Dennis Tuuri

# Reformation Covenant Church Sermon Transcript
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Of the so-called Geneva Jigs, the Psalter produced at Geneva under the oversight of John Calvin without thinking of the early days of Reformation Covenant Church sitting in Howard L.’s house on I think 57th or something in Southwest Portland and Valerie playing the piano and we were so excited to sing these psalms and to sing them in settings produced from the Protestant Reformation. And what a thrilling time for our church that was the songs of Martin Luther, you know, again, sung already today and sung in a little bit.

These great reformers are called to mind October 31st, 1517, which we’ll celebrate tomorrow when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, the symbolic beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which had been going on for many years before that. He did it that evening because next day was All Saints Day. So Halloween is all hallowed evening. Hallowed evening.

There’d be a lot of people at church. And so he posted his items to debate the church over.

So today we are at Hebrews 11 and we look at this great hall of faith. One of the most famous chapters of the Bible I suppose most well-known. And we can think of the kind of faith that produces reformation that moves culture ahead. We can think of all saints day, the commemoration of all the saints who have lived and specifically in the context of all saints, I suppose, looking at those that were martyred for the faith.

But this great cloud of witnesses that as we move in a couple of weeks into chapter 12 surround us and encourage us throughout our lives is portrayed for us here by some representatives of people from creation through to the new creation who exhibited a faith that reformed the world in which they lived.

Please stand as we read the sermon text today. Hebrews 11. I’ll read the entire chapter. If you have the handout for today, you can follow along on I believe it’s page two. You’ll see the way I’ve structured it. Some could say that I’m in love with these chaos structures—might be a good word to say to our wives. You remind me of a chiasm. Well, there are these structures. We’ll look at this one today. Other ways to look at this text, but we’ll look at it the way I’ve laid it out for you.

Hebrews 11, the entire chapter is the word of God for today.

Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts and through it he being dead still speaks.

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and was not found because God had taken him. For before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed. She bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. Truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones.

By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king’s command. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and a sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned.

By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.

What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah also of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again.

Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial rather of mockings and scourgings. Yes. And of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. Were tempted. Were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Let us pray. Lord God, we bless your holy name for these mighty men and women evidencing your work in the world. Lord God, make us into mighty men and women, faithful, full of hope, assurance of the reality of what lies ahead of us and the blessings given to us through Jesus. Help us not disappoint these our fathers in faith by pulling back from the trials and opportunities that await us. Make us a conquering army for the Lord Jesus Christ today. Write these words upon our hearts and liven our faith, Father, that we might obey you and might manifest that we are also of these people that subdue kingdoms. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

N.T. Wright tells the story in his commentary on the book of Hebrews of going up and walking in the snow taking a big hike up a mountainside on a bright day with sunshine and they could see up ahead of them the most difficult part of the climbing of this mountain another group of climbers in their orange jackets bright against the white snow and they could see them there that they’d gone ahead.

And he took out binoculars and looked ahead to see how things were going for them. And they saw a glint of sunshine from them. And the sun light was glinting off their ice axes. And so they could tell that to go up that part of the mountain to ascend to where the delightful rest would be accomplished, they needed to use ice axes. And he felt good that they had brought theirs along. And some of these guys were making it up the crag still with the ice axes.

The others had gone up to essentially the top of the hardest part of this climb and they seem to be enjoying themselves up there.

Well, Hebrews has brought us, you know, to a wonderful plateau working over the understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what it is when we confess that Jesus is Lord. Everything that means and it’s taken a great deal of effort and time to bring us to this stage. And now as we press on and as we see in our lives pressing on toward the mark, it’s the same kind of thing going on here.

We can see those that went ahead of us as we march up our mountains, as we walk our lives of faith, as we prepare for the great ascent, you know, dying well and conquering for the Lord Jesus Christ, even in our death, as we look forward to our future, we can see a specific group of people, many of them named, but many more not named in this chapter, in this great hall of faith. We can see that they’ve gone before, and we can see that they have entered into the blessings of God, and yet the fullness of that comes with our joining them this side of the cross of Jesus Christ.

So we can see the race that’s set before us. We can see the joy and delight of being with these great saints at some point in our futures, knowing them, seeing them face to face as it were in the eschaton and being able to rejoice. We see that awakens us and we see the necessary tool by which God will take us over our stony mountains and as we ascend this life of faithfulness and that ice pick over and over again here is hammered home to us.

Faith, faith, faith, faith. This is what we will use in the providence of God to be faithful to him to run our race well. And we’ll see that exhortation following these great cloud of witnesses. We’re to be encouraged then to run the race that’s set before us. Exercising faith, having our hope and faith tied together as it were.

I think that what I want to do first as we look at this great cloud of witnesses is just give you a sense of why I’ve structured the text the way I have. You know, as you go what this is there’s a chronological movement right the creation of the world begins and then we have the story of Abel and you know then as it moves on through history Abel is you know a reminder of the Adamic covenant then we have Enoch still in that period of time so those and then we move forward to a discussion of the principle of faith and then the next named person is Noah.

So we’re moving forward in redemptive history from the Adamic covenant represented by Abel and by Enoch and then into the Noic covenant in a description of Noah’s time and then we move to the Abrahamic covenant. Right? The next stories are about Abraham. And you’ll see that big center section the middle four sections around the middle section that is so there’s four specific sections dealing with Abraham, Sarah, Abraham again, and then the ones who would carry the Abrahamic covenant forward, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph described.

So, the bulk of this chapter really concerns Abraham. And here in Hebrews, we’ve seen Abraham as this great model for our faith as well. And so, he occupies the center place in this. And then there’s a middle exhortation in the middle of the story of Sarah and Abraham. And then it moves on going ahead into the Mosaic era. So there’s a chronological movement on into history of Moses and his faith seen in the Mosaic era rather.

