Hi, I'm Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to serve as your Bible teacher every day on this great radio station. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. 83% of people said the real measure of success was being satisfied with your life. Satisfied with your life by that standard, Abraham was extremely successful. And today we're going to look at the final chapter in Abraham's life and discover some important principles for how to die with a smile on your face. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, one day each one of us will pass from this life into the next. So when your time does come, how do you want to be remembered? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress looks at the final moments in Abraham's story. The words that summarize his life make a beautiful epitaph that we should all strive for. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David. And welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Talk to anyone who's wealthy and they're likely to admit that money doesn't solve everything.
Oh sure, having extra cash in your pocket takes the edge off. But those who are privileged to be well off have come to understand that being rich doesn't always deliver happiness. Today I'm going to present the final message in my brand new teaching series on Abraham called Walking by Faith. This great man of God left a legacy that's well worth reflecting on. You see, Abraham had found his purpose and place in life.
In doing so, he died a satisfied man. Isn't that what each one of us wants? We crave to fill a role that gives purpose and meaning to our lives. This is one of the many themes I address in my brand new book called Walking by Faith, a Study of the Life of Abraham.
This truth never grows old, and it's absolutely uncanny how this ancient man, Abraham, offers so much wisdom for our times. Anyone who's overcome by the turmoil of our culture and anyone who can't seem to break free from the struggles they face will appreciate the practical wisdom of this book. A copy of Walking by Faith is yours when you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory. All you need to do is go to ptv.org to order your copy. You can also call our toll free number or write us a letter. We'll give all of our contact information later in the program.
Right now, let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 25. I titled today's message, How to Die with a Smile on Your Face. A book titled Die Broke offers a unique perspective on death and finances. In this bestselling book, the author proposes that instead of trying to accumulate a lot of money and leave it behind, you ought to spend everything you have while you're alive until you have zero in your bank account.
He says, in fact, your last check you write ought to be to the undertaker, and that check ought to bounce. That's how you know if you're successful. A lot of you are on the way to that, right?
Amen. One popular writer notes that in addition to dying broke, a lot of people are dying broken. As they come to the final years of their life, their lives are marked by regrets, isolation, loneliness, bitterness. Do you know people like that? You just feel the bitterness oozing out of their body whenever you're around them. I don't know about you, but when I'm around those people, I want to run as far and as fast from them as I can.
But more importantly, I want to make sure I don't become like them. Instead, I want to face life and death just like our character, our friend Abraham. And today we're going to look at the final chapter in Abraham's life and discover some important principles for how to die with a smile on your face. If you have your Bibles, turn to not Genesis 25, we'll get there, but turn over to 2 Peter chapter 1. Look at 2 Peter 1 beginning with verse 3. Seeing that God's divine power has granted to us everything, underline that, everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you can become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. When you trust in Christ as your savior, God gives you not just part of himself, he gives you all of himself. His Holy Spirit, he has granted to you everything you need to live a life that's pleasing to God. Once you become a Christian, you don't have to start begging and pleading, oh God, please send your Holy Spirit to me.
He's already there. He's granted you everything you need and he gave it to you as a gift. All you have to do is receive it. But then notice, once we receive that gift, there's some things we're supposed to do, not to earn our salvation, but to complete the work of sanctification, becoming more like Christ. Look at verse five, now for this very reason, applying all diligence in your faith, you supply, and then he mentions seven qualities, moral excellence, knowledge, and so forth.
This word diligence refers to a runner who's giving it everything he has as he gets toward the finish line. He said we're to have that same attitude, again, not about earning our salvation, but working for our Christ-likeness, our sanctification, and that takes effort. There's this faulty philosophy among Christians that, oh, just as you can't do anything to earn your salvation, there's nothing you need to do for your sanctification, just let go and let God.
Que sera sera, whatever happens, happens. You will end up with a spiritually bankrupt life if you do that. It requires effort to live as a Christian.
You supply. Now, that's exactly what Peter is saying. There are some things we have to supply, and Abraham is a model of every one of these qualities. The basic thing is faith. We exercise faith, Genesis 15, six. Abraham believed what God said, and his faith was counted as righteousness.
But Peter says to your faith, add moral excellence. That was Abraham. Now, he wasn't perfect. He made some mistakes.
Remember the Hagar fiasco and his trip to Egypt? He had some zigs and some zags along the road to godliness, and you do too, and I as well. But generally, his life was characterized by moral excellence. To your faith, add moral excellence and then knowledge. Not just knowledge in general, but a knowledge of God. Abraham grew in his knowledge of God from the moment he trusted God at age 60 till the moment he went home to be with God at age 175. One writer says it this way about Abraham.
All of his life, he was a student in God's college of divinity. Are you learning more every day about God through your relationship with him? Add knowledge. To your knowledge, add self-control. Proverbs 16 32 says, he who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules over his spirit is better than he who captures a city.
You see that over and over again in Abraham's life. Self-control. To your self-control, add perseverance.
I've cited it before, but I love Eugene Peterson's book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. What a perfect description of the Christian life. That's perseverance continuing to march toward God and godliness. And that's the next word. To your perseverance, add godliness. That comes from an English word, godlikeness. To your godliness, add brotherly kindness. And the final word, love. This word love is not some syrupy, sentimental kind of love.
It's agape love, a God love. You see that in Abraham, Genesis chapter 22. He was willing to offer that which meant the most to him, his son Isaac, because of his love for God. Abraham's final years, his faith was growing.
