Dale Partridge - March 23, 2023


Do You Have Supernatural Faith？ - Dale Partridge


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

143.25526

Word count

1,525

Sentence count

87

Harmful content

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In Ephesians 3:4-6, Paul reminds us that it is not by blood that Abraham became the father of many nations, but by faith in God. In other words, Abraham did not become a father because of his own biological children, but because of the faith God placed in him by the Holy Spirit.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Paul is continuing to correct their understanding
00:00:02.580 regarding the true lineage of Abraham,
00:00:05.860 that it's not by blood, but it's actually by faith.
00:00:10.920 And he uses the testimony of their very own scriptures.
00:00:13.700 He cites Genesis 17, five,
00:00:16.260 that says, no longer shall your name be called Abram,
00:00:19.600 but your name shall be called Abraham,
00:00:21.840 for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.
00:00:26.160 Now, again, we know that there are Jews
00:00:28.860 that do have faith, but there also is the bringing in of the Gentiles where you're going to have
00:00:34.520 people who are children of Abraham from every tribe, nation, and tongue. So the substance of 0.89
00:00:40.180 the promise was realized in two ways. It was realized physically and spiritually. And so
00:00:47.640 it was realized physically because one of the promises that Abraham would be the father of
00:00:52.460 many nations, one, he needs to have a kid, right? He needs to have a child. He needs to have a son.
00:00:58.200 And it was realized physically in the birth of Isaac and the development of a physical nation.
00:01:05.660 And it was realized spiritually in the birth and resurrection of Christ in the development of a spiritual church.
00:01:12.720 So you got to see this is that there was a promise that there was going to be a physical child and a physical nation, the nation of Israel.
00:01:21.560 And there would be a spiritual reality in the fact that that physical child would result in the serpent crusher, the promised seed that would inaugurate the church.
00:01:37.220 and that was Jesus. And Jesus's death and resurrection was the true seed that by faith
00:01:47.360 would be spread across the entire world and many nations would be children of Abraham by faith.
00:01:55.340 And so the second realization through Christ, essentially God's people are expanded from one
00:02:01.860 nation to many nations, fulfilling God's promise regarding Abraham's descendants to be as numerous
00:02:07.860 as the stars all around the world. In other words, through Christ, God's people are no longer 0.81
00:02:14.100 limited by national boundaries. This is something that would be very difficult for the Jew to
00:02:18.120 understand, but instead they become a global and united family in faith in Christ. And so Ephesians
00:02:25.260 3, 4 through 6 talks about this. Paul says, quote, you can perceive my insight into the
00:02:31.880 mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations as it has
00:02:36.580 been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles
00:02:43.980 are fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Jesus Christ
00:02:50.640 through the gospel. This was also prophesied in the Old Testament. So the Jews really had no excuse
00:02:58.120 to be shocked by this reality. Hosea 1.10 says,
00:03:03.680 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea,
00:03:07.680 which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it is said to them,
00:03:13.520 quote, You are not my people. It will be said to them, You are the sons of the living God.
00:03:19.440 end quote. Zechariah 2.11 continues this line of thinking. It says, quote, and many nations
00:03:27.060 shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be my people, end quote. So Paul goes on
00:03:34.900 in verse 18 to give you a little bit more concept or context about what's going on. Let's go back
00:03:39.240 to chapter four, verse 18. He says, in hope against hope, he believed, talking about Abraham,
00:03:45.740 so that he might become a father of many nations
00:03:49.580 according to that which had been spoken,
00:03:52.020 so shall your descendants be.
00:03:53.840 Verse 19, without becoming weak in faith,
00:03:56.720 he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead
00:03:59.220 since he was about a hundred years old
00:04:00.840 and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
00:04:03.060 Yet with respect to the promise of God,
00:04:05.580 he did not waver in unbelief,
00:04:07.640 but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God
00:04:10.580 and being fully assured that what God had promised,
00:04:13.900 he was able to perform. So Paul goes on to point out that this promise to Abraham regarding
00:04:22.180 his immeasurable progeny, as many as the stars, was received by faith before Abraham even had
00:04:33.120 one biological child. Do you understand this? You have to see that Abraham is receiving
00:04:40.920 by faith, this immense and massive promise. He's got an old body, a wife with a dead womb and no 0.96
