Faith Is Not A Commodity.

By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. – Hebrews 11:11-12 ESV The line, “even when she was past the age” is a bit of an understatement. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was way past the age of being able to conceive. She was close to her nineties and, on top of that, she was barren. We read in Genesis 18, “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah” (Genesis 18:11 ESV). And when they were given the news from God that they were going to have a son, both Sarah and Abraham expressed doubt. When God had told Abraham that he would make the father of a great nation, Abraham’s response was, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” (Genesis 15:2 ESV). The only solution Abraham could see was using one of his household servants as an heir. Sarah’s solution was to give Abraham her Egyptian household servant to impregnate. “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her” (Genesis 16:2 ESV). And, of course, Abraham took her up on her offer. But God had other plans and informed Abraham once again what He intended to do. “I will bless her [Sarah], and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her” (Genesis 17:6 ESV). Abraham’s response? He laughed. And he said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” (Genesis 17:17 ESV). But God confirmed His promise and assured Abraham that the impossible would happen. Some time later, when God appeared to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre, God gave him exciting news. “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (Genesis 18:10 ESV). And Sarah, eavesdropping at the door to the tent, “laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’” (Genesis 17:12 ESV). She had doubts, reservations, and a bit of a hard time seeing how any of this was going to happen. The circumstances surrounding her life seemed to strongly contradict what God was saying.

And yet, Hebrews says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive.” This seems like a gross exaggeration of the facts. Both Abraham and Sarah laughed at the news of God’s plan. Both came up with alternative options, plan B’s, to help God out. And yet it says that Sarah had faith. I think the problem is that we tend to put the emphasis on Sarah’s faith, rather than the object of her faith. It says that by faith she received the power to conceive. All Sarah could do was trust the power. Her faith did not bring the power into existence or make the results of that power come about. She had to stop trying to do things on her own and simply rest in the power of God’s promise. She had to take her eyes off the circumstances, her old age and barren condition, and trust God. It was by faith that Sarah had to wait for the miracle of conception and the fulfillment of God’s promise. Remember how this chapter started out. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Genesis 11:1 ESV). Sarah had longed and hoped for a child for decades. She had desperately desired to have a baby, but had been forced to give up on that dream because of her condition. But when God promised to give she and Abraham a child, she had one recourse: to take what God said by faith. She was forced to trust God. He was going to do what He had promised to do and He was not going to accept any alternative solution, no matter how well-intentioned. Eleazar and Ishmael would not suffice. Adoption was not an option. Sarah was going to have to trust God. And so it says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive.”

Sarah had to come to grips with the fact that God was faithful and that He was powerful. He had the character and the power to back up what He said. And it says she “considered him faithful who had promised.” After all her conniving, doubting, whining and self-sufficient planning, Sarah determined to trust God. She decided to put her faith in the one who had promised. And in God’s perfect timing, “The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him” (Genesis 21:1-2 ESV). She placed her faith in God and He came through. “And Sarah said, ‘God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.’ And she said, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age’” (Genesis 21:6-7 ESV). Sarah’s faith did not make any of this happen. Her faith was simply a confidence and conviction that the one who promised it would happen had the power to make it happen. She put her hopes in His hands. She put her fears and doubts on His shoulders. She quit worrying and started believing. She stopped trying to take matters into her own hands and  left them in the highly capable and powerful hands of God. Our problem is not that we don’t believe what God has promised, it is that we somehow think He needs our help in bringing it about. Faith is about giving up and resting on God’s faithfulness and sufficiency. It is about reliance upon His power, instead of our own. It involves putting our hope in God rather than allowing the circumstances surrounding us to suck the hope out of us. Faith is less a commodity than it is a state of being. It is a place to which we come when we are ready to take God at His word and rest in the reality of His power to do what He has promised. “Therefore from one man [and woman], and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