And then there’s the conquering of Jericho described moving into the promised land. And then not named people but a group of triumphant people, prophets. We can think of Daniel stopping the mouths of lions, quenching fires, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We can see the prophetic period in triumph conquering kingdoms the way Daniel did. And then a list of unnamed people. But those who didn’t triumph in this life, they were you know persecuted.

They were undergone trials, humiliation, mockings, beatings, scourgings, even being sawn in two. We can see a reference probably to Isaiah. Tradition has it that he was sawn in two by a wooden saw. And even as he was sawn in two historical accounts, he communed with the Holy Spirit until his body was well cut into two places. So it kind of brings us up and then we can even see in that description we can think of perhaps some faithful members of the covenant community in the time of the Maccabees and then finally those that suffered for the Lord Jesus Christ himself and some of them and the great martyrdoms that they faced.

And so the movement is forward forward. If we were to go on into chapter 12 we’d see we arrive at Mount Zion and to the heavenly Jerusalem. And so that kind of we go from beginning of creation to the heavenly Jerusalem. But in this chapter specifically, it’s certainly tied off by the conclusion at the end.

And if you look at the A sections for just a minute, you see that the wording I’ve looked I’ve bolded here for you in the two A sections. There’s definite beginning and end that this is a unit unto itself. This chapter break is right because we read that by faith and faith of course is mentioned at the end of the in the A section as well. By faith the elders obtained a good testimony and then down in the A prime section. All of these the elders that is these men and women having obtained a good testimony through faith. And so there’s these definite beginning and ending places.

If we were to look at the center section and then the markers of Sarah and Abraham around it, those match up too. Sarah receives a child through faith. Abraham offers up that child in faith. And so the birth and then sacrifice of Isaac are matched up in that way. We’ll see how these sections match up as we go through them section by section.

You know, we could profitably go through this as just as a chronological way, but I think that the looking at it in pairs of sections brings out a little depth to the text perhaps that we wouldn’t necessarily see. Noah and Moses, these characters are supposed to already be thought of you know, it’s very similar to one another as we’ll talk about when we look at that pairing. And so I think that the text wants us to think of these pairings as well. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll look at the pairings and the way that I’ve described it here.

And your outline has eight specific statements about the kind of faith it is that reforms worlds that makes reformation possible in the context of the world. It’s the same kind of faith that the reformers of the Protestant Reformation had as we’ll see going through this. And it’s the kind of faith that will describe us as we affect the ongoing reformation in our lives personally and individually and corporately and in our families as well.

So, we’re going to use this big text of scripture to talk about what reforming faith is. And I’m going to begin at the very middle. You know, if I’m right that there is this development and we’re sort of brought to the middle for a particular reason. There’s important truths at the middle narrative of this. Then we’ll look at the beginning and end of it. And then we’ll work outward from the middle back up to the specific named individual and the pairings of those.

So that’s that’s our pattern and it’ll become quite obvious if you’re what’s he talking about? Don’t worry. We’ll just work our way through this outline, but that’s what we’re doing. We’re starting at the middle going to the statements at either end and then looking at the pairs of members of this hall of faith that I think are paired up specifically for a reason.

Now, we could and I guess by starting in the middle and the ends is we’re saying that there’s a common theme really at the beginning and end and faith, obtaining a good testimony, and the elders, all of these, and then the all of these in the center as well. It’s my contention that the all of these really doesn’t refer just to those that have preceded it, but it’s a summary statement of the entire chapter. It matches up with the all of these at the end and the elders who obtain a good testimony at the beginning. So, the entire list of specifics and individuals is kind of summarized at the beginning, the end, and the middle.

So, we start with the beginning the middle rather in the H section.

**What is reforming faith?**

Reforming faith is future oriented and there is you know that is the clear message of this text from beginning to end that faith is future oriented. It doesn’t look back it looks to the future while seeking God’s will to be done on earth. It looks to the consummation for the fullness of this reality. What does the text tell us?

These all died in faith, not having received the promises. Well, some of them seem to have. You know, Abraham received a promise. Daniel was conquering kingdoms. Enoch rather was translated. What does it mean? Well, it means receiving the fullness of the promises which would only come in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the implications of that work as the world is transformed through men of faith.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. You see the eschatology. They saw afar off the promises that faith grabs a hold of and actualizes in the context of the present moment. Faith looks forward to the realities of the promises of God, sees them afar off, moves in terms of them and actualizes those promises in the context of the present. They were assured of these promises they saw far off. Faith is assured of the future that God has said will come to pass.

Not only are they assured of these things, they embraced the realities of the future in the present moment. And because they embrace the truth of God’s word as it says what the future will hold, the fullness of the promises and the coming of Messiah and then the implications of that for the entire created order. Faith believes that, is assured of it, grabs a hold of that, embraces it, and confesses as a result that they are in motion away from one thing and toward another.

They were assured of these things. They embraced these things seen afar off and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. They have not arrived yet. That evening with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. We have not arrived yet because the gospel of Jesus will transform the world. That is the homeland we seek.

And so we can identify with these men coming out of a secular world in our particular case, the Protestant reformers, out of a Catholic idolatrous world, us out of a secular world. We seek a homeland. We seek to go home. You know, when I became converted or committed to Jesus Christ and then I started going to church, the way I thought of it at the time was, I’ve gone home. I’ve gone back home. I’m in home somehow. And I couldn’t explain why I felt that way, but that’s what it’s supposed to feel like. Now, that’s what it is like as we embrace biblical Christianity. We go to church after we’ve wandered away as I had. We’d come home again. But that home isn’t so pleasant sometimes. And there were problems in the church I was in. There’s problems in every church.