00:04:51.580 children. And yet he has been given this promise to be the father of many nations. And he doesn't 0.99
00:05:00.620 even have one biological son. In other words, this kind of faith that we're looking at here
00:05:06.480 is not natural faith.
00:05:08.080 This is supernatural faith that Abraham has.
00:05:10.540 It was faith in the one, as Paul says,
00:05:13.140 who gives life to the dead
00:05:14.620 and calls into being that which does not exist.
00:05:18.180 So Abraham believed God
00:05:19.740 because God is the one who can call light
00:05:23.100 and matter into existence from nothing.
00:05:26.840 This is the type of foundation
00:05:30.220 that Abraham has for the faith
00:05:32.640 that is being demonstrated.
00:05:34.700 This faith, again, is a gift of God given to Abraham.
00:05:37.220 He gives life to Sarah's barrenness
00:05:40.260 and makes nations emerge from her dead womb. 1.00
00:05:44.700 I mean, this is miraculous stuff here.
00:05:48.240 This is just as miraculous as raising Lazarus from the dead.
00:05:54.200 He gives, we know God does, God gives life to dead souls
00:05:58.220 and he makes a living church emerge from dry bones
00:06:02.540 all around the world.
00:06:04.700 And he's the God who speaks of things as if they exist when they don't exist.
00:06:11.780 And so he spoke to Abraham as a father before he even had a child.
00:06:17.440 He speaks of nations before these nations were even formed.
00:06:21.580 And to be honest, there are more nations that will be formed
00:06:25.840 that will have people in those nations that'll be children of Abraham by faith.
00:06:32.720 And so the central point that Paul is emphasizing
00:06:34.800 is Abraham's willingness to take God at his word.
00:06:38.880 I want you to grasp that here.
00:06:41.300 The central point is that Abraham's willingness
00:06:43.640 to take God at his word.
00:06:45.120 We see this at the end of verse 21.
00:06:47.840 It says, and being fully assured
00:06:49.140 that what God had promised, he was able to perform.
00:06:54.020 And the question you need to be asking
00:06:55.920 is how does this apply to my life?
00:06:59.260 How does this Old Testament discussion
00:07:01.180 about Abraham and the promise to him, how does that translate to my world? Obviously through
00:07:07.100 the inheritance of the substance of those promises, you are an heir to those promises
00:07:11.960 through faith. So that's one thing, but it applies in many other ways. Abraham is our father in the
00:07:19.360 faith. And as children, we have the same faith as our father, Abraham. And so we can look to
00:07:27.000 Abraham's example as our father. He's a forefather to us in the faith and we can look to his example
00:07:33.120 as we would look to our own father's example. We can learn from his response to the promise
00:07:40.160 of God. In other words, in the same way that Abraham trusted God regarding the promises given
00:07:45.920 to him, we can trust God regarding the promises that are given to us. This is a beautiful correlation
00:07:52.080 that you need to pay attention to.
00:07:53.740 When God's word promises us justification
00:07:56.640 and sanctification and peace and hope and eternal life,
00:08:00.880 we get to be just like our forefather Abraham
00:08:05.020 and trust that God can accomplish
00:08:07.380 what seems absolutely impossible to us.
00:08:11.940 John Calvin observes this exact point in his commentary
00:08:15.540 when he says, quote,
00:08:16.840 all things around us are in opposition
00:08:19.100 to the promises of God.
00:08:20.880 He promises immortality,
00:08:23.320 yet we are surrounded with death and corruption.
00:08:25.840 He declares that he counts us just,
00:08:28.780 yet we are covered with sins and transgressions.
00:08:31.500 He testifies that he is propitiating and kind to us,
00:08:35.700 yet outward judgments threaten his wrath.
00:08:38.860 What then is to be done?
00:08:39.960 We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves
00:08:43.720 and all things connected with us
00:08:45.860 that nothing may hinder or prevent us
00:08:48.380 from believing what God said is true.
00:08:53.120 It's a beautiful, beautiful commentary.
00:08:56.520 We can trust in the promises given to us
00:08:59.440 because we saw Abraham trust in the promises given to him.
00:09:04.900 Ultimately, Abraham's faith is to be an encouragement to us.
00:09:09.100 It's an example that we can look at.
00:09:11.500 When you doubt that God can forgive you,
00:09:13.940 remember Abraham's faith.
00:09:15.320 When you doubt that you can be saved with all of the sin in your life, you get to look at Abraham's
00:09:23.540 faith. When you doubt that God's going to resurrect your dead body at his return,
00:09:29.900 you can, again, look at Abraham's faith. His faith is the same faith that dwells in you.
00:09:38.740 He is the father of the faith and he has passed down that faith.
00:09:44.180 That faith comes from God.
00:09:45.800 It's a gift to Abraham and it is a gift to us.
00:09:48.120 We share in that faith and therefore we have the same ability to believe in the impossible
00:09:54.380 as Abraham did when we trust in God by faith.
00:10:08.740 We'll be right back.