An Anchor For the Soul.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. – Hebrew 6:13-20 ESV Living as a believer in this fallen world requires hope. Hope in something far greater to come. Hope in the reality of heaven and hope in God’s promise to His children that He will one day make our eternity a reality. To emphasize the faithfulness of God and the reliability of His promise, the author used Abraham as a case in point. He reminds his readers that Abraham had been give a promise by God to bless and multiply him. But Abraham had to wait a long time for that promise to be fulfilled. It would be 25 years before Isaac was born, and all during that time, Abraham had to deal with the very real fact that he and his wife were not getting any younger and she was no less barren than when the promise was made. When the promise of God was finally fulfilled and Isaac was born, Abraham rejoiced in the faithfulness of God. He had come through for them. He had done the impossible and given Abraham and Sarah a son and heir, in spite of their old age and her barrenness. But not too many years later, God commanded Abraham to take his son, the very one he had so long waited for, and offer him up as a sacrifice. And Abraham obeyed. How? Why? Because he had faith in God. When Isaac asked his father, “where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7 NLT), Abraham was able to confidently answer, “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8 NLT). His answer did not necessarily mean he believed God was going to provide a replacement or stand-in for his son, but that he trusted God fully and completely in what He was asking him to do. Later on in this same letter, in chapter 11, the Great Hall of Faith, the author will explain more fully what was going on in Abraham’s mind at that moment.

It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead. – Hebrews 11:17-19 NLT

Abraham trusted in the character of God. He knew he could trust God and that even if he had to go through with the sacrifice of Isaac, God was powerful enough to raise his son from the dead. God was going to fulfill His promise and Isaac was key to that happening. When Abraham had shown God that he was willing to obey His command fully, God intervened. He sent an angel to stop Abraham from killing Isaac and provided a ram as a substitute sacrifice. Then God said to Abraham, “Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:16-18 NLT). In swearing by His own name, God was emphasizing that His promises were based on His very nature or character. He is trustworthy, faithful, unchanging, powerful, and loving. He can be trusted. “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” (Numbers 23:19 NLT). “If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is. ” (2 Timothy 2:13 NLT). 

God had made a promise and an oath. These two unchangeable things were the basis of Abraham’s hope. He kept waiting and relying upon the promise of God that had been sealed with the oath of God. He knew His God could be trusted to fulfill all that He had promised. And that is the author’s message to us. Because it is impossible for God to lie, “we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. ” (Hebrews 6:18-19 NLT). We have been promised eternal life through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. We have placed our hope and faith in Him as the means by which we can inherit eternal life. But we must maintain our confidence even in times of testing. We must keep hoping in the promise made to us by God through His Son. Periods of spiritual barrenness should not defeat us. Delays as to His return should not demoralize us. God has promised and He can be trusted, because He does not lie. We have a firm anchor for our souls, even in the storms of life. Jesus, our high priest, has gone on ahead of us and He intercedes for us with God the Father on a daily basis. He is the anchor to which our souls must hold firm, no matter what happens around us. He not only saved us, He is sanctifying us, and one day He will return to redeem and glorify us.

This passage always brings to mind the words of an old hymn. It sums up well the message found in this passage.

In times like these you need a Savior In times like these you need an anchor; Be very sure, be very sure Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock! This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He's the One; This Rock is Jesus, the only One! Be very sure, be very sure Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

Our Faithful God.

 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree. – Romans 11:16-24 ESV Dough. Firstfruits. Olive trees. Roots. Broken branches. What is Paul’s point in all of this? What is he trying to tell us? We must remember that he has been talking about the current and future fate of Israel. God had chosen them as His special possession. But they had rejected Jesus as their Messiah. As a result, they were passed over by God and His message of salvation was taken to the Gentiles. And yet, God had chosen for some Jews to believe in Jesus as their Messiah and form a remnant, a sort of firstfruits or offering that would consecrate or make holy the rest of the nation. Paul was using a reference to the command of God given to the Israelites as they prepared to enter the land of promise. He told them, “When you arrive in the land where I am taking you, and you eat the crops that grow there, you must set some aside as a sacred offering to the Lord. Present a cake from the first of the flour you grind, and set it aside as a sacred offering, as you do with the first grain from the threshing floor. Throughout the generations to come, you are to present a sacred offering to the Lord each year from the first of your ground flour” (Numbers 15:18-21 NLT). In his commentary on Romans, Donald Grey Barnhouse explains:

In order to understand this we must first realize that throughout the Old Testament the word “holy” has a special meaning. In the Old Testament “holy” means “separated from profane uses, consecrated to God.” In the use of the allusion as found in our text, Paul is saying that if the whole nation of Israel was originally set apart for God by the call of Abraham and the giving of the covenant promises to him, then the individuals of the race of Abraham also have a special relationship to God. This does not mean that they are personally holy, for some of them are even accursed; but it does mean that the members of the ancient race have been chosen by God and they will be brought to fulfill His purposes. – Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans

The nation of Israel was holy to God. He had set them apart, not because of anything they had done or deserved, but simply out of His sovereign will. Moses had made this perfectly clear to them. “For you are a holy people, who belong to the Lord your God. Of all the people on earth, the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure. The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations! Rather, it was simply that the Lord loves you, and he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8 NLT). And in Paul’s day, because God was bringing some Jews to faith, they were evidence of God’s continuing favor upon the nation of Israel. He had not completely abandoned them. In fact, Paul goes on to stress the non-debatable necessity of the nation of Israel in the grand scheme of God.

