A Faith Intact?

Take your Bibles this morning and turn to Genesis chapter 22. Now before we look into God's Word, let's take a moment and ask God to speak to us through that Word. Let's pray. Father in heaven now we come to our worship of listening give us ears to hear Lord I pray that this would not fall on stony ground but on ground that would produce fruit would you Father please take your word this living and active word and penetrate our hearts our souls with it Lord God help us now we pray to listen well in Jesus name Amen my daughter Lydia used to run track and in my estimation she was a great runner but one race she ran was the 400 meter relay and she was always the third leg in that race next to the last leg.

And I used to watch her come around that corner, usually in the lead, of course, and would be holding my breath because if the baton exchange wasn't good and they dropped it, they would lose the position that they had worked so hard to gain as a team. And that's what happens if you drop the baton. If you lose it, you probably lose everything. Well, as we open our Bibles this morning, we see Abraham coming to the end of his leg of the race of faith, ready to pass the baton of faith on to the next generation.

Now, as we continue in the narrative, in the story of Abraham, in these next few chapters, we enter a transitional section, a section in which the writer is going to make a transition from this generation to the next generation. And you see that signaled in Genesis chapter 22 in verses 20 through 24. So let's look at that. Now, after these things it was told to Abraham, Behold, Milcah also has born children to your brother Nahor.

Uz, his firstborn, Buzz, his brother, Kemuel, the father of Aram, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaf, and Bethuel. Bethuel fathered Rebekah. These eight, Milcah bore Tanehor, Abraham's brother. Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Ruma, bore Teba, Geham, Tahash, and Maaka. Now, after the earth-shaking events of this chapter, that is, that earth-shaking experience of Abraham in offering his son Isaac to the Lord, word comes from his ancestral homeland about the prosperity of his brother and the fact that his brother Nahor has had 12 sons.

But you also notice that the report mentions one woman. Her name is Rebecca. Now it's highly unusual for a woman to be noted in a genealogy. In fact, you hardly ever see that happening. So why does he do it? This is signaling the fact that now another matriarch is coming on the scene.

This is going to be Isaac's wife, Rebecca. And so this, if you will, signals this transition to the next generation. Now we're going to see how Abraham passes the baton of faith to his son, Isaac. And so we enter into this transitional piece of the narrative where we move from one generation to the next. But it raises this question. Will Abraham still believe the promises of God, the promise of land and seed at the end of his life?

Will he pass the baton? Will he still have a faith intact? Now, in chapter 23, which is the story of Sarah's burial plot, this focuses actually on the promise of the land. And the next chapter, chapter 24, which relates to us the story of the finding of a wife for Isaac, focuses on the promise of the seed. And in both of these we're going to see the story of Abraham's faith once more.

Let's look at chapter 23. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died at Kiriath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, I am a sojourner and foreigner among you.

Give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The Hittites answered Abraham, Hear us, my lord, you are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land, and he said to them, If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah which he owns It is at the end of his field For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city.

No, my lord, hear me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it, in the sight of the sons of my people. I give it to you. Bury your dead. Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, but if you will hear me, I give the price of the field.

Accept it from me that I may bury my dead there. Ephron answered Abraham, my lord, listen to me. A piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead. Abraham listened to Ephron and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites 400 shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants.

So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area, was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites before all who went in at the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpelah east of Mamre that is Hebron in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites.

Well, what do we find here? We see here that Sarah dies. The lifelong companion of Abraham, the one who waited with him for the promised son all those decades, the one who with him saw God's faithfulness, the one who spent her entire life with him, dies. She's highly honored as a woman of faith, by the way, because this is the only woman in the entire Bible whose lifespan is given.

So the writer wants us to understand she is a great woman of faith. She is gone, and Abraham weeps. Now tension arises here in the narrative because the promise of land and seed are essentially unfulfilled. And the recipients of the promise now are beginning to die. Abraham does not possess one square foot of land. He doesn't possess any of it.

He knows it's promised to him. He doesn't possess one square foot. And Sarah dies when Isaac is only 37. with no wife and no children. Descendants as numerous as the stars, I would imagine Abraham asking. Descendants as numerous as the stars? Why, we don't even have grandchildren yet.

How is that going to be? My son isn't even married. You know, just like Abraham, you will face crises of faith. You will start to doubt. as the shadows of this broken and cursed and cruel world fall across your path, you may doubt the promises that come from a good God. The day your spouse tells you that she doesn't love you anymore and she's going to leave you.

The day you get word that your company, which has just been bought out by another company, is going to be sold, it's not making a profit. and who's going to hire you at the age that you are now? Or the day your daughter-in-law calls and tells you that your grandson has bone cancer. Days like that. You will doubt God. You will doubt his goodness. You will doubt his promises.

