Abraham and the Growth of Faith
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Welcome to the Gospel in Life podcast. We all strive to live with stability and balance in the face of the challenges life brings. It's natural to want poise and strength when we deal with adversity or uncertainty. Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller shows us how a life of faith in Christ is the key to facing the challenges and adversity in life.

After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. I think as it starts to get colder, it's good to talk about suffering and troubles and winter. There's a question that always...

the subject of many, many self-help books and all the talk shows. It's a subject of many conversations on the commuter train. How do you face life? How do you keep your equilibrium? How do you keep your stand when life is really coming at you with all sorts of troubles, throwing you all sorts of curveballs? How can you live a life of power no matter what? How can you live a life of

of stability and equilibrium and courage and poise no matter what comes at you. How do you live a life of power? In terms of religion, that's the same thing as asking the question, how do you live a life of faith? And there's one guy in the history of the world who is preeminently an example of a life of faith or a life of power. In fact, he is so unique that there are three religions, I don't think there's anybody else about whom this can be said,

There are three religions that all look to him as the paragon of faith. Three religions that all look to him as the father of the faith. The perfect example of what it means to really live a life of faith. The guy's name is Abraham. And Judaism and Christianity and Islam, three religions all look to him as a father and as a paragon, as a paradigm of faith.

That's pretty unusual, especially when you consider Christianity and Islam are the number one, number two religions in terms of adherence, number of adherence in the world. And so what I'd like to do is I would like to just read you three verses out of his life. And I'd like to draw out some of the principles that we learn from this man's life because the things that life sent him and the way he was able to master them and the way he was able to address them and meet them are examples for us.

His whole life, of course, is described in the book of Genesis. It starts from about chapter 12 and goes all the way, I think, to chapters 25 and 26. There's a little summary of his life in the New Testament, and I'm going to read you three verses out of Hebrews 11. And that's where it says, "...by faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."

By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Okay, what do we learn? Number one, well, let me give you a little bit of background on Abraham. Ironically, every time God showed up and spoke to him, he had a crisis.

The first time God comes to him and says, I'm going to ask you to leave your land where you live now. He lived in Ur of the Chaldees, which is on the western end of the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent. And he was very happy there and his family had been there for years and he was part of a prominent family. He was in a comfortable situation. He was in a comfortable culture and God asked him to leave. Called him to leave. He says, I'll take you to another land. And he didn't even tell him where the land was at first. He says, just leave.

In the King James Version of the Bible, it says, And God appeared to Abraham and said, Get out. That's what God says, right? Great introduction. Hi, I'm the Lord God. Get out. The second great crisis happened in Genesis 15 when God appears to Abraham and says, I'm going to give you this land, this land I've called you to. I'm going to give it to you. Yet, throughout Abraham's entire life, and it's mentioned here,

There was never a place at which he ever had an opportunity to settle down. There was never an opportunity in his whole life to even own a foot of land. He was continually living in tents on other people's land, even though God had said, I'm going to give you a place to settle down. I'm going to give you a land. A third big crisis came when God appeared to him and said, I'm going to give you a son out of your loins and out of your wife's body. But at the time, Abraham and his wife Sarah were in their 90s. And God says, I'm going to do it. Just wait.

And it went years and years before it happened. And finally, when they did have a son, God shows up one day, this is in Genesis 22, and says, now I would like you to slay your son. Now, so in other words, here's the story of Abram's life. And God said, get out. And Abram said, where? And God says, I'll tell you later. Just go. And the Lord said, I will give you this land. And Abram said, when? And God said, I'll tell you later. Just wander around in tents.

And the Lord said, I will give you a son. And Abraham said, and God said, I'll tell you later. Just wait around. And the Lord said, slay your son. And Abraham said, why? And God said, I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later. Just walk up the hill with him. Take the knife. I'll tell you in time. And every time Abraham goes out

and masters the situation. Now, if you read the whole narrative, you'll find out, of course, that he fell down a number of times. But the point was that you might say, well, God doesn't appear to me like that. But look at a person's life. Look at a person's life again and again. Inexplicable calls, difficult circumstances, unbelievably confusing, incomprehensible tragedies, one after another. If you haven't had them yet, you haven't lived very long. That's all.

And Abraham, however, lived a big life because in the face of it, he mastered these circumstances. The circumstances didn't master him. He governed life. Life didn't govern him. Now, how? All right. Now, three principles. Number one, he heard the call of God. Number two, he obeyed the call of God. And number three, he looked to the city with foundations. Let me just briefly explain what those three things are. That's what we get out of the Bible text. First of all, he heard the call. God comes to him and says, get out. Get out.