He switches analogies and begins to talk about trees, root and branches. He specifically refers to the olive tree, which was representative of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament (Hosea 14:4-6; Jeremiah 11:16-17). The root to which Paul refers most likely represents Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. He had been hand-picked by God and ordained to be the father of the nation of Israel and the means by which God would bless the nations of the world. From Abraham, the root, came the trunk and the branches of Israel. And because Abraham was holy and set apart for God, so was the rest of the tree. But some of the branches of that tree had been broken off by God. And the branches from “wild” or uncultivated olive trees were grafted in. Gentiles were made a part of the family of God, not because they deserved it, but out of the mercy and kindness of God. And Paul reminds the Gentiles, “remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you” (Romans 11:18 ESV). Our faith as believing Gentiles is dependent upon the promises of God made to Abraham. We are not better or superior than the Jews. And we are not to look down our noses in pride at unbelieving Jews. In fact, Paul would have us see our position as one with them. He told the believers in Ephesus, “So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family” (Ephesians 2:19 NLT).

God is not done with Israel. He has not abandoned them. If He can graft in to the root of Abraham branches from “wild” olive trees, He can certainly graft back in those branches that have broken off. In fact, Paul states, “And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again” (Romans 11:23 ESV). God’s promises to Israel still stand and He will fulfill them all – in His time and according to His perfect will. God’s unwavering faithfulness to Israel should encourage us. It is a reminder of just how loving, faithful and trustworthy our God really is. What He says, He will do. What He promises, He will ensure takes place. His decision to take the gospel to the Gentiles was not a plan B. It was not done because the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah. It was all part of God’s overall, sovereign and perfect plan A. Everything is working according to that plan. He is blessing all the nations of the earth through the offspring of Abraham, and one day He is going to bless the nation of Israel by sending His Son again and setting up His Kingdom on earth in Jerusalem and reestablishing His chosen people to their rightful place.

God's Amazing Grace.

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God's reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. – Romans 11:1-6 ESV Is God done with Israel? Has their rejection of His Son as their Messiah put them on His permanent “naughty” list and denied them of any opportunity to be restored to a right relationship with Him? Paul would say confidently and emphatically, “No!” And he used himself as living proof. If God was done with Israel, Paul would never have come to know Christ as His Savior. And Paul goes on to argue that he and the other believing Jews in his audience were not the last of their kind. He used the story of the prophet, Elijah to drive home his point. Elijah had defeated the prophets of Baal and, as a result, come under the wrath of the wicked queen, Jezebel. She put a bounty on his head and Elijah was forced to run for his life. When God confronted Elijah and asked him what he was doing, Elijah responded: “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10 ESV). Two times in the narrative, Elijah and God had this conversation. Then God informed him, “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:18 ESV). In other words, God knew something Elijah didn’t know. He was not the last man standing. He was not alone. There were others who, like Elijah, had refused to abandon God.  

And Paul’s conclusion was, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5 ESV). While the majority of Israel had rejected Jesus as their Messiah, there were some who had chosen to not only recognize Him, but accept Him as their Savior. And Paul couldn’t help but reemphasize that their salvation was the result of grace, not works. The very existence of this faithful remnant in Paul’s day was proof that God had not abandoned His people. He was not done with them yet. And Paul will go on in this chapter to explain what God has planned for His people in the future. Chapters 9-11 go hand in hand. In chapter nine, Paul revealed God’s past grace in dealing with Israel by His sovereign selection of them as His people. In chapter ten, Paul dealt with the present reality of Israel’s refusal to respond to God’s provision of grace as revealed through His Son’s death. And finally, in chapter eleven, Paul outlined God’s future plans for Israel.