We all will face crises of faith. I remember my first one. And it's silly now looking at it. It's absolutely silly. I mean, this is how weak and immature I was in the faith. When my little boy Calvin, just a little guy, having bronchiolitis and struggling to breathe, and watched him just, his chest caving in as he's trying to catch his next breath and thinking, what is this?

Right? I mean, now it doesn't look like much, but then it was a big deal to a brand new father. All of us are going to face crises of faith. and sitting in the shock, you're going to be asking, is this the abundant life you promised? Yeah, the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but I've come that you may have life and have it to the full. Is this what you're promising me?

Is that what this is about? And what is the good you promised? I don't see any good here. Right? We're all going to come to places like that. Well, here's Abraham.

His wife is dead. The promises seem utterly unfulfilled in his sorrow. You've got to ask this question, how will Abraham react? will his faith continue? Will he continue to believe the promises of God? Now what follows in the story is strange, bizarre. But it says something about Abraham's faith.

Suppose my dear wife Becca died. And her friend Sharon received a letter from Annie. assuming we're gone somewhere and my wife dies and Annie writes Sharon a letter and it goes something like this Dear Sharon, I thought you'd want to know that mom died two weeks ago Dad was of course heartbroken and at the viewing hours he had a hard time but he made it through the funeral was nice but you wouldn't believe the deal he got at Stoff Checks he went in the day after mom died and said he wanted the gold leaf coffin for under a thousand well they thought that was ridiculous and said he could have the blue coffin for that much, but certainly not the gold leaf coffin. And Dad said, not to be deterred, Dad said that he wasn't counting in the cost that it would take to prepare the gravesite.

Well you wouldn believe it but he got the deal he wanted Isn that something Now my guess is if Sharon gets that letter she going to look at it and say this is bizarre This is weird In fact this is downright inappropriate And what do you think she'd think of my daughter Annie for writing such a letter? Right? But that's exactly what happens here. You've got two verses.

You've got two verses on Sarah's death and the fact that Abraham mourns. And the rest of the chapter is about the negotiation for a burial site. Now that should strike you as weird. That is nuts. Why is the narrator talking about a burial plot? Why isn't he talking about what was the funeral like?

What was the mourning like? Did Abraham cry? What happened? It's all about the negotiations for a burial plot. What goes? And the only thing you have to say to yourself is, he must be trying to make a point here.

It has some kind of theological significance, because if it didn't, he wouldn't devote all this ink to the negotiations for a burial plot. So what is going on? Well, let's look at this. You see that Abraham identifies himself as a sojourner and a foreigner, in verse 4. That is, he's a resident alien. As such, his rights were limited.

And that included the right to purchase land in a way that said it was his land. That he had the right to pass it down to his posterity. He was limited in that. It would take a lot for him to get a piece of land. And even though he identifies himself at the bottom of the social ladder, the Hittites respond to him, you are a prince of God. You are a mighty man.

You are one who has been blessed and protected by God in ways that are unbelievable. They lift him to the top of the social ladder. Nevertheless, although they recognize God's work, they are reluctant to sell him any land. In fact, what they say is, because of who you are, we will gladly offer you any of our tombs. You can bury your wife. We'll give you any of our tombs.

You can bury your wife. But they're not talking about selling them any land. And if he buries his wife in a tomb, it's not his. He doesn't own it. Hmm. But Abraham, you notice, persists.

He won't give up. He bows down to them. And he asks them to make the case to Ephron to allow him to buy a cave that's at the end of a field. And he says, I'll buy it for full price. Okay, you notice that. Verses 7 through 9.

I will buy it for full price. That would make it an irrevocable sale. No one could challenge his right to that land if he paid the full price. Well, as the story continues, Ephraim answers directly without going through the mediation of the elders or whoever they are that are there sitting in this court, saying that he will give Abraham not only the cave, but the field attached to it.

He's offering him more. now by answering directly rather than, you see notice Abraham goes through the people of the land or the people that are there speak to Ephron but Ephron does not speak through them, Ephron now directly addresses Abraham and says you can have not only the cave but the field that's attached to it now by answering directly he does so then without any social pressure and of his own free will he does it, you note, in the city gates Now, understand now, let's get this, because we're going to see more towns as we move through the book of Genesis. Sitting in the city gates is essentially the same as sitting in the courthouse. The city gates was where all legal and commercial transactions took place.

In the gates were usually rooms. But when you read something about someone sitting in the gate, my guess is you're imagining yourself on your donkey coming into the gate. you see a bunch of lazy men sitting around at the gate. That's not the case. The fact is the city gate is the meeting place. It's the local courthouse. That's the closest I can come to it.