This isn’t the end of the day. This isn’t the end of the story. We seek a homeland, a home in the future. We are future oriented. We embrace that future. And that is what makes our faith a reforming faith. We don’t look back, you know, and say we want to go back to something. We don’t want to reclaim the garden. We’re moving toward the city. Now, we do look back and remember things and think about them, but we don’t turn back.

Why? Because the text tells us that if they called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. When we think of what we came out from, it begins to allure us again. But we’re not going to do that. We’re going to press toward the mark of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re going to be future oriented, seeking that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

But how? But now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. In every Lord’s day, we pray that thy will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. There is a heavenly country that we seek here and now. It isn’t just a belief in the future eschaton and consummation. It is a moving toward that and seeking a heavenly country here and now. Praying that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Reformers are not so future oriented that they do not actualize it in the present. God says that’s not faith. Faith is actualizing in the present. Faith is acting in the present on the basis of what the future is. It’s reality. God’s word is true. And every man could be a liar. Let every man be a liar. Let God’s word be true. We embrace that and we then work in terms of our specific lives in the present the implications of the future.

So reforming faith is a faith that is future oriented. It doesn’t look back. It’s not characterized by nostalgia. It seeks God’s will to be done on earth. And as surely as that is the case, it also looks ultimately to the consummation for the fullness of this reality. The heavenly Jerusalem we talked about in chapter 12. That’s the eschaton when God, you know, not when we go away, but when God brings a new heaven and new earth to its full fruition and we have a new Jerusalem, a city now whose builder and foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we work in the present. We seek God’s will to be done on earth, but we know that ultimately the end is the eschaton, the consummation of all things as described to us in the scriptures. This is reforming faith. Reforming faith embraces these things. And this is the same truth that’s that’s really talked about in the beginning and end of this narrative. At the center is the future orientation. Working in the present and the basis of the future, moving ahead, not looking back and knowing that ultimately what drives us is the eschaton.

This same thing is told to us in the A prime section.

**So number two, reforming faith at the beginning and end of this text is a celebration of reality.**

A celebration of reality. You know, we have this very difficult first couple of verses in verse one. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Well, what does that mean? Well, the word order here in the original Greek is different than it’s ever really found. And the is sort of placed forward. And it’s coming off of chapter 10 when we were admonished to faith. And now it is as if this begins with the great celebration, a great exclamation that faith is this thing. Faith celebrates the reality that is truly real. We might say it is the celebration of the reality of the things that we hope for. The substance means it’s not subjective. It is an objective word here.

It means the ultimate reality is what we see in the future. Now, I’ve used this language before. I’m not saying that this isn’t real. This is real. I’ve always said that it is an exercise and a confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to not doubt the reality of what we have here to not start thinking gee am I really sitting on a chair yeah you are and that’s that’s submitting to the reality that God has created but going beyond that reality is given to us in the future that this is what everything is moving toward and faith celebrates that future reality by living now in the context of our time and in the present on the basis of that future reality.

It’s the evidence, the foundation of things not seen. It’s an odd thing to say. Faith which is unseen is the evidence something you can see of something that’s not seen. Seeing well maybe it’s what faith actually accomplishes in the world. Well, that’s part of it. The text is not drawing a big distinction between faith and what we actually do. Faith and works are sort of more tied together in this than we would think.

There’s a tension to the text that we don’t want to resolve ultimately because God has placed it there for us. It’s an odd couple of verses and we could meditate and spend, you know, an hour or so just discussing that. But what I want you to see here is that we’re given a little clue, I think, to how we understand this. If we just read on, by this faith, the elders obtained a good testimony. They were attested as faithful men, these people that we’re going to hear about because of their working in the basis on the working in the present rather on the basis of what the future is said to be by God. They receive attestation from God.

By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. See, that’s partly what’s it’s setting us up for what’s happening in this text. The word God is the foundation of all reality. And he speaks the world into existence. He speaks reality into existence. But what is seen is not made by other things that are seen. What is seen comes about is made of things which are not visible. God who is spirit. And this is setting us up for something here.

The truth is God. The ultimate truth in reality is Jesus Christ. And the ultimate truth in reality is he describes to us what the future will hold. The promises are given to us. The world the blessings of the gospel covering the world maturation of the world the final eschaton and everything is brought to the great climactic conclusion of praise to Jesus Christ. He’s told us what the future is and that is what determines our view of reality here. And we work in the present on the basis of the reality of the future.

If we don’t work in the present on the basis of that reality, what we hope for is just some sort of wish and desire. But what we hope for is not wishful thinking. It is the reality to which God has said the whole world is moving. And when we believe that reality, when we exercise faith, we do things in the present that make manifest that hope.

And so reforming faith is a celebration of reality, affirming the sovereignty of God in creation. It begins here by saying that God is sovereign. He made the world in six days. He created everything. And because he made the world in six days, reforming faith submits to the sovereignty of God in all things. He rules over all things. And the doctrine of God’s providence, his sovereignty, that he is absolute ruler. He has decreed whatsoever comes to pass is rooted in this doctrine that God has created the world. And so reforming faith affirms the creation of the world by God in six days as his word says and by doing that affirms the sovereignty of God.

The Protestant Reformation was at its heart an assertion of a sovereign creating God against the Arminian God of the Roman Catholic Church at that time. That was the reformation. The great books to come out of the Protestant Reformation was Luther’s Bondage of the Will asserting the sovereignty of God in creation. Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion asserting the sovereignty of God as it relates to every sphere of theology and then application into the world. And the Book of Common Prayer produced by the Church of England thoroughly Calvinistic in its view and worship then became an expression the creator’s sovereign God being the basis for everything that we do in worship and that drove the Protestant Reformation.