Now, let me suggest to you for a moment that you will never lead this big life, this masterful life, unless you hear the call. In fact, I'll go a little further. You won't be a Christian. Those of you who say, well, I've been raised in a church and I must be a Christian. Well, here's a way for you to tell. You're not even a Christian unless you hear this call. What is the call? The call of God is something that comes in and disturbs you and makes you think about your whole life.

We're all natural imitators. If you ever have to take a course in child development in college, they'll show you that we've got a natural imitation apparatus inside us. That's how we learn. We imitate what we see around ourselves. We pick on models and we do it from the very earliest stages of development. And so it's just natural that when you come up in life, you do what everybody says is the things that people like you do.

It depends on what your crowd is. You know, I noticed that street kids make fun of the kids who get good grades and the kids who get good grades make fun of the street kids. And your parents said this is the way people like us do things and you tend to come up and you just get into the flow. But the call of God comes and the call of God can come in a thousand ways. It can come through an illness or a tragedy. It can come through a book. It can come through a friend. It can come through a thousand ways. But the call of God always comes and makes you ask, why am I doing what I'm doing? What does it all mean?

I don't want to just do things to do things. What does it all mean? What is it for? Here's Abraham living a comfortable life. The call of God takes him into a whole new culture. Here's Moses living the life of a nobleman, living the life in the center of power. He identifies with the slaves and the poor and goes out. What happened? They were just going with the flow, but they heard the call of God and they thought about it. What does it all mean?

One example I often use, and I use it so often that I finally decided about a month ago, I better make sure I was using it right. One of those things where you've read years ago and you keep using it and you wonder whether or not you're distorting it. I went back and did a little research. In fact, I'm sure I've used it in here too, but when I went back and looked at the whole story, it was quite intriguing. One of the great preachers of the 20th century is a British guy named David Martin Lloyd-Jones, and

One of the more unusual things about him was before he was a preacher, he was a rising young medical doctor, star. He was on a track to really be at the top of the heap. In the 1920s, he was a young star, a protege of one of the chiefs of medicine at St. Bart's Hospital in London, which is the oldest and great prestigious place. And something came and disturbed him and made him decide to leave medicine and go into the ministry.

And this is what happened. He knew a man in St. Bart's Hospital who was a chief, one of the chiefs of medicine. If you were a chief of medicine at St. Bart's Hospital, the world was your oyster. British society was your oyster. Everything was great for you. Lloyd-Jones knew that this man had been dating a woman, and he also knew that this woman unexpectedly took ill and died. And just a few days after that happened, Lloyd-Jones was in his chambers or his quarters there at the hospital, his room,

And this man unexpectedly showed up at his door. Now, ordinarily, these kinds of guys, the chiefs of medicine, did not show up where the young residents lived. But he showed up at Lloyd-Jones' door and he says, could I come in and just sit by your fire? Because they all had fireplaces in their rooms. Lloyd-Jones says, fine. And he went over and he sat down in a corner, obviously wanting to get away from anybody else. And Lloyd-Jones says, he sat there at that fire and he looked in that fire and he never said a word or took his eyes off the fire for two hours.

Two hours. And Lloyd-Jones said, as he watched that, he said, it had a profound effect on me. I saw the vanity of all human greatness. Now, what is the call? What does the call mean? Abraham looked to the city with foundations, which means the call of God is something that comes in and shows you that nothing in this world has foundations.

What gives you the greatness, as I'm going to try to keep showing you, what gives you the ability to be courageous, what gives you the ability to risk, what gives you the ability to be free in this life, is to first of all come to the radical and profound understanding that nothing in this world has any foundations. Nothing here is secure. Nothing lasts. Let me give you some examples. For example, this world has got, well, let me start at the bottom. This world's got no physical foundations. A hundred years ago,

After Western, you know, the Western intelligentsia got rid of the idea of God and they decided as a result matter must have been eternally here.

And so they believed that matter was solid. Now we know that nothing is solid. The world doesn't have physical foundations. Everything is energy in motion. What is an atom? It's not solid. It's energy in motion. The Big Bang Theory, which is the reigning theory of how the world started, is that there was an explosion. And the reason we've got matter is because the universe is expanding. And as it cooled, we got matter. But the universe is unraveling. It's winding down. Eventually, it will completely come apart.

When Peter said in 2 Peter, he says, the elements shall melt with a fervent heat. The elements shall melt with a fervent heat. He was just anticipating 20th century physics 2,000 years ago. How can you be sure of anything if the very universe is unraveling so eventually everything is coming apart and anything that you do or accomplish will be completely forgotten because there won't even be anybody around to remember. But let's go a little further. The world has no intellectual foundations.