So they're sitting in the courthouse. This is a legal transaction. He does it, Ephron does this, in the hearing of the Hittites. Thus he has the appropriate witnesses. All of this makes Abraham's claim to the land even more incontestable. This is your land.

This is it. You have the right to it. You have the right to pass it on to your posterity if he buys it. If he buys it. Now, notice that Ephraim says, I love this. He says, I'll give you the land.

It's worth 400 shekels, but what's that between friends? Friends, that is just the exaggerated politeness of negotiation. All right. you know we kind of do that a little bit you know I sold old red the other day my little Honda you won't see me in that little car anymore oh stop it I've mourned enough about that car but I said give me 500 and the guy says I don't know now I didn't say what are you a fool this is a great car it will get you where you want to go the whole car may not make it but it'll get you there.

Right? No, no, you kind of do this thing, you kind of do this thing, well, I don't, you know, he not going to say what are you an idiot who going to pay No you know we all very polite when we negotiating right He goes I don know I don know what the lowest that you take for it You know we all very polite in these negotiations Well, that's what's going on here. It's this exaggerated politeness of negotiation.

Hey, I'll give it to you. It's worth 400 shekels, but what's that between friends? I mean, Abraham knows what's going on. Abraham knows he's asking some incredible price for a piece of land. Well, what happens? Abraham measures out the 400 shekels of silver.

He buys it. The deed is recorded. That's what it means in our translation when it says made over to him. That is, it's official in some way. He gets the deed to the property. He now has possession of this land.

And he buries Sarah there. No one can contest his right to his possession of this land. He's gone through negotiation. Ephraim's given it to him without any pressure. It's all done legally. It's all his.

It is now his land. Now the question is, what does this all signify? I think sometimes when we lose the greater thinking of the purpose of a narrative, we read stories like this and we go, that's interesting. What's the big deal? Is this to teach us to be honest in our negotiations? Is it to teach us don't negotiate, always pay full price?

What's the deal here? What's going on here? What's the significance of this? This is simply, this is now his possession. You remember that this story begins with a reminder of Nahor and of Abraham's ancestral land in the east. It would have been natural for Abraham.

Now this is the key here. It would have been natural for Abraham to mourn his wife and then to go back to his ancestral lands to bury her. that was what was expected of him he would have gone back home to the land of his family and buried her there but he didn't do that what does Abraham say by going through all this negotiations instead of going what? home? what does he do? this is my land this is our ancestral land. This will be for the burial of all my descendants.

That's what he's saying. You see, by this action, Abraham demonstrates faith in the promise of God to give this land to his descendants. He was claiming it. That is why the writer spent so much time talking about the negotiation for a burial plot than he does about the funeral. It's about Abraham's faith. His actions demonstrate his faith for the future.

And what you find is that the next two descendants, Isaac and Jacob, where are they buried? They are also buried there. And at the very end of the book, what does Joseph say as everybody moves to Egypt? when you go back to Canaan, take my bones with you. Because that's their ancestral land. That's their land now. His land is no longer in the east.

This is my land. This is where I bury my dead. And this is where my descendants will bury their dead. You see? Abraham believed that the promises of God in the land were not in vain. that God remained faithful to His promise of giving that land to His descendants. Even though He didn't see it, He still believed it.

The original recipients of the promise are going to die before they ever see the fulfillment of all the promises. But they believe God would keep the promise nonetheless. you see when he's sitting in a place saying where is the promise of God it's not fulfilled yet nevertheless he believed even though he didn't see it yet he believed that God would keep his promise and on that belief he bought that land they're going to be back here and this is this is my token that I believe the promise so like Abraham you must still act in faith when your whole world crumbles you still act in faith and by the way this is how the new testament views this very incident turn back to Hebrews 11 we heard that in our new testament reading today that Jans read Hebrews 11 Hebrews 11 verses 13 through 16 are looking back at this very incident and making this comment. Hebrews 11 verse 13.

They all died in faith. 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. If they had been thinking of that land from which they'd gone out, they would have had 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. Notice, they died in faith not having received the things promised. We're starting to see that now. We will see it later with the others. But these are now starting to die.

Sarah the first. All right. And having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. He is referring to Abraham speaking in chapter 23 or yeah, in verse 3. I am a sojourner and foreigner among you. The writer of the Hebrews is looking at that statement.

And he's saying, that's what Hebrew acknowledged. He acknowledged he was a stranger and in exile. And the writer recognizes that Abraham, he says in chapter 11 of Hebrews, he had a chance to go back to his homeland. He had a chance to take Sarah back to his homeland. But what's the point? Why didn't he do it?