It was at its heart a stake through the heart of Arminianism and that is what it will be today in our time. It will not be some sort of blend of Calvinism and Arminianism. Our primary difference, it was interesting. It was at this ministerial conference on justification and they have problems with Rome’s view of justification. But even if Rome changes its theological formulations of justification, they said the big problem with Rome is it is semipelagian. It is Arminian. It asserts the sovereignty of men ultimately over God himself. And that has not changed.

When they when the Roman Catholic Church went through the counter reformation, it did not become Calvinistic at its core. It became more liturgical. They ended up with weekly communions. Everybody getting the elements. We somehow blew that. But it did not address the core issue. And the core issue of the ongoing reformation in our day is the sovereignty of God and based upon his creative works. And that’s why six day creation is a really big deal, not a minor matter. And certainly it impinges how we how we interpret the scriptures. But it is directly tied to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

And if reformation is ongoing, it’s through the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. It’s through other reformed bodies that once more speak the sovereignty of God in every area of life and thought.

Reforming faith is a celebration of reality. We know the future because we have a God who created everything in six days, who rules over them and has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. We know what that decree says about the future. This produces attestation from God. We want to be attested to as faithful men and women. We don’t want to get into heaven and say, “Well, you know, you’re here because of the imputed faith of Jesus Christ. Glad you made it.” And we want to hear that. That’s part of what we’ll hear. But what we’ll hear is, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Men who get stuck on the doctrines of grace and don’t move to working out the implications of the doctrines of grace in a life of works. These are not reforming men. We are reforming men and women as we work out the implications of God’s sovereign election of us without conditions by being those who work in relationship to that. And we see throughout this text works related to righteousness. Not as if people worked and obtained righteousness in that way, but the scriptures are quite plain that there is no faith without works and that faith is manifested in works.

And so these great reformers in this hall of faith the ones we celebrate on All Saints Day, the Protestant reformers we celebrate on October 31st and remember throughout this week. These are men who who believed in this sovereign creating God and they received a name that will be remembered. Well done, thou good and faithful servants. These men in this hall of faith are men who are attested to by God. And they’re attested to because of this thing we’re saying here that they don’t look at what’s around them for determination of reality. They look to the word of God in terms of where the world is going and they live in the present on the basis of that.

Now, Hebrews has been filled with this, right? You know, we’ve entered into the eternal rest, but we still have a rest on Sunday because the world isn’t quite there yet, right? Jesus Christ has exalted mankind, but we don’t see him, you know, over all things now, right? We don’t. This has been said earlier in Hebrews. There’s all kinds of tension built into the book of Hebrews which you know we don’t want to remove tension but on the other hand beyond that it’s not as if these things are co-equal what it’s saying is that the great truth the great reality is what the future is moving toward and we change the present because we believe the word of God about the future.

We joyfully celebrate the fact that the world is becoming Christianized that the gospel of Jesus Christ is ruling over things. Jesus sits at the right hand of the father until there are no more public schools. Until there are no more gangs, you know, doing violence, until there are no more, you know, racism and all the colors of the races bleed into one, as it were, you know, we look forward to that and we fully expect it to come to pass. And as a result, we have strength in the future as the army of God to work now to affect that reality because we know that we’re going with the flow of history and we know that if we turn back from that, we turn back to our destruction. And that’s been told us over and over again in Hebrews as well. Don’t turn back. Keep pressing ahead. Go through that wilderness. Another year or two, the Jewish church and the Roman Empire will be dealt with.

Christianity become established and will fill the world. Don’t pull back. And God tells us today, don’t pull back to secularism. Don’t pull back to quietism. Don’t pull back to just getting by. Aim for the future. Actualize the future in faith in the present because it is the truth of God’s word.

**Third, reforming faith is humble and mighty.**

Humble and mighty. Oh, these two things are so linked in the scriptures and they are here. Persevering and steadfast, believing in the God of resurrection.

Now, I’ve got this other structure for you in Genesis 17. These G sections involve Sarah and Abraham. And in the middle was this statement we’ve already dealt with. Look at Genesis 17. We can do this real quick. It’s not hard. It’s not complicated. Just believe me. Don’t sit there, you know, oh, what’s he talking about? I don’t know if he’s right or not. You look at this, okay? Is real clear.

Look at verse one. Abraham’s 99 years old. Look down at the end of that structure. Abraham is 99 years old. Why is he telling us that again? Well, it’s a book end. It says this is section and he’s 99 years old. Go back up to the top. The Lord appears to Abraham and just before he’s described as being 99 years old again. What happens? God finished talks with Abraham and God went up from Abraham. He’s 99. He’s 99. God comes to him. God goes away from him. There’s a structure here. See, we’re supposed to see it. And then what happens? God gives his first speech. And after God’s first speech, Abraham falls on his face. But what happens before God goes up? He gives his last speech which was preceded in verse 17. Abraham fell on his face. Oh, this is, you know, this is easy. Our 12-year-old kids should see this development. They look at these words. They look at this outline. Yeah. Yeah. We see that this is a thing.

99.99 God coming to Abraham, God going away from Abraham. A speech and a speech. And then Abraham bowing down on his knees. Abraham bowing down on his knees. And that takes us to the center, which are three speeches. And these three speeches at the center are sort of like the center of Hebrews 11. These speeches are significant.