The picture Paul paints is one of God’s grace. While the people of Israel never deserved God’s favor, He showered them with it nonetheless. Over the centuries, they proved to be unfaithful and disobedient time and time again, but God never fully abandoned them. Even after sending them into exile for their rebellion, He graciously and mercifully restored them to the land. He kept a remnant alive and placed them back in Jerusalem so that He might one day fulfill His promise to bring forth a descendant of David and place Him on the throne of Israel. There are future plans concerning Israel that have yet to be fulfilled. At the present time, they are experiencing a temporary state of rejection or by God. But as Paul will explain later in this same chapter, that will one day change. Their rejection of Christ as their Messiah opened up the door for the gospel to be shared with non-Jews, “those who are not a nation” (Romans 10:19 ESV). God made the good news regarding salvation in Jesus available to “those who did not seek me” (Romans 10:20 ESV).

And those of us who have discovered the grace of God made possible through the death of Christ have much to be grateful for. We were totally undeserving of God’s favor, and yet He provided a way for us to be made right with Him. Paul emphasized this incredible reality to the believers in Ephesus when he wrote, “Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called ‘uncircumcised heathens’ by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:11-13 NLT).

Paul told the believers in the city of Colossae, “you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault” (Colossians 1:21-22 NLT). As Gentiles or non-Jews, we have much to be grateful for. And we must never forget that if God had not chosen Abraham and given him Isaac as his son, if He had not chosen Jacob over Esau, if He had not chosen David over Saul, and if He had not chosen to send His Son through the nation of Israel – we would not be here. God is good and God is gracious. He is sovereign over all. He knows what He is doing and He is not yet done with Israel. Their rejection of Him has not caused Him to reject them, because He is faithful, loving and true. He will accomplish all that He has promised for them. In His time and according to His plan.

Fully Convinced.

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 unbelief 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. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. – Romans 4:18-25 ESV Belief does not come without its obstacles. It does not go unopposed or unchallenged. The author of Hebrews gives us great working definition: “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT). It is not a timid thing. It is not half-in kind of a commitment. It requires confidence and assurance, both of which must be firmly placed in God, not the thing for which we are hoping. Earlier in chapter four, Paul wrote, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3 ESV). Paul was quoting from the Old Testament account found in Genesis 15, where God promised Abraham, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5 ESV). And it says that Abraham believed God. He took Him at His word. But Abraham had plenty of reasons to doubt God. He had just offered an alternative plan, suggesting that God consider using one of his male servants as his heir. The problem, as Abraham saw it, was that he was old and his wife was barren. He believed that God was going to do what He had promised, but he just wasn't sure how. That is why Paul says, “in hope he believed against hope.” The New Living Translation puts it this way: “Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations.”

Abraham had every reason to doubt. His situation and circumstances shouted out to him daily, “This is hopeless!” All he had to do was take a look around and the evidence would suggest that God's promise was nothing more than a dream. Yet Paul says, “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)” (Romans 4:19 ESV). As long as Abraham looked at his circumstances, he would find himself doubting. But his faith was in something else. Even when he considered the fact that his wife was barren, rather than conclude that God's promise was null and void, Paul says, “no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God.” Instead, “he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God” (Romans 4:20 ESV). He was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:21 ESV). His faith was in God. His confidence was in the source of the promise. And Paul says, “this is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:22 ESV).

Martin Luther wrote, “Faith is something that is arduous and difficult. First, it is directed to what a person does not see; indeed, to the very opposite of what one perceives. It seems utterly impossible” (Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans). Abraham grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. There is a reciprocal nature to our faith. When we believe and trust in God, He is glorified. And as we believe in Him, our faith is strengthened as we see Him work in ways we could never have imagined. Placing our faith in God provides us with front row seats in which to watch Him work. To believe God is to glorify God. Trusting God increases our faith in God. When we trust Him in spite of the circumstances swirling around us and the doubts welling up within us, we get to see God work. As a result, our faith in Him grows stronger.

Abraham's faith was in God. Yes, he believed the promise of God, but his faith in the promise was based on the faithfulness of the one who had made the promise. He knew that God was good for it. He would come through. He was fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. And Paul uses the faith of Abraham as an illustration of the kind of faith we are to have. We are to place our faith in God and His gospel message, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16 ESV). And when we “believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification,” our faith is counted to us as righteousness. It is our faith in God and His ability to save us through His Son's death, burial and resurrection that results in His declaration of our righteousness. We are saved by faith. And while the world will constantly strive to cause us to doubt the veracity of God's words and to question the reality of the gospel message, we must remain fully convinced and unwaveringly confident in the one who stands behind the promise. Our circumstances will stand against us. The evidence will not be in our favor. Our hopes will begin to waver. But like Abraham, in hope we must believe against hope, and believe that God is able to do what He has promised.