15 April 2007
Sermon: Are you crazy?
Text: Hebrews 11.8-19
Introduction
Last September we began a series on Genesis and we spent the fall on the primeval narrative which comprises Genesis 1-11. After Advent we picked up the story of Abraham in Genesis 12 for the Epiphany season during which we particularly concerned ourselves with themes on his journey and the various things he encountered. Having completed our Lenten series on Deadly Sins, we will now, for the next 5-6 weeks, return to the life of Abraham with a series about resurrection faith.
But before getting to Genesis, as a way of kicking off this series, we’ll actually look tonight at the passage we have read from Hebrews and make some general observations about the faith of Abraham and Sarah as seen through this New Testament epistle.
We’ll do this in three, related steps:
• Part I: Are you crazy? – the acts of faith
• Part II: The invisible reality – the object of faith
• Part III: Directing the “eyes of your heart” – the gaze of faith
Part I: Are you crazy? – the acts of faith
There are three acts of faith that the author of Hebrews praises Abraham for in this passage. First, 11.8-9, Abraham leaves home even though he didn’t know where he was going and he lives in this land of promise as a foreigner in a tent. Second, 11.11, Abraham believed that he and Sarah were going to conceive and that Sarah would give birth to a child even though she was past the age of child-bearing and, because they believed, she did conceive. Third, 11.17-18, Abraham offers up his son Isaac, the one through whom God’s promises were to be fulfilled, on the altar as a sacrifice to God.
Others must have looked at Abraham and Sarah and said again and again, “Are you crazy?” How could you leave behind your father and mother, your people, your friends, your career, your house that you just finished building, your land, the best schools for your children, your bank accounts and IRAs, and just leave without even knowing where you’re going. There are all kinds of dangers out there. How could you do that to your wife, your children, your parents? That’s not only crazy but it’s downright mean and insensitive. You’re out of your mind Abraham! It makes much better sense to stay here in Ur or Haran and to build a life here where you know people and where you’re known. Here you can have influence and do so much good, you can be an ambassador for your God here and your wife and family will be blessed and cared for.
Are you crazy Abraham? Do you really think that even though your wife Sarah is past menopause, that you can have a baby together. That’s physically impossible. Get real – I don’t care what you say your God has promised you. Why don’t you just take your wife’s younger servant Hagar and produce an heir through her, that’s what we all do when we can’t have children. If you want an heir then stop pretending and get with the program – that’s your only option.
Or again – sacrifice Isaac, your only son? You’re insane. God gave you that child, miraculously no less. This is the one through whom God’s promises are to be fulfilled and now you’re going to put a knife through his heart. That’s not only crazy it’s downright wrong and cruel. This is the most precious thing in the world to you; you can’t offer him up to God like this. You’ve got to hold on to him for yourself and see how God will use this precious gift to bless you and so many others. Don’t give him up. Hold on to him.
Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?
Part II: The invisible reality – the object of faith
There are, of course, two ways that we can walk in the world. We can walk by faith or we can walk by sight. Paul talks about this in 2 Cor 4.18 when he says, “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” And he goes on a few verses later to say that “we walk by faith, not by sight” 2 Cor 5.7. Walking by faith or by sight – these are our choices in life.
Abraham can answer the question, “are you crazy?” by declaring that they are walking by faith. There is an invisible reality that is far greater than any other reality in their lives – God himself – in whom they believe and in whom they trust and he and his words/promises accounts for their crazy actions. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, an Anglican theologian, writes, “In striking contrast to the man whose values are entirely those of this present world, the Christian is animated by the conviction that it is the very things which are not (yet) seen, those things which he appropriates by faith, that are real and permanent.”1 Abraham believes that this God exists, that he has spoken to him and promised him certain things, that he is powerful and trustworthy, and that he will reward him for following him.
So he obeys, even when it seems crazy. In the words of Luther, “this is the glory of faith, simply not to know: not to know where you are going, not to know what you are doing, not to know what you must suffer, and with sense and intellect, virtue and will, all alike made captive, to follow the naked voice of God...”2 This God and his promises account for their crazy actions which are none other than trusting and obeying God.
Each of these actions is done – this is the key phrase throughout Heb 11 – by faith. Faith is the difference maker which recasts the apparent crazy actions of the faithful into the very acts to be exalted and emulated in our own lives. To do something by faith, then, is to do something because of the realities of God and the unchangeable nature of his word and not because of what makes sense in the visible world. God and his words define my life and actions, not the world around me with all its reasons and temptations.
This reality of God and his promises is what moved Abraham and Sarah. In v.8 we see that Abraham obeyed the word of God which included a command and a promise – go and I will make you great and give you a land. In v.11 we see that Abraham considered him faithful who had promised. We also read in Romans 4 about Abraham’s faith:
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Part III: Directing the “eyes of your heart” – the gaze of faith
Now because of this God of who has promised much, Abraham can say, I’m not living for worldly security and gain and comfort. I’m not living within the confines of what is naturally possible, for our God is the creator and giver of life and he can bring life from death. I’m not holding onto that which is most precious to me, the dearest thing that God has given me, the one through whom I expect my name to be perpetuated, but I’m going to give this up to God if he so requires. I trust in God, I walk by faith, and this means that, far from being crazy, I have set my sights on the future which my God has promised – so I believe in and trust in and obey my God.
We cannot talk about faith without also talking about sight. For those who believe in God and who trust in him give expression to that trust by directing their gaze away from the world, the way of sight, and toward God and his promises as the sole objects of their desire. In other words, a life of resurrection faith involves a longing for the things of God more than anything else in the world. The eyes of our hearts, to borrow a phrase from Paul (Eph 1.18), are set upon the promised future of God and this directs our steps in the present world.