Abraham falls on his face in verse three and the third, fourth, and fifth speeches then follow. The third speech is about Abraham and he’s going to move ahead. Abram actually still at this point he’s told him you’re going to be a father of nations. Now he says, you’re going to be a father of many nations. He repeats the promises and multiplies them there. See verse four, many nations. Your name isn’t going to be Abram anymore, Daddy. Your name is now going to be Abraham, big daddy, you’re going to have 70 lots of nations coming from you, right? So, you’re moving ahead. I’m moving you into rule. Not only will you have a seed, but in verse six, he says, “Kings shall come from you. Your seed will be monarchs. Your seed will be rulers in the world. Your seed will be kings.” You see, see the movement of the Abrahamic covenant when it’s restated, it’s amplified.

He’s going to rule nations, the world, kings. The covenant no longer is just with Abram in the very next verse 7 the covenant is with you and your descendants after you. Okay? So it’s ongoing now. It’s a future oriented multigenerational deal. And then finally he names the land. He said you’re going to have land. Now he names it as Canaan.

Now if we drop down through the middle speech to the matching speech with this great speech to Abraham, we find a short form of the same thing given to Sarah. Verse 15. God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai, You shall not call her name Sarah, but Sarah. She gets a name change here. I will bless her and give you a son by her name. I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Just like Abraham, mother of nations, nations, kings of people shall come forth from her. So this text is drawing us to the center and around either side is authority, power to bear seed, but to bear seed that are a kingly seed.

So we have texts like that. And at the very middle then, what are we drawn to? Well, we’re on to the very middle speech. And what is it in verse 9? Keep my covenant, obey, and my covenant is circumcision. Die, be cut, acknowledge that you have no ability to bring children forth into this world or to create any kind of future at all. That’s the center. The center is a symbolic castration, as it were. The center is an acknowledgement of his weakness before God, his defilement. He needs to be cleansed.

At the center of the great promises to Abraham is humility. In other words, you see, God brings Abram humility in the very midst of the narrative that he which he’s going to give him this great, powerful, mighty blessing that he’s going to be big daddy over many nations of kings and they’re going to rule the world. You see, well, I think that’s what’s going on in Hebrews 11 before and after the very center of the text. What do we have? Sarah is going to have strength to have a child. And after it, Abraham’s going to give up the child, right? Receive him back resurrected from the dead.

And the very middle then acknowledges the humility of people that we talked about in the in the very opening section of this sermon. Humility is at the center. Acknowledging that we’re pilgrims. We’re wayfarers. We seek a better country. We have no right to it. But it’s the sovereignty of God that will bring this to pass. The future does not happen because of our efforts. The future happens because God brings us faithfulness in the present to see the future and live in terms of it. We see it. We see it before us.

Do you see it here? Do you see the future of Oregon City? Do you see the future of Oregon? Do you see the future of America? You see, and if we see that future, and if we believe that this is reality, and we begin to live in terms of that reality here and now, doing the small acts of faithfulness, then God says, “Great blessing.” We’re humble before him, acknowledging his sovereignty, our weakness, our inability.

You see, he says, “Kings will come forth from us. Kings Academy. Every one of your homeschool families are kings’ families.” Right? We’re not raising serfs. We’re raising kings and queens, rulers over the world, rulers over their home, captains of industry as it were. That’s our vision, you see. And you know, that’s our vision. It’s the vision that Abram had. It’s the vision that he believed, you know. understood.

You should understand. You’re Christians. You’re the faith of Abraham. Same promises are given to you. Nations are going to come forth from us and they’re going to be kings and queens in the earth. And Jesus tells us the same thing. You know, we are now kings and queens in the earth. We are it. And yet we’re not it. We are it. We work on the basis of that. We treat our children like kings and queens, princes and princesses, which includes humbling them, training them that lesson that, you know, Doug Wilson was at a debate at a ministerial conference with an atheist and the guy kept saying, “Well, why do you believe this is the word of God? What’s your basis?” And of course, what he wants is, “Well, I just think it’s like this and I believe this, I believe that.” He wants Doug to make an autonomous statement that he’s judged the word of God and believed it to be true. And of course, this is the very thing that Doug doesn’t believe. And what Doug said was, he says, “Well, you know, I was raised by Christian parents and they spanked me. Spanked me hard. That’s why I believe the Bible.” See, what was he pointing to? He wasn’t pointing to coercion. He was pointing to the providence of God. There’s a sovereign God who brought me up in a Christian home and I didn’t really have a choice about it. Okay? This is how I was brought up and it’s the word of God. Submission to the sovereignty of God. Humility before him brings then rule and authority brings reformation in our day.

Reforming faith is this faith that is humble and mighty. Humble and mighty. Persevering and steadfast, okay, so the specific elements that we have here with Sarah, she has a promise. She believes the promise. Abraham has promises. He believes them and waits and waits and waits. Doesn’t just wait. Steadfast persevering.

Reforming faith actualizes the future in the present through obedience to God, knowing the future is true, right? But it doesn’t get impatient in going about doing that, right? It perseveres. It steadfast in the face of all odds. It keeps going. When the going gets tough, the faith will keep going. You see, because they believe this is reality.

So, there’s a perseverance and steadfastness to what Sarah does here. She’ll be mighty by faith. Sarah herself also received strength. And it doesn’t look like it in your text, but when it says that at the in the matching section that God was able to raise up Isaac from the dead. Verse 19, same basic word, dynamis. God is powerful to raise men from the dead based on the powerfulness of God. We receive that power as his children. And Sarah is strengthened to bear a child. You see, based on the promises.

So, we are humble and yet mighty, persevering, steadfast in the missions that God has called us to do. We keep doing the right thing because we know that this is the future. This is reality. God is in control. He is graciously affecting his kingdom in the context of this earth. We pray for it. We persevere steadfastly toward that end. Why? Because we believe in the God of resurrection.