Because that's not my homeland anymore. I believe what God has told me. This is it. And in fact, he goes on to say, Abraham who bought that land, he's still waiting to receive the fulfillment of the promise. Do you realize that? Abraham is still waiting for God to keep his promise.

By the way, the Apostle Paul tells us about that in Romans chapter 4. Turn there, just real quickly. You've got to see this. This is an argument, by the way. Why should I believe in the resurrection? Why should I believe that God's going to raise the dead?

He has to if he's going to fulfill his promises. In Romans chapter 4, verse 13. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. What? Yeah, by the way, when Abraham is raised from the dead, he, with the rest of us, is going to inherit the entire world. Right?

He's going to have more than that little bit of land. He's going to get the whole deal along with us. God's going to fulfill. God's going to keep his promise to Abraham. A lot bigger than Abraham ever dreamed, you see. But you see, the writer of the Hebrews says, see, he's looking for a heavenly city, not just this.

Abraham, even though he died, even though at this point, as we look at the story, Sarah has died. Abraham so much believes the promise of God that his people will inherit that land that he buys a burial plot. He says I convinced of it I not going to go back there That not my land This is my land This is what God promised Even in death even as the promises remain unfulfilled Abraham believed that God would fulfill them entirely.

He still believed. Question now. Will you walk with the same kind of faith as Abraham? Will you walk with the same kind of faith that Abraham did? when it seems that God is nowhere present, when it seems that God's promises are way out there, distant, unfulfilled, out of reach, will you still act in faith? Will you still believe the promises of God? That's the question.

Now's the time to ask it before the crisis comes. Before the shadows fall across your path. Before it seems like God's promises are so far away. Now's the time to ask the question, will you still believe? Be prepared. Will you believe?

You say, yeah. My question, how can you act in faith like Abraham? How is that even possible? It does no good for me to say to you, go out now and live by faith like Abraham. You just go, okay, I'm going to do it. Yes!

That's all. circle up, put her hands in the middle and go Abraham's faith! Abraham's faith! Abraham's faith! Yay! Right? It does no good to do that.

It's not going to do any good to do that. But I have to say this to you. You can live in the faith of Abraham if you look to Jesus. That's the only way you're going to be able to do it. If you look to Jesus. It's interesting to me that it was God who said to his son you are my son today I have begotten you ask of me and I'll make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter vessel that what God promised his son and so Jesus King Jesus arrived And even his own people didn receive him And then he stood before a representative of the most powerful nation, the most powerful empire in the world at that time.

He stood before Pilate, the representative of that powerful empire. And instead of dashing that empire to pieces, instead of crushing that empire, that empire crushed him. by nailing him to a cross. It appears that God had failed in his promise, doesn't he? What goes? God, you promised me this. Who lived by faith at that moment?

Jesus did. And he died, like these went before. He died believing the promise of God. In fact, I will go so far as to say that the lowest point, when Jesus died on that cross, in faith, believing God, that that very cross purchased for him the authority over all those nations because he was obedient to God. So that at the end of the book of Matthew, what does Jesus say?

All authority in heaven and in earth has been given to me. And he got it through the cross. If you want to live like Abraham, and live in faith like Abraham, you've got to look to Jesus. You've got to look to the One who has promised far beyond what Abraham ever had, and look like it failed. Look like the promises of God was unreachable, but instead, in the darkest hour, actually received the authority that God had promised.

Look to the cross when you doubt the promises. Look to the cross when you doubt it, because the cross is God's seal. That He guarantees everything that He has promised. He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also graciously give us all things Romans 8 If He going to nail His own Son to the cross then don't think that He won't graciously give you all things.

Because when you look to the cross, you see the seal that God says, I am good for the promise. If you want to live like faith, like Abraham in faith, then you have to look to the cross. Never forget that. And when darkness just envelops you in the days to come, and all of us are going to face days like that. All of us without exception will face days like that.

When those days come and you want to doubt the goodness of God and the goodness of His promises, that's when you look to the cross only then will you be able to walk in faith like Abraham only then will you be able to still believe and even if you die not having seen all the promises God made fulfilled you can be sure that he will be faithful to them Father thank you for your word thank you that in this story of a commercial transaction, we see the marvelous faith of Abraham who had a chance to go back to his homeland, but believed your promise that this was to be his homeland. And he acted on that in faith. Lord God, help us to live by faith.

You have promised us the entire world. So help us to live believing that promise. Help us to live this way, looking to the cross of Christ, in order that we might live in a way that shows our faith in the God who is always true. Grant it for your glory and our good, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.