"What is Faith?"
Genesis 25:19-34
February 7, 1999

One last time we read this text both for itself and as introducing the fundamental themes of the material that follows it. We have already considered it as evidence of Isaac's failure and, last Lord's Day morning, as an account of the juxtaposition, the intersection, even the interpenetration of divine sovereignty in man's salvation and, at the same time, man's responsibility for relationship with God through the covenant.

I want to consider this text, finally, as an account of the nature of true faith, of saving faith. It was this faith that Jacob had and Esau did not. We considered that last Lord's Day. I pointed out that Esau, for all his virtues, and he had some and the Bible does not hide the fact, did not identify with the things of God, he did not care about the covenant God had made with his grandfather and father, while Jacob, for all his faults, and the text makes no effort to hide them, did identify with the covenant. But I want this morning to consider the nature of that faith.

And this is what I want to say: before all else, more than anything else, saving faith, Christian faith, if you will, as it is taught here and understood everywhere in the Bible, is a conviction about the future, about how the future will unfold, a confidence that what God has said about things to come is absolutely reliable, sure, certain. Faith is believing a message about the future and then acting in the present on the strength of that belief.

"Faith in its most elementary sense, faith in its first and foundation sense, simply means the reliance placed by one man on the truthfulness and power of another. You make a statement of fact to me or give me a promise and offer an assurance and faith is that state of mind in me to you, that state of mind in me which accepts your statement and relies on your promise." [Whyte, Sermons: 1881-82, 68]

Well God has given us promises and assurances that, by and large, will come to pass, at least in their fulfillment, in completeness, in unmistakable demonstration, only in the future. Faith is that state of mind that takes his Word as true and builds one's life now on the confidence that things will come to pass just as God says. Esau did not have this faith and Jacob did, in exactly the same way and for the same reasons that people do or don't have faith today.

Let me illustrate it in the fashion of one commentator [Waltke, Genesis, Regent College Tapes].

Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born (21:5). Abraham lived 75 years after Isaac was born (25:7). The twin sons were born to Isaac when he was 60 years of age (25:26). That means that Abraham lived 15 years after the birth of Esau and Jacob.

And you can well imagine that grand old man, long beard, hoary white with age, dandling those two little boys on his knees and telling them of the things that had happened in his life, about the birth of their father, miracle that it was, about the battles Abraham had fought, his trip to Egypt, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. This was a culture that repeated family history much more so than we do today. And you can imagine those little boys sitting spell-bound on their grandfather's knee, clamoring to hear more.

But, among all the things that Grandfather Abraham would have told his young grandsons, chief among them was the promise that God had made to him concerning the seed and the land. He would have told them, while they sat on his knees, of how God had promised him that his family would become a great nation and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed, would be saved, through the descendants of Abraham, of which these two boys were a part! He would have looked them in the eyes and said, "You know, Esau and Jacob, that means that God will bless the entire world through you!" And he would have told them about the promise God made to him to give his descendants the land, that whole great land from the River Euphrates to the River of Egypt. It would be some time before they possessed that land -- why the Lord had already told Abraham in Genesis 15 of the 400 years in Egypt -- but God had promised them this land and it would someday all be theirs.

The old man was seeking to instill a vision of the future, of things to come, in the hearts of these little boys, and, no doubt, continued to do so as they grew older and entered their early teens. He wanted them to see their lives in terms of this future, to live in the present a life that was oriented around and built upon this God-given knowledge of how things would come to pass. Well, Jacob embraced that vision, but Esau did not.

And, it is not hard to imagine where the problem was for Esau, for it has been the same problem for vast multitudes ever since. It is always the problem. As he grew older, as he became a young man, and as he began to think for himself, he would have thought such things as these.

"A great nation?" Why there are only two of us boys, and we don't even get along very well! Where is the great nation here? My parents had difficulty conceiving us and no more children have been born since we were born. A great nation? I don't see it. And the land? Why my grandfather lived in this land for 100 years. We've lived in it some years more. And all we own of this land is a cemetery plot, a plot Grandfather bought with his own money! God didn't give it to him; he bought it. We are a small family among much larger and more powerful peoples. I don't see us ever owning our own immediate environs, much less the entire land between Egypt and the Euphrates!

The promise that meant so much to his Grandfather did not seem real to Esau. He couldn't see it. One lives either by faith or by sight, Paul would later write, and Esau lived by what he could see. And what he could see didn't look very much like what his Grandfather told him would someday come to pass. He hadn't the vision of the future that his Grandfather had. He loved his Grandfather Abraham, but the old man was living a pipe dream, pie in the sky by and by.