Here's what I mean by that. No intellectual foundations. Nothing here has foundations. Look at the ways in which Christianity, for example, has been attacked. A hundred years ago, it was attacked terribly on the basis of a philosophy that we can call the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment believed that human nature was basically good, that reason and science, empirical investigation, would solve all our problems, and that inevitably human beings and civilization would progress to higher and higher realms. That was the Enlightenment, see? Trust in the infallibility of reason and science and in the inevitability of human progress. And on the basis of that philosophy, Christianity was attacked as utterly pessimistic and anti-human and so forth.

Today, Christianity is every bit as attacked as it was 100 years ago. But the same people who attack it now utterly repudiate and ridicule the Enlightenment. In other words, the critics of Christianity today utterly ridicule the critics of Christianity of 100 years ago. Why? And the critics of 100 years ago ridiculed the critics of 100 years before that.

If you're hostile to Christianity today, if today you have a lot of doubts about the whole idea that there could be a God or the Bible could be true or Jesus could be the Son of God, you've got to keep in mind that the people are going to laugh at you. In other words, the next generation of critics are going to ridicule anything that you have written today. Fifty years from now, you're going to be a laughingstock. A hundred years from now, you're going to be a laughingstock. Why? Everything is crumbling.

Now, you know, I can read Augustine's. I can read the Christian works from 1,000 years ago, 400 years ago, and I can see these. You see, the Christianity doesn't crumble because it's not from this world. It's not changing. But the intellectual foundations of the world are constantly crumbling, constantly changing because they don't work. Well, let me go a little further. Instead of thinking corporately, look at the things that you, 10 years ago, thought were cool and smart. And now you look back and you say, well, I really made some stupid mistakes. You know why? Why?

Your perceptions are in flux. Your wisdom is in flux. The intellectual structures of the world are in flux. This world has no foundations. You can't say, now that I'm 45, I know what's true. Now I know. When you're 55, you'll think when you're 45 that you were just really, in many ways, very immature, very silly.

In 1990, you can't say, now we know, you see, why Christianity isn't true. That's what they said in 1890. And now we're laughing at the things that people said in 1890. This world has no foundations. It has no physical foundations. It has no intellectual foundations. You can't settle down and say, this is my security. It's going. It's unraveling. It's crumbling, no matter what it is.

There's no greater hope for you today than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, His resurrection is the key to understanding the whole Bible and the greatest resource we have for facing the challenges of life. Discover how to anchor your life in the meaning of the resurrection by reading Tim Keller's book, Hope in Times of Fear, The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter.

Hope in Times of Fear is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's redemptive love with people all over the world. Just visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. This world doesn't have any psychological foundations. What does it mean when they say you can't go home? You can't keep going.

Your friends together, especially not in New York. You know, just as when you get a good group of people, they're gone. You can't keep your family together, even if you have a good family, even if you don't get a divorce. Even if your kids sort of turn out all right, they still leave. They're gone. You can't keep anything together that is a psychological bottom for you. The other day I was reading an interview with a supermodel. I think, I forget which one it was, but anyway, she was saying, you know, you can't keep your waistline together.

She was saying, she says, I'm 26 and I'm a size 6. And I'm just getting ready. I know the way things are. She says, when I'm 36, I'll be a size 10. And I've just got to get ready for that. She says, I've got friends of mine. I've seen women who get absolutely devastated when that happens to them. And I'm not going to be devastated. Now, you know, this is a bunch of guys in here. We're laughing at that, right? But you see, that's because that's not our foundation. Don't you see?

The reason people get devastated, the reason intellectuals are devastated when they find that the views that they espoused when they got their PhD in the 30s are a laughingstock when they're in their 60s. The reason that the models are devastated because now they're 44. What are they when they're 46, I guess, of size 12? Horrors.

Now, in other words, your perceptions, the choices you made when you're 30s look like idiocy when you're in your 50s. The reason people are being devastated again and again and again is they haven't gotten a hold of this fundamental fact. They haven't heard the call of God. They haven't come to see that everything, culture, acclaim, money, relationships, status, jobs, achievement have no foundations.

They are unraveling. They are not secure. They are not really there. They are no foundation. They are no security. And that's the reason why somebody like Lloyd-Jones suddenly said, and he was on the track. He was going along with everybody else. He said, hey, I'm going my way up to the top of the ladder. He sat down there and he said, wait a minute. What was that? What so shook him? It was the call of God.

