Bulletins - Keystone Presbyterian Church

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Gloria Patri
Doxology
When the promise and the circumstances do not match
It is one thing to trust God while you are waiting for something. It is another thing to trust Him when the very thing you waited for seems about to be taken away.
You have prayed. You have waited. Then circumstances change, and you find yourself asking, “Lord, how does this fit with what You have said?”
Throughout Hebrews 11, we have seen that faith is not about how strongly you believe. Faith is about whom you believe. Last time, Abraham and Sarah showed us how to live on God’s promise while we wait.
Today we follow that promise through four generations: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Their circumstances differed, but each trusted the same faithful God, and none lived to see His promise completely fulfilled.
That is why their stories speak so directly to us. We often measure God’s faithfulness by what is happening right now, and when life becomes painful or confusing, we begin to wonder whether He is still keeping His Word.
Hebrews points us back to the God who made the promise. We can trust Him even when we cannot see how He will fulfill it.
Let’s hear God’s Word from Hebrews 11, verses 17 through 22.
Hebrews 11:17–22 CSB
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promises and yet he was offering his one and only son, 18 the one to whom it had been said, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 19 He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking. 20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. 21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. 22 By faith Joseph, as he was nearing the end of his life, mentioned the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions concerning his bones.
The word of God.
With that promise before us, we begin with Abraham, whose test concerned the very son through whom God had said the promise would continue.
1. Abraham trusts God when he is tested
Verses 17 through 19 take us back to Genesis 22, when God tested Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac.
Remember who Isaac was. Abraham and Sarah had waited years for this son. By the time he was born, they were too old to have a child by their own strength. Isaac was living evidence that God could do what they could never do for themselves.
God had tied His promised future to Isaac: “Your offspring will be traced through Isaac.” Through this son would come Abraham’s descendants, the promised land, and blessing for the nations.
Then came a command that seemed to place God’s own Word in jeopardy.
We should not hurry past the weight of that. Isaac was a beloved son. Abraham’s obedience was costly. Faith did not make him less of a father, and trusting God did not make Isaac less precious.
Hebrews calls Isaac Abraham’s one and only son. Abraham also had Ishmael, but Isaac occupied a unique place in the family: Abraham could not choose another son as though God’s purposes were interchangeable.
So how could Abraham obey? Verse 19 gives us the answer: “He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead.”
Notice that word “considered.” Abraham thought about what God had said. And he thought about who God is. God had promised that the family line would continue through Isaac. God would not go back on His Word. Even if Isaac died, God had the power to raise him and keep His promise.
Abraham did not know all that would happen on the mountain. He did not have an explanation for every step. But he knew that the God who had given Isaac could keep His promise concerning Isaac.
Genesis tells us that God stopped Abraham and provided a ram to be offered in Isaac’s place. Isaac did not actually die. Hebrews says Abraham received him back figuratively, as though from death. The son whose life had been surrendered was given back by the mercy of God.
That trust did not lessen the cost of obedience, but it anchored Abraham when the path made no sense.
Abraham’s test was unique, and this passage does not give us permission to treat a strong feeling as God’s command or to repeat what Abraham was told to do. Faith responds to God’s revealed Word; it does not invent a test and call recklessness obedience. Yet Abraham’s experience still prepares us for a truth we know in ordinary life: obeying what God has clearly said may cost us something we desperately want to keep.
You may know that you need to tell the truth, while fearing what honesty will cost you. You may need to turn from a sinful relationship, while wondering how you will bear the loneliness. You may need to refuse a dishonest opportunity, even though you cannot see another way to get ahead.
In those moments, faith does not tell us exactly what will happen next. God has not promised that obedience will immediately make life easier. But He has promised that those who belong to Christ are His. He will not abandon them. He will fulfill His purposes for them.
We must be careful here. “God will keep His promise” does not mean “God will give me the outcome I have pictured.” Our plans may change. Some losses will remain losses throughout this life. Even then, God is faithful. His promise still stands.
And if you are frightened, you do not have to wait until you feel fearless before you obey. Bring the fear to God. Ask Him for help. Take the next step that His Word makes clear.