Looking at our text, we see that Abraham was “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (11.10). His sights are set not upon the loss of his worldly comforts and securities but rather upon the future that is promised from God himself. He is “seeking a homeland” v.14, and “desiring a better country” v.16. Therefore he, and others like him, are not looking back to that land from which they had gone out, a place of familiarity and comfort, a place to which they could have returned if they had wanted (but at what a price!) but instead they are moving forward, single-mindedly, with the knowledge that “God is the strength of their hearts and their portion forever” Ps 73.26.
They say with Jesus, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” Mk 8.36.
And so in a world that walks by sight, they are “strangers and exiles,” merely passing through a place that is overcome by sin where people are intensely self-oriented. For they no longer fit with the mainstream here, and as a result they, at times, look crazy indeed. But there is something far better promised by someone far bigger than any of them really know that has captured their gaze. Their hearts are set upon it. Their affections are given over to it. As those whose “citizenship is in heaven,” their lives are lived, “straining forward to what lies ahead,” as “they press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” Phil 3.13-14.
They want this more than anything, even more than something as precious as Abraham’s son of promise. I was riding in the metro with Chloe this week just gazing at her with amazement and love, lost in the wonder of my own child. Occasionally, as her eyes wandered around the metro car, she would catch my stare and smile back with a blush and a sense security and honor. It was a great moment. But as precious as this little girl is to me, tonight’s passage forces me to ask – is God more valuable to me than Chloe? Is God more valuable to me than my wife? Is God more valuable to you than your hoped-for future spouse? Is God more valuable to us than our careers? our security? our comfort?
Conclusion
Some of you might be asking, “Why?” Why should God be so valuable to me? Why should I risk my entire life on him? Such questions deserve more of an answer that I will give them here, so please seek out myself or others who can talk through these things honestly with you. But what I will say that this is what you were created for. You were created to know God, to walk with him, to love him, and to serve him. And he has expressed his love for you in the cross of Jesus, his Son, who was crucified on your behalf and was resurrected to new life by God’s power. So, despite having neglected God for so long in your lives, God is offering you life with him by grace, because of nothing you have done. And he is calling you to walk with him, to fulfill the design for which you were created, to turn away from the world of sight and a world of rebellion and to walk by faith, embracing his ways as THE ways of life, truth, and joy. And there is nothing more valuable. God is the pearl of great price and when we see his value we sell everything we have so that we can go get that pearl (Matthew 13).
Now for those of us who claim to know God – how might we know the honest answer to these questions of God’s value in our lives? Let me suggest one question: do people ever call you crazy? Think about this for a moment. Is there anything in your life that can only be explained by the fact that you walk by faith, that you believe in this God of resurrection? If there’s not, then I think we have to ask ourselves the hard questions that maybe we’re not really walking by faith. Maybe we say we are, but maybe we’re really just walking by sight while talking about faith. Maybe we’re not really longing for the city of God but we’re really just perfectly happy with the city of man, with accumulating things here, praise at work, comforts at home, etc…If that’s us then this is a call to repentance for having set our hearts upon other things. And the glory of the gospel is that God stands ready to forgive, to embrace us by grace and to lead us forward in the way of faith. People should call us crazy sometimes. In fact, if they don’t we’ve got a problem, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” Lk 6.26.
Since God is who he is, my brothers and sisters, since God has promised us such a glorious future with him, we need to have no fear to do the extraordinary, empowered by his Spirit. Faith – which rests in God and which gazes upon his promises – enables us to risk, to respond to the radical word of God – don’t hoard and stockpile money for yourself and your family but sell your possessions and give to the needy, don’t seek self-preservation but take up your cross daily, don’t lord your position or authority over others but become a slave to all, don’t fight back but turn the other cheek, don’t neglect those who can give you nothing in return but visit orphans and widows in their distress, don’t neglect your wife and take her for granted but love her as Christ loved the church, don’t hold a grudge against that person and withhold forgiveness but forgive as Christ forgave you, don’t’ gossip and tear down with the tongue but let every word that you speak be for edification – while being buttressed by the glorious promises of God – that he will never leave us or forsake us, that we will inherit the new heavens and the new earth, that we will live forever with Jesus in a world of peace and love and joy.
What is it that we’re afraid of? Are we afraid that we might not have enough to eat? Are we afraid that our life might not count for anything worthwhile? Are we afraid of danger or death? Are we afraid of failing? “And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world [all those who walk by sight] seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom [walk by faith] and these things will be added to you.” Lk 12.29-31. As Jesus said to Thomas, “Do not disbelieve, but believe” Jn 20.27. So what if we have to give up the things most precious to us, so what if we die? Really, so what?
“If God is for us, who can be against us?...For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” Rom 8.31b, 38-39. God is ours, we are his. We have the opportunity every day to be normal, to walk by sight, to look back to the world of self-preservation and self-interest. What I’m saying is this – as the beloved children of God let’s walk by faith, let’s not settle here but let’s set the eyes of our hearts upon God and his promises, let’s look forward to a better city, let’s desire a better country, let’s seek our true homeland. Being led by the Spirit through prayer, let’s move into a Clapham community together, let’s move in to Anacostia together to serve and be present, let’s buy a church bus and serve the children of this neighborhood, let’s lay down our lives. Let’s be crazy and let’s do it together for the glory of God and for the good of his world. Amen.