And I'm not talking about the call of God to the ministry. I'm not talking about the call of Abraham into another culture, which is sort of like mission work. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the call comes to everybody if you listen. And the call of God is, if there's a God, it's the only, if there's a God, he's the only important thing. See, if there is no God, nothing has foundations. But if there is a God, then my relationship to him is ultimate and is the only important thing. See, it's a complete switch of priorities. Have you heard that call?

See, until you have that call, then the second state, here's the second point. The first point is you have to hear the call of God. That is to see that there's no foundations here. Then the second point was Abraham didn't just hear the call, he obeyed the call. Now, what does it mean to obey the call? It means you start to act as if. See, it's one thing to see that the world has no foundations. It's another thing to act as if it has no foundations. Now, how does that work? It's pretty simple. This is why you master life if you understand it.

I won't mention which corporation this was, partly because I don't want to be... Anyway, you'll see why. There was a Christian man who was the CEO of a major company, and this happened in the early 80s. And that major company was about to be bought out. And so he and most of the members of the board and the high officers stood to make a tremendous amount of money.

And the board came to him and insisted that he essentially cook the books so that they would all make two or three times more money than they would have otherwise if he had presented things with more integrity. He refused. They fired him. Now, you know, at his age, he knew when he did this and he knew when he knew he was going to be fired that he would never make seven figures again. He's not going to get a CEO's job somewhere else.

especially not after what happened. But on top of that, he realized he missed out on everything. He missed out on the golden parachute. He missed out on all the stuff that would have come to him. You know what he said in the aftermath? He says, I never felt so free in my life. You know why? If you think that to be a person of principle, if you think to be a Christian is too costly, if you say, man, if I tell the truth...

If I'm absolutely faithful, if I do all the things, for example, the Bible says, give away my money like that and stand up and identify myself with God and so on, people will laugh at me or I'll lose a lot of money or I will lose a lot of integrity. The only reason you feel that way is you haven't heard the call. You think your money is secure. You think your life is secure. You think your reputation is secure. It's not. These things have no foundation.

And the reason that Abraham, the reason this guy, the CEO, the reason these people are able to stand up no matter what and just live their life and stick with their principles and do what they ought to do is because they've heard the call and they've also obeyed the call. They start to live as if those things are secondary. And so there's where the greatness comes from. Do you see it? Now, I must tell you, though, to be honest, before we get to the last, we're on the transition to the final principle here.

Abraham heard the call and he obeyed the call. But let's admit that this development into the great heart that Abraham was, was a process. Because if you actually go back, and I hope some of you will, just go back to Genesis 12 and read all the way through the end of his life, which is in Genesis 26, I think, when he dies, you will see that he definitely fell down a number of places. He often got the call and he also often was shown...

that this world has no foundations, and he was called by God to live as if God alone was the security and that nothing else was. And there were some times in which he fell down, and the reason for that is that our heart clings to these old false securities, and God has to bring us through a process. Those four calls to Abraham got progressively harder, didn't they?

He called him to see that his culture wasn't really the most important thing. It wasn't a foundation. Don't cling to your culture. He called him out of his culture. He called him out of his family. He called him out of economic security. Finally, he even called him out of his most precious possession, his son. In every case, he was told, get out of it. Get out. Be willing to see that this is not your foundation. Don't be controlled by it anymore.

You must run them. And the only way to see that is that I'm your only security. And so he continually sent crisis into Abraham's life. And he progressively weaned him away so he eventually became a great heart. Now, is that cruel of God? Is it cruel of God? Is it possible it's what's going on in your lives right now, any of you? You know, you see it as just being kind of a cruelty. Why is God letting this happen to me right now? Instead of seeing it as a call to get out.

As a call by God to say, won't you see that the reason that you're so devastated is you've invested your, you know, you've put all the eggs of your heart in this basket. And every basket here on earth has no foundations. You know, there's the story of the lumberjack. Lumberjack comes into a forest area and he's about to cut, he knows that over the next several weeks he's going to cut down every single tree in this particular area. And he sees a mother bird up in a tall tree tree.

starting to make her nest. So what does he do? He goes over and with the flat of his axe starts to hit that tree and hit that tree. Of course, rattles the poor mother bird around, gives her a concussion. She looks down. Why is this person doing this terrible thing to me? Finally, she gets up and goes to another tree. Well, what is the compassionate lumberjack doing? He goes to the next tree and he starts hitting that tree, whacking, whacking. She starts to have another concussion. She looks down. What is this person doing? Who does this person think he is? And so she goes from tree to tree and he follows her

He won't let her go until finally he sees her. Finally fly away from the trees and start to build her nest in the rock. Build her nest on the side of the mountain. And then he leaves her alone. Why? Every tree is coming down. It's not merciful to let people build their nests in the trees. And that's exactly how God is. Was it merciful? Is it cruel of God, for example, to continually go to Abraham and keep rocking the tree that he was in at the time?

