem with Abraham being a double problem, an inability to have children and no homeland. And now the Lord has provided in his grace the means by which these things can take place. was promised land and children and with that an everlasting city. Here in verses 13 to 16 we discover that faith is not so much blind as it is farsighted. There are some older philosophers that have spoken of faith as a leap in the dark, like that scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Remember when Indiana jumps out and tries to cross the chasm and it turns out there being a stone bridge underneath that he had never seen. I think many of us See, faith is something like that. I think on the one hand, there's some validity to that. Faith means trusting God for the things that are not yet seen, right? Noah trusted God regarding the flood, which he had not yet seen. He had to wait 120 years for that faith to be made sight. Abraham trusted God's word concerning the celestial city. He trusted God's word concerning offspring. which Abraham died seeing not, you know, offspring as numerous as the stars in heaven. He died at least seeing one, though, knowing that God is not slow to fulfill his promises, but it does not mean that God never fulfills his promises. Sarah trusted God regarding the coming promised son. So on the one hand, we would say faith is, in one sense, blind. But I think the emphasis here in verse 13 is that faith is more like seeing the promises from a distance. I grew up in Jacksonville. It's a naval port city in Florida. We actually have two ports, Mayport and NAS Jackson. Every few months, I remember growing up, you'd see on the news when one of the naval ships came home to port. And you'd see all the families docked out on the coast. And you'd see all the wives with their kids and the brothers and the parents. their eyes kind of looking out over the horizon. Almost their eyes it seems like bulging out of them as if if you look harder maybe the ship will come faster. As you keep looking over the horizon you don't see it and then all of a sudden it becomes something of a blip in the distance. You can't see it in all the battleship and all of its fine contours but you see it in outline form until it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and finally Your beloved has finally come home. Everybody's told today's the day. Everybody looks with eager expectation for the day of the ship's arrival. There's an eagerness to faith. There's a certain longing. And this longing, this type of faith, is the faith that Abraham had. We have to think of faith as something of being more than simply intellectual. There is an intellectual component to it. But there is a trust that comes based off what God has said. You think of what Jesus said to the Pharisees in John chapter 8. What does he say about Abraham? He says, Abraham saw my day and he was glad. Abraham, as it were, was able to look to the promises and see in shadowy form in the distance the coming of the promised son. who would crush the serpent's head. Peter describes this same thing, that the Old Testament prophets are as those carefully investigating, looking off into the horizon, anticipating the time and destination of the Christ, of the Messiah. And just as the Old Testament saints looked forward out onto the horizon with eager expectation for the arrival of Christ, So too we, under the new covenant, look off into the distance for the return of Christ with eager expectation. Faith is farsighted. It does not look to present circumstances, rather it looks to the future promises. This promise in particular, that God has created a world God has created a kingdom where sin and death shall be no more. That he has fashioned a world where righteousness reigns. Like Abraham, we too look with eager expectation for the arrival of the Messiah, the son of God, the son of Abraham, according to the flesh. the one who will usher us into a renewed heavens and a renewed earth, a world that has been purged by fire according to Noah and first and second Peter of sin and misery. See, we are the heirs of the same promises given to Abraham. We see this repletively throughout the New Testament. That the offspring of Abraham are not simply his or not his physical descendants, but those who share in the same faith of Abraham. Those who cling to the same promises. We are heirs of those same promises that through Abraham would come a son who would defeat Satan. and lead us to the gates of Zion. I'd encourage you to reread the book of Hebrews this week and notice the number of times where Christ is spoken of as the one who goes on before, who has opened up a way, who has led the procession for us to enter in. The final destination, our final destination is not Palestine and it's not the nation state of Israel. Our final destination is the New Jerusalem, where Christ reigns now, where he is seated now, where his throne is found now, a place where we shall enjoy unfettered fellowship with him. In other words, the faith of Abraham and Sarah testify just as Abel, just as Enoch, just as Noah have of the world to come. Because we are Abraham's offspring, because we share in the same faith. This is why the New Testament calls Christians today, if you read the opening verses of 1 Peter, we're called strangers and sojourners. Aliens and exiles. A pilgrim church, according to Hebrews 4, still seeking that place of everlasting rest. This world is not my home. So why do we treat it as it is? Why do we squander our affections on the things that have no lasting value? See, God has given us Hebrews 11 to make us homesick. One of my favorite musicians, Andrew Peterson, put it like this, God is at home. We are in the far country. The Bible was given to foster a longing for those unseen realities to come for to long for the home that we have not yet seen. In Hebrews 11, the whole Bible, in fact, gives us in sketches and outline form a shape of that new world of a city that awaits of a God who's not ashamed to call us his own. We're pilgrims in this life and God calls us to press on, not to get entangled in the trappings of this age so that we may enter the age to come. So I'd simply like to ask one question. How do we prepare for that new world? How do we, like Abraham, walk by faith? Of course, the answer to that would regard reading the entirety of the New Testament, I think. But I'll restrict myself just to one. particular point, to paraphrase Paul in Colossians chapter three, because we are citizens of the new world where Christ reigns, we are to set our affections on that new world. And so behave as citizens of that new world, even in this world. If you've been raised with Christ, seek those things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Put to death those things that characterize this passing world and age. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, put it all away, slander, obscene talk, don't lie to one another. Instead, we are to set our affections on those qualities. that characterize the people of the kingdom of heaven. If you're looking for a book to read, I'd encourage you to read John Owen's book on spiritual mindedness through Puritan paperbacks. It focuses on this very thing. Act as citizens of heaven. If we're longing for a kingdom where righteousness dwells, then we are to act righteously as we walk by faith. Put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bear with one another. Forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. As Paul says, and above all these things, put on love. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts that we might walk as one. And Paul concludes in Colossians 3 saying this, be thankful. Let Christ's word dwell in you, both in doctrine and in song. Singing as pilgrims through this weary land. Let us pray. Our gracious God and father, we do thank you for your word. We ask that through the ministry of your word, by your spirit, you would sever worldly affections that are still found in our hearts, that you would reorient our desires for the character of the kingdom of righteousness. And that by faith, we would walk as citizens of heaven awaiting a home that you have promised and a home we have yet to see. up close. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.