Remember, this is precisely the way faith is understood and discussed in the great NT chapter on faith, the 11th chapter of Hebrews. In the opening verse of that wonderful and inspiring chapter, faith is defined in just this same way: "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." That is, faith is confidence and assurance that the future will turn out as God has promised and then acting in the present in keeping with that confidence. It is this faith that is then illustrated in the lives of the ancients:

Noah, who when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family;

Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went...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 they were looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Or Moses, who by faith regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward. And so on, throughout that great chapter.

But that was not Esau. He had no such compelling vision of the future dominating his present. His father, Isaac, unfortunately and no doubt unintentionally, but just as really, encouraged him to live in the present without regard to the future, to the outcome of things, and especially to the outcome of God's promise and covenant, by living himself far too much for the present -- for what he could see, and taste, -- in front of his son. Like David centuries later, he probably taught his son passably well, but he undid his teaching with his living, and a father's example is always a more powerful influence upon a boy than a father's teaching.

And it was because he did not have this very definite assurance of things to come living and burning in his heart that Esau made the choices he made -- to marry outside the faith (he did not consider his children's future from the vantage point of covenant faith) and then to live outside the land (he did not see his life as a pilgrimage to heaven, which is what the land stood for and meant to those who had faith). Without this solid conviction about the future as God promised it to be, Esau was left, like the rest of the world, to live for the present, for the pleasures, the satisfactions, the rewards of this present world. His eyes were fixed on the city below, not the city which is above.

But, you see, that is exactly the issue for us today, for all men and women. If there is no such future as the Bible describes, as God has promised in his Word, then, Paul says it plainly: eat, drink, and be merry. We Christians are to be pitied, he admits it; pitied above all men, because we have staked out lives on a future that will not come to pass; we have made sacrifices for rewards that will never be given; we have turned away from the allurements of this world in order to gain a place in a world that does not exist and never will.

But, on the other hand, if the future will come to pass as God has said it will -- the gospel's progress through the world, death, judgment, resurrection, hell, and heaven -- then any life not lived in view of that future, for the sake of that future, in keeping with that future, is a life that is doomed to loss and ruin, however happy and prosperous it may be in this world. That is the Christian claim and that is why faith -- or the whole-souled embrace of this biblical vision of the future -- lies at the heart and center of the Christian life.

It is also why Jesus Christ, our Savior, is called "the guarantee of the New Covenant" (Hebrews 7:11). We do not yet have the city above, the heavenly country; we are not yet made perfect, we are not yet in the state of unending joy, but Christ Jesus, by his life, death, and resurrection, has made it certain that those who trust in him will in due time inherit all these things.

I say, the issue is the same today. Esau's way of thinking is the way of thinking of vast multitudes and it makes perfect sense to them. Think of ourselves gathered in this sanctuary this morning. Look at us the way a person with Esau's mind would see us; the way someone would look at us who had not embraced with confidence the biblical prospect of the future.

Take a look at us, and look at us as a typical congregation of serious Christians. here are lots of other Christian congregations much more like us than different. Do folk from outside look at this assembly of people and think immediately, "why this is what human beings ought to be! I have a hard time believing their doctrines, accepting their view of things, but, my, what grand people they are! And what marriages! I've never seen men and women so much in love after so many years of marriage. I've never seen marriages so universally happy and secure and romantic. I've never seen marriage suffuse a life with so much radiance and so much pure pleasure. And they are all like that here! And what families! What happy children, what solid, mature, gracious, hard-working, respectful, thoughtful young people. Wise beyond their years. Why can't all young people be like them?

And what friendship! I've never seen people so kind to one another, so generous, so caring. Everyone seems to be everyone else's best friend. Why these people here in this church have fifty friends closer to them and more important to them than any single friend I have.

And what prosperity! They say their God has promised them that in keeping his commandments there is a great reward, and, despite my skepticism about Christianity, I can believe it. The Lord must be hearing all their prayers, because no one seems to have any needs, what needs they have are immediately made up, they all seem to enjoy the work they have been given and to be valued above all the other workers they work beside.

It's just uncanny: they are healthier than any group of people I've ever seen; they are all always happy like I've been happy only a few times in my life; they are getting more out of their work, their marriages, their families, than anyone else I know. And, when they come to church their faces just glow! They obviously have a deep love for God who seems to pour a mystical delight into their hearts every day. Oh, how I wish I could be like them!