Abraham, you know, Isaac is who the promise is going to come through. Now go take him up and kill him. God says or Abraham says, “Okay.” Why? Because he believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. He believed it. And he’d said earlier, actually the details of the text as he go up the mountain, he says, “We’ll come back in a little a while he uses the plural me and the son we’ll come back fully intending to carry out you know God’s decree to sacrifice him God provides something better but what does Abram do he receives his son back from the dead by figure the text tells us it’s a belief in the God of resurrection we come we have life from the dead we persevere even though dead because we believe in the power of the God of resurrection and this gives us strength to persevere in doing the task the simple tasks day by day that God calls us to do.

You see, those simple tasks aren’t simple at all. If we persevere in faithfulness, in faith, knowing that God is bringing this future to pass, he actually brings it to pass on the basis of his works now in raising you up from the dead and doing those simple tasks. That’s how reformation comes. You celebrate Martin Luther, but all of the millions of people who did simple obedient acts to God and built Christendom in the middle ages and then in the context of the reformation.

That’s how the world changed. Yeah, there’s symbolic actions. There’s guys that are named. But ultimately, it’s the nameless majority through simple acts believing this is the right thing to do today because God’s word says so and this is what the future of those actions will be. That changes the world. You see the women from the tomb. Simple things, but things that determined the flow of history, not the mighty acts of those who would conspire against God.

**Four, reforming faith as a multigenerational perspective, obediently relying on the promises, not on sight.**

And at the center here, we’re moving more not the center, as we drift out from the middle, we go to obedience. We’ve had faithfulness, perseverance, and obedience because in verse 8, it says, “By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out.” Now, we’re back to Abraham here in these two matching sections.

But what’s different now is Isaac and Jacob are named along with Abraham. So, it gives us in these matching sections a multigenerational perspective to the acts of faithfulness that these men do by which they’re attested by God and given a name that we remember. So Abraham obeys God doesn’t know where he’s going. He’s trusting on the promises of God again not on sight. Faith doesn’t wait to see if everything will work out. Faith doesn’t demand to know exactly where it is I’m going. Faith obeys God. And in that simple obedience, we’re trusting the promises of God, not on sight.

The same way Abraham is doing here. And in the same way, it’s matched up. It says there that he lived in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. Now, you see that blows the chronology. If all he did was move through the text chronologically, this section in verse 8, Abram dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, and then we have the story of Sarah conceiving Isaac. See, so it’s a little bit of discontinuity chronologically here. And so I think that this is it wants us to match up these sections that talk about Isaac and Jacob together, these F sections on your outline. So that’s what matches them up and what we get from that is that there is this multigenerational perspective.

Indeed, we have the reference in verse 22 by faith Joseph even so Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joseph when he was dying made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, gave instructions concerning his bones. Abraham blesses Jacob and Esau. Jacob blesses the 12 tribes, including the sons of Joseph. Joseph has a future perspective about the children of Israel. There’s a multigenerational perspective in reforming faith.

And this church, I hope, understands this, right? We look forward. We plan for grandkids if possible, right? And great grandkids. A future perspective. That’s what reality is. And in that future perspective, we don’t want to just have kids. We want to see grand kids and we want to see them worshiping with us. We want to see great grandkids. See, a multigenerational perspective that trains up our children not just because that’s a better life for them. But we train up our children to think about their children and their children’s children from the littlest age. See, our children should be having this multigenerational perspective.

You know, Brad wanted us on the on the vision of the strategy map taken on tasks that we can’t accomplish in one generation. He was absolutely right. We definitely need to maintain a perspective in this church that what we’re going to accomplish will take generations to accomplish. We want to have a multigenerational and faith is this future orientation, not just the immediate future, the long-term future that has a multigenerational perspective, obediently relies on the promises and not on sight.

**Next, number five, reforming faith is obedient to God’s word, engendered by God’s people, exercises God’s discrimination, seeks God’s pleasure, and inherits God’s world.**

It’s a long section. By faith, Noah divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, obeyed. He prepared an ark for the saving of his household. Obedience, you see, faith is not just believing, persevering, being steadfast. Faith is obeying the word of God, obeying the law of God, and obeying that law even when the authorities would have us disobey it. And that’s brought up at the example of Moses.

Moses is obedient to God’s word. Noah is obedient to God’s word. But Moses is the result, his faith is engendered, developed by godly parents. The text tells us not for some insignificant reason that Moses is protected three months by his parents. Again, multigenerational parents providing for their children, faithfulness to God, protecting them from whatever might damage them as these are the children of the king.

He’s a beautiful child, the text tells us. And what that means is he’ll be a deliverer. They knew somehow that this child would be a deliverer like Joseph was beautiful. They knew this. And our children are called to be princes and princesses as well. And this this perspective is that faith is engendered. It’s developed. It’s matured by parents, you know, drilling their children on the promises of God and what reality is and what it isn’t.

Faith is engendered. It is obedient to God’s word. It’s engendered by God’s people. It exercises God’s discrimination. Moses says, “Well, you know, I’d rather suffer with God and Jesus than take all the pleasures of Egypt.” He had to discriminate between the kind of entertainments he enjoyed. Discriminate between Egypt on the one hand and God’s people on the other. He had to discriminate between Pharaoh and Jesus Christ. Godly reforming faith is a discriminating faith.

It seeks God’s pleasure. He didn’t want the pleasures of Egypt. He wanted the pleasures of getting together with the Lord’s people. What’s our pleasure? God sought faith, reforming faith seeks God’s pleasure and inherits God’s world. They both sort of mention this inheriting God’s world. Noah, it says it very explicitly, right? In verse 7 and 8 says that he was moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household. See, perspective of family again man, multigenerational by which he condemned the world, became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. He inherited the world.