Abraham teaches us to say, “I do not understand how this will work, but I know God will keep His Word.”
Now Hebrews shows us Isaac trusting God with the future of his family.
2. Isaac looks toward the future
“By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.”
That is a brief statement about a complicated family. In Genesis, we read about favoritism, deception, and conflict. Hebrews does not excuse any of that. It points to Isaac’s faith as he looked ahead to what God would do.
Isaac’s blessing concerned “things to come.” He was speaking about a future beyond his own lifetime. The God who had made His promise to Abraham would continue His work after Isaac was gone.
That takes humility. We like to see things completed. We want the difficulty resolved. We want to know that our loved ones are settled, and that the work we have given ourselves to has made a difference.
But God has never promised that we will see everything finished before our part is done.
Think of someone who plants a tree knowing that other people will enjoy most of its shade. The planting still matters. Its value is not limited to what the planter gets to see.
That picture captures much of ordinary Christian faithfulness. A parent opens the Bible with a child. A Sunday school teacher explains the gospel again. A church member quietly encourages a younger believer. An older Christian prays for the congregation that will still be gathering after he or she is gone. Like the planter, each one serves in hope while leaving the full growth to God.
We may see some fruit. We may see very little. God calls us to be faithful with the opportunities He gives us, and to entrust what comes next to Him.
Some of you have prayed for a child or grandchild for many years. That prayer carries a deep ache. God has not promised a particular outcome for every person we love. But we can keep praying, speaking truth in love, and entrusting them to Him.
You can keep showing them what repentance and dependence on Christ look like. You do not have to carry the burden of controlling their future.
The future belongs to God. His kingdom will not collapse when our strength runs out. Christ will build His church. He will gather His people. Everything God has promised in Christ will reach its appointed fulfillment.
Isaac’s faith reminds us that God’s work extends beyond the span of one life.
We live faithfully today because the God of tomorrow is already trustworthy.
In Jacob, we see that same confidence expressed in blessing and worship as death draws near.
3. Jacob worships at life’s end
“By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.”
Here is an old man whose strength is nearly gone. He leans on a staff. Yet he is still blessing, still looking forward, still worshiping.
If you know Jacob’s story, you know how much grace is contained in that picture. Jacob had been a schemer. His family had suffered through deception, rivalry, separation, and grief. For years he believed Joseph was dead. His life had included wounds he had caused and wounds he had endured.
Yet Jacob’s failures had not put him beyond God’s mercy. God had continued to discipline him, provide for him, and keep His promise.
When Jacob blessed Joseph’s sons, he remembered God as the One who had shepherded him all his life. Looking back, he could see more than his own striving. He could see how God had cared for him.
God’s faithfulness was greater than Jacob’s failures. Grace did not make his sin harmless or all his actions right, but it sustained him through discipline, loss, and weakness. So now, with little strength left in his body, Jacob worshiped.
There is something deeply encouraging about that. We live in a world that often measures a person by productivity. What can you accomplish? How much can you contribute? How independent can you remain?
Those questions can become painful when age or illness takes away abilities you once enjoyed. You may no longer be able to serve as you once did. You may need help with things you used to do without thinking. You may wonder whether you still have anything to offer.
Look at Jacob. Hebrews does not pass him by because he needs a staff. It holds him before the church as an example of faith.
Your dependence on other people does not make you less precious to God. Your weakness does not make worship less meaningful. A quiet prayer from a hospital bed is still prayer. Trust expressed through tears is still trust. Gratitude spoken with a trembling voice is still worship.
And even when illness makes it hard to speak or think clearly, God still holds His people. Our hope at life’s end does not depend on giving a perfect final testimony. It rests on our Savior.
For those of us who still have strength, Jacob raises a question: what are we learning to do with our lives now?
If we want to grow old trusting God, we should be learning to trust Him today. If we want those who follow us to remember His faithfulness, we should be speaking of His faithfulness now. Let them hear us confess our sins. Let them see us seek forgiveness. Let them know that our hope is in Christ.
Some of us look backward and see so much we wish we could change. Jacob’s story gives no excuse for our failures, but it gives us reason to come to God with them. There is mercy for sinners in Christ. There is grace for the years that remain.