A seminary professor years ago, a man who was dying of cancer, once said, all of us are on this little ball of rock called Earth, and we're spinning through space at zillions of miles an hour. And if we don't run into anything, which I guess we always might, it doesn't matter because someday underneath every single one of us, a trap door will open and we will fall off. And underneath will be either the everlasting arms of God or millions of miles of nothing. Which means, don't you see, that if God is your security,

You are truly secure no matter what's going wrong in this world. But if God is not your security, you have no security no matter how good things seem to be going in this world. And it's not cruel of God to show us that. And if he does show us that, and you're willing to hear the call and obey the call instead of just get bitter, you'll become a great heart like Abraham. Now lastly, I've got to say one more thing. Otherwise, I'll give you the impression that hearing and obeying the call of God is a matter of stoicism.

In other words, it would be very easy to say, okay, in other words, I can follow you. I can follow you. If I put all my heart into money or achievement or culture or even my children or my family, I realize that nothing here has foundations and I realize that I've got to figure out what God wants me to do and follow my principles and make that the most important thing. In other words, you can sort of reason it out rationally. It won't be enough, my dear friends. It won't.

It's just too cold. It's too calculating. It's pure ethics. There's no way that it'll really help you in the crucible. It'll never help you in the furnace. But what Abraham did was he didn't just look at life. He looked ahead. What does it say? It says, for he was looking forward to the city whose builder and maker was God. Now, Abraham didn't know too much about what was up there. He knew, he was told by God that one of his descendants was going to come.

and was going to make the world a great place. So he knew about the Messiah in a very general way. Jesus Christ says in John chapter 8, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. So Abraham had a general knowledge, and he looked forward. He knew that something was coming. He had hope on the basis of that. But we know a lot more than Abraham, and here's why. When God calls you to get out, we also know of someone who got out in a much more profound way.

The Bible tells us Jesus Christ, he left his father's throne above, so free, so infinite his grace, emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race. His mercy all immense and free for, oh my God, it found out me. That's one of the hymns. You see, when we are called to get out, meaning if I tell the truth, if I am loving, if I obey God, I'm going to lose some security here. I'm going to lose...

some money here. I'm going to lose some friends here. It's nothing compared to how Jesus got out for you. The Bible tells us Jesus got out. He left the safety of his father's home. He left, eventually on the cross, he left his father's heart. God turned on him as part of the payment for our sins on the cross. He was absolutely stripped of everything.

Which means that a Christian has a situation that even Abraham didn't have. A Christian can think very concretely. A Christian thinks like this. If I'm being called away from my home, if I'm being called away from my money, and if I'm being called away from my family, it's nothing. Nothing. Like the homelessness or the pennilessness or the fatherlessness that Jesus Christ experienced for me.

And he experienced it for me so that I could have a home and I could have money, riches, and I could have a family that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. In other words, a Christian is somebody who says, wait a minute, since the great debt's been paid, all other debts are small things. Since the great disease has been healed, all other diseases are small things.

Since the great romance has been commenced, frankly, all other romances are small things. And since the great home has been paid for, that I'm going to, then all other homes are really less important things. And you become a person of unbelievable stability because you think of what he went through. When you're called to get out, if you're called right now to do something, that to do it right means it's going to cost you, and you're hearing the call to get out, well, what do you do? You think about him.

In one novel, there's a guy who's a Christ figure and he's suffering. Whenever I read this, I hear Jesus speaking from the cross. No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of sun or moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark and there's no veil between me and the fire. That's how Jesus was on the cross.

He left everything. He got out. Nothing that you will ever be called to do will be to the same degree that he was called to do it. And he did it so that when you do and make your sacrifices, you will know that you have been given and guaranteed a home, a father, a wealth with foundations. If you know that, you can face anything. Can you? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, for giving us a model like Abraham.

who because he heard your call and obeyed your call, though he struggled over the years, because he looked forward and rejoiced to see the day of Jesus Christ, we see he became a person who mastered life. We pray that we might also master life, but in the same way that he did. Help us to hear the call and not get bitter. Help us to obey the call and not shrink back. Help us to look forward and

And think about what you've done until we weep with joy and we find that the small things that we have to do really begin to look small in comparison with the greatness of what he did and what he promises to us. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the wisdom of God's word to your life.

For more resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There, you can also subscribe to the Gospel and Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other helpful resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1994. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.