And God wants us as we look through this hall of faith to understand that as we do those acts of obedience to God, making proper discriminations in the context of our world, having godly households in which we’re trained and train others, seeking the pleasures of God as defined in the scriptures and not the pleasures of the world, that the end result of this is that we inherit the world. That’s what God’s promise says. The world is ours. We’re inheritors of the world.

Now, that’s clear in Noah’s case. The old world is destroyed. New world came. Moses was saved in an ark. The only two places where that Hebrew word translated ark in the Noah story is found is there. And in the story of Moses, they’re connected together. Moses is saved through the water in an ark, right? And he’s by the reeds, by the way. And later on, the sea of reeds, the Red Sea, Israel will go through the water, not in an arc, but the waters will part. Same thing. Moses is a new Noah. The world essentially is going to be judged and what? Drowned by the Red Sea that comes back over Pharaoh and his troops. So, it’s the same story. Moses, like Noah, inherits the new world through the destruction of all the enemies of God.

And we know that’s what the future holds. We don’t know when the enemies of God will be destroyed. We don’t know the timing. But we know that as we’re obedient, we inherit the world. Reforming faith has that sort of certitude to it that the world is ours. The meek, the ones who are humble before God and as a result strong to do his work and who believe the future and act in the present and the basis of it, including thinking multigenerationally, we inherit the world is what the scriptures tell us and tells us here again in this text.

**Six, reforming faith believes that God’s judgments and blessings are in the world aligns itself with God’s people facing peril in the short term for reward in the long term.**

These sections may not seem to match too good but the D section tells us that without faith it’s impossible to please him. He who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So coming to God seeking God are either side there and the two requirements are you have to believe that he is says, “And that his judgments are in the world. He rewards those that seek him.”

And we have then the story of Rahab, one who came to God, who diligently sought him. Why? Because she saw God’s judgment in the world in the fall of Jericho. She knew God was there and she knew that his judgments filled the world. And she thus acted in faith.

Reforming faith believes that God’s judgments and blessings are in the world. And it aligns itself with God’s people facing peril in the short term for reward in the long term. How did she receive God? She received God by receiving the spies and and biblical faith, reforming faith, world shattering faith. It’s that simple. It believes that God is that what we see is created by him and moving toward his purposes. And the way it gets there is that he is active in the world. He didn’t just create it. He’s not just going to finish it. His providence, the doctrine of providence means that his blessings and his curses fill the world and we line up, you know, with the blessings of those who seek him.

**Seven, reforming faith seeks above all else to please God and is typically victorious in the world.**

As we move to the outer edges of this, we have Enoch who didn’t suffer. He walked. He was righteous. He pleased God. He was translated. Didn’t even have to die in the body. The text tells us he did not see death. And matching that in the C section, all these people, some named to most not, it is moving into the Mosaic era covenant and the restoration covenant, descriptions of prophets. We could stop and talk about these specific phrases. And if you were brought up in Hebrew day school and knew your Old Testament, at least these first few phrases that would sound like machine gun fire from the Old Testament from the prophetic period, Isaiah, Daniel, etc. We’d know all the references.

But the point is that this first group of unnamed people are people who are victorious in the here and now. Listen to the descriptions. Subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, the short term, in other words, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead to life again by Elijah and Elisha. Right? These are victorious people. The faith is typically victorious.

You know, we don’t want, you know, Spears or Alvin Sykes to go off and die for their country. We want to make sure that whoever opposes the cause of Christ died and fights our country that they die for their country. That’s what Patton said, right? Our job isn’t to die for their country. Your job is to make the other guy who’s a pagan idolatry who hates Christianity and wants to stop it. We want to make him die for his country in cause. We’re supposed to be victorious. And so faith here is not just described in terms of suffering. All these people get close. to death. They do have sufferings and trials, but they’re come through and victorious like Abel.

So, reforming faith has a not just a future hope, but a future hope that says that of times, maybe normally, we will actually, if we persevere, receive the blessings in the immediate future as well. We’ll be able to subdue kingdoms, make cities like Jericho fall down, do these things, and God will actually change culture in our time.

So, reforming faith seeks above all else to please God. How do we become victorious? Well, we could go through all those prophets and what they did, but it’s summarized so nicely in Enoch. Enoch is translated why? Because as God looks at his life, the testimony is Enoch pleased God. It’s that simple. You know, all these details we can talk about, they’re important. But ask yourself, you know, is my life about pleasing God first and foremost? If it isn’t, you probably won’t see many the victories that are described in the other half of the D section here down to the C section rather, Daniel, Barak, David, etc. Those that conquered enemies, we conquer enemies because not because we’re trying to be conquerors and beat our chests and jump up and down. But we conquer the simple fact that this text in paralleling this thing shows us because we want to please God.

When we come forward with our offerings, make that your prayer. Lord God, help me today Help me as we move into this week to have the faithfulness of Jesus who everything he did was an attempt to please the father, to do the father’s will, and to be a finisher pleasing God the father. You know, may God grant us a faith that moves simply in the present based upon what God says about the future that’s motivated by a desire to please him.

Children, this is easy, right? It’s easy to understand, hard to do. You have to battle your own sin. I understand that. But make it your goal. If you don’t make it your goal, you’ll never get there at all. Make it your goal this week. When I get up every morning this morning, may I pray to God, God, let me please you today. May my life be pleasing to you. May what I say to my parents please you. May how I do my schoolwork please you. May how I do my chores please you.

