He Holds The Pieces!
A couple weeks ago I had the privilege to preach at Cofer’s Chapel in Nashville, TN. I was delighted to share in their 2023 Summer Series on the characters of faith from Hebrews 11 (The Hall of Faith). The passage assigned to me was Hebrews 11:11 concerning the faith of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Because Abraham wasn’t assigned to anyone, I took the license to touch on verses 8-12. Here’s the passage below…
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 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 11:8-12
During the COVID years, my wife and I put together several puzzles. As you may remember, most everything was closed and most everybody stayed home. So, why not puzzles? I supposed my love for puzzles came from my dad — they should check the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of puzzles put together during COVID as my dad would send me a picture of newly put together puzzle just about every other day. We it comes to putting a puzzle together, my dad taught me the first thing you do is collect all the “straight-edge” pieces from the box in order to form the frame of the puzzle. After that, you go through the box and start putting similar colors together or similar groups of distinct images or words in the picture. It’s pretty standard puzzle building, but that’s how it starts.
There was one particular puzzle we were putting together that had a State of Michigan theme — my home state, and as we were collecting the “straight-edge pieces for the frame, we came up ONE SHORT! You may as well be 10 pieces short! In my OCD frustration, I searched that box over and over for that missing piece. After shedding bitter tears, we simply had to move on and began putting our groupings together — all while looking for the rouge piece.
Another rule for puzzle building is that you can’t force the pieces. Yes, it may look like that’s where a particular piece may go and as many times as you think the puzzle maker got it wrong, they were right and that piece simply doesn’t go where you think it does — I don’t care how well the colors of groupings match! Every piece has a specific place where it fits the big picture nice and tight. It can be frustrating sometimes when you feel so confident about a piece of the puzzle belong in a certain spot only to find out it belonged somewhere else.
Well, back to our Michigan Themed puzzle. We finished and it wasn’t until the last 20 pieces or so that the missing frame piece decided to show back up and with a great burst of emotion, I placed the final frame piece and the puzzle was complete! After taking a picture and sending it to my dad, we broke it down and put it back in the box.
SO… WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ABRAHAM AND SARAH? Without getting into a complete expositional post, I’ll try to keep it short and simple.
Life can be a puzzle. There are many situations in life where it seems like you're missing a few pieces to the puzzle or situations and circumstances that are simply not coming together as you thought. (I’m going through a particularly weird transition myself.) This is what I thought of when I was given the passage in Hebrews 11. Abraham and Sarah certainly didn’t have all the pieces figured out. I have no doubt they felt like they were missing some pieces to their puzzle. In Genesis 12 and 15, God called Abraham to leave everything he knew behind and to go to a land God promised for he and his descendants. In short, God called Abraham to go until He said stop.
The land was one portion of the puzzle. The other portion had to do with Abraham’s descendants. At this time Abraham was 75 years old and God promised this land to his descendants — descendants that didn’t even exist. You can imagine all that when through Abraham and Sarah’s mind. Wouldn’t you think those were some BIG PIECES they would have like to have had in hand? In fact, I think it is safe to say that Abraham and Sarah may have struggled a bit in their faith and in how God would going to bring this all together. Both — at separate times, laughed at the idea that God will bless them with a child at their advanced age. They even went as far as trying to usurp God’s plan with their own scheme involving Abraham and Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar (this led to Ismael - a whole other conversation).
Yes, I believe it’s safe to say they doubted God’s plan at times. Just think of the many times God had to remind Abraham of His covenant with him — the land and the descendants. Yet even in their struggles, they still made “The Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11. They were still commended for their faith! For Abraham, he trusted God through it all. He didn’t have all the pieces, certain portions of the puzzle were a bit unclear, but he “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder was God.” For Sarah, she trust her faithful God through it all. She didn’t have the pieces figured out and there were definitely some portions of the puzzle that were a bit blurry. Yet, Sarah “considered Him faithful who had promised.”
Here’s the BIG IDEA: We can have faith in God because He is faithful. We can have faith in God because He holds all the pieces of our life and He knows exactly where they fit together in perfect harmony. There are no rouge pieces in God’s box. All the pieces fit together to form this beautiful picture called you. It may not always make sense. We may challenge God as to the placement of the pieces, but as the Master and Creator of the universe, we can trust Him with the little pieces of our life. Even when things may not make sense, WE CAN HAVE FAITH BECAUSE GOD IS FAITHFUL! Just has he fulfilled His promise to Abraham and Sarah whose descendants out number the stars and the grans of sand, do God will fulfill his promise and purpose in you! Be encouraged by that my friends!
YOU ARE LOVED — TO GOD BE THE GLORY!
PastorPusch
By the way… Pastors and Church Leaders, if this post resonates with you, I would love to schedule a ZOOM talk with you! Would love to pray with your or even just hear your story! I’m having some great conversations of late and would love to talk to you! CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE YOUR ZOOM TALK!