Jacob leaned on his staff, but his hope rested in God. The Lord who had shepherded him through life would not forsake him at its end.
Jacob blessed his family near the end of his life; Joseph gave final instructions near the end of his. Both men spoke words of faith that outlived them.
4. Joseph trusts God beyond death
Hebrews passes over Joseph’s betrayal, slavery, imprisonment, rise to authority, and work of saving lives during the famine. Instead, it presents him near the end of his life, speaking about Israel’s departure from Egypt and giving instructions about his bones.
Yet the example here is a dying man giving burial instructions.
Why does that matter? Because those instructions revealed where Joseph’s confidence lay.
Joseph had found influence and security in Egypt. His family had found food there. But Egypt was not the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Before he died, Joseph told his family that God would come to their aid. He would bring them to the land He had sworn to give them. And when that happened, they were to take Joseph’s bones with them.
Joseph was making a statement about God. “I will die here, but God’s promise will not die with me. When He brings you out, take me with you.”
By tying his burial to Israel’s departure, Joseph turned his own body into a witness: Egypt was not the end of God’s story for His people.
And Scripture tells us that God kept His Word. When the Israelites left Egypt, Moses took Joseph’s bones with him. Those bones were eventually buried in the promised land. Joseph had been right to trust God.
Joseph’s burial instructions carried Israel’s hope forward to the exodus and led us naturally toward Moses, whom we will meet in the next part of Hebrews 11. They also confront us with our own limitation: we will not remain here forever. We will leave work unfinished and people in God’s care, but Christians can face that reality with hope.
Abraham believed that God could raise the dead. We look back to the resurrection of Jesus and know that He has. Our Savior entered death and came out victorious. He promises resurrection life to His people.
That does not make grief unreal. We feel the absence of those we love. We mourn. But in Christ, death cannot cancel the future God has promised us.
Joseph’s bones were a testimony that his story was not finished in Egypt. Christ’s empty tomb assures us that the story of His people will not finish in the grave.
Trust the God who made the promise
Abraham trusted under testing. Isaac looked toward the future. Jacob worshiped at life’s end. Joseph trusted God beyond death.
Different circumstances, different needs, the same faithful God.
Each of these four men leaves us a question to carry home, and each question asks us to entrust to God what lies beyond our sight or control.
Where are you finding it difficult to trust what God has promised? Bring that struggle to Him honestly. His faithfulness does not depend on whether you see the answer this month.
What are you planting that you may not see grow? Keep planting. Keep opening the Bible. Keep praying. Keep showing up. The harvest may belong to someone else’s lifetime.
Are you closer to the end than the beginning? Ask God to help you trust Him in these years and to encourage others through your faith.
And are you facing death—yours or someone you love? Let Joseph’s confidence lead you to Christ. Death does not get the final word. Jesus does.
The four men did not earn God’s favor by great faith; they were upheld by grace, and the promise was secure because the God who made it was faithful. On Abraham’s mountain, God provided a substitute and Isaac was spared. At the cross, God gave His own Son for sinners. Jesus willingly bore the judgment we deserved so that we could be forgiven and brought to God, and His resurrection declares His victory.
If you have never trusted Him, you do not have to become strong enough or good enough to deserve salvation. Come to Christ with your sin and your need. Ask Him for the mercy you cannot provide for yourself. He is a sufficient Savior.
And for all of us who are struggling to trust Him today, we do not have to pretend our burdens are small. Bring them to the Lord. Open His Word and listen again to what He has actually promised. Ask for grace to obey today and to leave tomorrow in His hands.
Four men. Four graves. One promise that outlasted them all.
Faith is not about how strongly you believe; faith is about whom you believe. Jesus Christ is faithful. The One who gave Himself for His people will keep them, fulfill every promise, and bring them home.
Let’s pray.
Father, we confess that we often want to see the whole path before we trust You with the next step. Forgive us for measuring Your faithfulness by our circumstances. Thank You for keeping Your promises and for giving us Your Son. Strengthen those who are being tested. Help us entrust our families and our future to You. Sustain those whose strength is failing, and fill us with the hope of the resurrection. Teach us to obey, to worship, and to rest in Jesus Christ, who will bring His people home. In His name we pray. Amen.
- - Hebrews 11:17–22CSB

1. Abraham trusts God when he is tested

2. Isaac looks toward the future

3. Jacob worships at life’s end

4. Joseph trusts God beyond death

Trust the God who made the promise

Hebrews 11:17–22CSB