Is that what people think and say about us? Would it be true if they did? (Well, in a certain way it would be. It is one of the ways in which unbelievers are often attracted to the gospel. They see a reality in Christians that they long for themselves. But, it is not until the Holy Spirit opens their eyes that they see it, for the fact is, it is not nearly so obvious to human sight as all that.

To the contrary, are not the facts of the matter more like what Calvin said they are?

"Eternal life is promised to us, but it is promised to the dead; we are told of the resurrection of the blessed, but meantime we are involved in corruption; we are declared to be just, [but] sin dwells within us; we hear that we are blessed, but meantime we are overwhelmed with untold miseries; we are promised an abundance of all good things, but we are often hungry and thirsty; God proclaims that he will come to us immediately, but seems deaf to our cries.... Faith is therefore rightly called...the evidence of things not seen." [Calvin, Hebrews, ad loc]

Is that not right? Is that not honesty that you just heard? And is that not what the Bible in fact teaches to be the Christian life in this world? This is, by the way, why Christianity will never be successful selling itself for its immediate benefits. Christians know how magnificent those benefits are, but they are largely invisible. The world cannot see them, at least not well enough to be really impressed.

Faith is not a small thing, you see. It is a great power to see a world that others cannot see, a future that others know nothing about, but which utterly changes the meaning of life in this world. When God gives a man or woman faith, he has utterly changed that man or that woman. Even a weak faith, and Jacob's faith at times was very weak, his sight of that future very dim, has the power to lift a man or woman, boy or girl, right out of this world and up to the city of God.

And then this thought about faith. It might be thought, and it has been said, that such a concentration on the future, such a constant looking forward to things not yet, would make a man or woman useless in this world -- too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. But the fact is, the heavenly minded have done more true good in this world, have been more committed to it for the right reasons and in the right ways, than all those without faith put together! Faith does not make you unmindful of the present, it simply transforms the way you understand the present and your life and duty and calling in the present. And the result was, as we shall see, that Jacob produced much, much more true good for this world, than Esau ever did or could.

You and I, brothers and sisters, need nothing so much as we need more faith. More faith to see ahead, to have as we live today a clear sight of what is to come. God has told us what is to come, but we must practice our confidence in the truth of what he has said and bring that truth to bear on our daily lives. For it changes everything!

It changes our sense of what we are to do and how we are to live at every moment of every day. Just like Moses who regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward! It changes our sense of this world and its attractions. "What I mean brothers, is that the time is short. From now...those who mourn [should live] as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:29-31). Paul in that dramatic language is telling us that the circumstances of our life in this world are not really the true meaning of our life or the true measure of it. A man can be happy here and doomed forever. And man can be sad here and very soon to enter a world of endless bliss. The true meaning and significance of life in this world can only be seen in view of the future. The end of history and what follows in judgment or in heaven compresses this time of our history and makes it absolutely necessary that we live intensely, with our eye always on the world to come, the four last things -- death, judgment, hell, and heaven -- making the most of every opportunity because the time is short.

Oh that God would give us, by his Holy Spirit, more of this faith. More faith is all we need and really all we want as Christians, no matter what the circumstances of our lives. Pray for faith, practice your faith, bring the future home to your heart today and be sure that you are living now as one must and will who knows what will come to pass then.

Here is Samuel Rutherford to Lady Kenmure [Letter XIX, Bonar, p. 68]

"If ye knew what He is preparing for you, ye would be too glad. He will not...give you a full draught till you come up to the well-head and drink, yea, drink abundantly of the pure river of the water of life, that proceedeth out from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. xxii.1). Madam, tire not, weary not...when you are got up thither, and have cast your eyes to view the golden city, and the fair and never-withering Tree of Life...ye shall then say, 'Four-and-twenty hours' abode in this place is worth threescore and ten years' sorrow upon earth.' If ye can but say, that ye long earnestly to be carried up thither (and I hope you cannot for shame, deny Him the honour of having wrought that desire in your soul), then hath your Lord given you an earnest [A pledge of these things to come]."

One of the last things we will hear Jacob say is in reply to a question Pharaoh, the King of Egypt asked him many years later. "How old are you?" Pharaoh asked. And Jacob replied, "the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty..." A pilgrim is someone who is going someplace else. And that is what faith is and what it means. It is the active confidence that we are going someplace else.

And if we have faith, it is that we must more and more be: people who are going somewhere. Every day and in every way we show ourselves to be people who are on our way to a wonderful place in another world where we shall be with God forever!

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