Men, mature men, us over 50, us warriors now, right? And we passed warriors into the prophetic period when our words change the truth of the world around us. May we get up every morning and say, “May I please God today in the way I interact with my wife, my neighbors, my friends, my church, my job, my vocation, politics. May I please you see the great blessing of Enoch here who doesn’t even have to face death. It is tied to the simple truth that he lived a life of trying to please God.”

Now, when we do that, we won’t always be victorious. We won’t always have lives that are marked at the end by exterior victory over enemies. Because the last section of men named at the end of this and the first specific named person line up and that’s Abel and then others who were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others had trial of mockings and scourgings of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned su tempted slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy.

This world spoken into being by God, but the fallen world of men here describe is not worthy of these men who live in the very pits of the earth themselves. Why in the pits? Because they’re going to come out from those caves and resurrection life, but not seeing victory this side of the grave. This side of the grave being martyred for the faith. Not seeing kingdoms subdued, but being subdued at least in the short term by other kings, by martyrs. And we know the reformers The ones we know of that were lived a long old life are a few. And the ones that faced the sword being tied up in animal ties and thrown into the river or thrown to wild dogs to be ripped apart.

Think of the early church and what happened in the hands of the gladiators to the Christians. Frequently, I think normally the life is a victorious life, but frequently we’ll be called to suffer and die. And this matches up with Abel. Reforming faith is like Abel. first martyr killed because of his worship. I think it’s significant that the first of the men in this list by faith offered up to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. It begins once more in the book of Hebrews with worship. It’s the worship of Abel that calls up the demonic forces against him and that then results in his being martyred.

Reforming faith is worshiping faith. It’s an enduring faith if necessary, temporary suffering, but still victorious in the future. Because we’re told that while Abel has obtained a good witness and he was righteous, God testifies of his gifts and through it, his being dead still speaks. Abel still speaks to us. And we can debate what that means specifically, but we cannot debate the truth of the matter that Abel still speaks in the words of the scriptures, a life of faithfulness to God, suffering if need be martyrdom, and one who desires to please God first and foremost with the sacrifice and the worship that he brings to God.

Reforming faith is worshiping faith. It isn’t self-pitying. You know, you don’t get the sense that these men who were sawn in half and tortured and beaten and wandering the world, there’s no hint here that they’re back there just kind of lick in their wounds and feeling bad for themselves. Is there they are walking about as a noble group of men, manly men and women, right, in the proper sense of the term, suffering for Jesus Christ, but not becoming self-pity because of it.

Instead, the great payoff is the world is not worthy of these sorts of men. Is it describing men who just feel bad because things aren’t going good and sulk off into their living rooms or into their dens? And no, it’s not talking about that. It’s talking about men who suffer for the faith, but they suffered nobly, manly, not complaining to God about the whole thing ultimately. Oh, there’s real pain. There’s real complaints that must be made. But at the bottom of their lives, they see the future. They see that even through their sufferings and even through their death, the Lord God will speak to the created order through them. Abel speaks though yet dead.

These men had that same faith of Abel and they recognize the future is the reality that the hope the great things we hope for are true and they moved in terms of that in the present and as a result they were noble in their sufferings they were manly in defeat one of the early Christian martyrs you know and it’s not a joke it’s not a joke supposedly you know he really said as they were they were burning him on a flat bed and turning him over says turn me over I’m done on this side body burnt crisp Still, you know, presence of mind to praise God and have faith and courage, not to whine about the whole thing.

You see, great men of faith go to their death, singing the praises of God. Isaiah communing with the Holy Spirit while being sawed in two by a wooden saw. You see why? How can you do that? You just buck up. No, you don’t just buck up. You believe what God says that even though you die for him, he will use that very event some how to speak through your life and to bring others to the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is accomplishing. Your resurrection is not a wished for in the sense of being hoped for thing. Your resurrection is the reality that you’re to walk on the basis of now. That’s reforming faith.

Reforming faith actualizes in the present. The truth of God’s word who created this world is bringing everything to pass. And as a result, reforming faith can be victorious. manly even in the face of martyrdom. Knowing that while we go through temporary suffering, our very acts of submission and praise to God in the midst of suffering determines the future. It is bringing that stuff to pass. Our lives are wonderful lives.

We see this great cloud of witnesses. When we get to chapter 12, he’s going to say, “Remember these guys and you do better today. You do better than you did yesterday. You run your race with endurance. Don’t whine. Move ahead. Don’t get cloistered off like we said from Hebrews 10. No, move forward, right? Move forward. Faith is forward orientation. It’s active in the future because it believes what God says about. It’s active in the present rather because it believes what God says about the future. That’s the kind of faith which over and over again in the last 6,000 years reformed the world, changed the world, shook the world. That’s the kind of faith that shook the world in the 16th and 17th centuries. And that’s the kind of faith that will shake and is shaking the world again.

Now, may the Lord God grant us a desire and ability to please him and be reformers.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this great cloud of witnesses. We thank you for the many lessons that are in this text. Help us, Father, in our homes this week to celebrate you, to celebrate the reality of your future that you’ve told us is sure and real. Help us, Lord God, to think of these men and women as we go into this week. Help us to remember the men of the Reformation tomorrow night. Help us to remember all the saints on the day after. And help us, Father, to be encouraged to please you in all that we do and say, trusting indeed that whether we die or whether we are victorious in what our efforts are, you are bringing your future to pass.

Thank you, Father, for this high privilege of serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us as we come forward and renew our obligations, our joyful response to your gospel that the world is indeed moving toward the future that you’ve told us it is a world that is Christianized where the gospel flows over it and men are submissive to you in every sphere of life. Thank you for these great truths and bring us forward as those who in joyful response commit ourselves afresh to pleasing you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.