But I want you to also notice something about Abraham. His final years were marked by a special attitude I'll call bullish. He was bullish in his attitude toward these final years of life. He still had things to do. He had a bullishness toward life.
And you find that in three ways. First of all, he got a new wife. Look at verse one. Now Abraham took another wife whose name was Keturah. People wonder, well, wait a minute. Did that mean he didn't love Sarah, whom he had buried?
Not at all. Look at Genesis 23, two. When Sarah died, she died in Hebron. And Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. In his 175 years of life, there's only one time the Bible records that Abraham wept, and it's when his wife died.
And that word to weep literally means to beat one's chest. No, it's not good for a person to be alone. If you are a widow right now, if you've lost your husband or wife, remember, you are free to marry. You're free not to marry. But whatever you do, just do it in the Lord. But Abraham decided he was going to have a new wife.
Uh-oh, here it comes. And with the new wife came a new family. Abraham had six more children with Keturah.
He was 140 when he started the new family. Abraham was so old that both he and his children were in diapers at the same time. But that was God's plan. Remember, he said to Abraham, you're going to be the father of many nations.
And Keturah was the way that was going to happen. He had a new wife, he had a new family. And notice there was a new, a growing generosity in Abraham. Do you know some people who when they get older, they get more stingy, they just hold onto their money tighter and tighter and tighter?
There are living illustrations of that old adage philosophy, get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the can. Well, Abraham refused to sit on the can, so to speak, with his money anyway. He was very, very wealthy, but all of his life he was generous. He realized everything he had wasn't his, it was God's.
He was just a manager. And so verse 5 says in Genesis 25, while he was living, he gave a generous gift to Isaac and to his other children. Now, here's Abraham's life, his faith was growing, his attitude was bullish, new wife, new family, generosity. Now we come to Abraham's death.
His departure. And the one way that describes the way he faced death is the word satisfied. I remember reading a poll in USA Today that asked people the question, how do you know if you're successful in life?
What is your yardstick for success? 83% of people said the real measure of success was being satisfied with your life. Satisfied with your life, by that standard, Abraham was extremely successful. Look at the verses describing his death.
Genesis 25 verses 7 and 8. These are all the years of Abraham's life that he lived, 175 years. And Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man satisfied with life, and he was gathered together with his people. Boy, I would love to have that as my epitaph, wouldn't you? He died at a ripe old age, satisfied with life, and gathered together with his people.
How do you pull that off? I want you to notice from Abraham's life three facets of being satisfied with your life. First of all, he was satisfied with his past. He was at peace. He was content.
That's what the word satisfied means, content. He was content with his past. It doesn't mean he had a perfect past.
He didn't. The first 16 years of his life, he was an idolater. He was an idol worshiper, just like his father had been. He had made big mistakes, not only before he was a believer, but even after he was a believer. He sinned, but he knew his sins had been forgiven.
That's the only way you'll be at peace with your past. Genesis 15, 6, Abraham believed God, and his faith was counted as righteousness. Remember in Romans 4, Paul uses that experience as an example of what saving faith is. Romans 4, 5, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not take into account. Abraham knew that as blemished as his past was, his past had been forgiven, forgotten forever by God because of his faith. Do you have that assurance? Do you know that your sins have been wiped away through the blood of Jesus Christ?
That's the only way you're gonna end your life satisfied, if you're satisfied with your past. Not only that, Abraham was satisfied with his present, his present life, especially with his children. He knew as he faced death that he had successfully passed on the baton of faith to his children and his children's children.
Where do I get that? Listen to Hebrews 11, verse 17. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.
Now, look at verse 20. By faith, Abraham's son Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, his grandchildren, even regarding things to come. And then by faith, Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, his great-grandson Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on his staff. And by faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones.
You get that? By faith, by faith, by faith, down the generational line, until 430 years after Joseph, when Moses was ready to lead the exodus, the children of Israel remembered the instructions of Joseph made 430 years earlier. Why did they remember them? Because the faith had been passed on and on and on throughout the generations.
Dr. Crystal used to say, every civilization is only one generation away from barbarism. If we don't pass the faith to the next generation, the faith is lost.
Abraham knew he had passed on his faith successfully. Now, I know some of you feel guilty about that right now, because maybe your faith hasn't been passed on to your children and your grandchildren. If that's true of you, let me just remind you, ultimately you're not responsible for your children's response. God was a perfect father, and yet he had two wayward children named Adam and Eve, who departed from the faith, even though they had been raised in a perfect environment, the Garden of Eden. But just remember this, the final chapter of your children's life hasn't been revealed yet. Your duty is to pass on that faith, and keep loving them, keep praying for them.
The end hasn't been revealed yet. Abraham did the best he could in passing along his faith to his children and to his grandchildren. Thirdly, Abraham was not only satisfied with his past and his present, he was satisfied with his future. Look at verse 8. Abraham breathed his last and died at a ripe old age, an old man satisfied with life, and he was gathered to his people. What does that mean, gathered to his people? Some people try to downplay this. I read some commentators who said, oh, that just means he was buried with his ancestors.
Well, no, that's not what happened. He wasn't buried with his ancestors. He was buried with Sarah, but none of his other ancestors. No, who were Abraham's people? They were the godly who had gone before him, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Methuselah, all of those. Where were his people? Not in the cemetery, they were in heaven. This is an expression for going to heaven when Abraham died his last. He died at a ripe old age, and he was gathered with his people in heaven.
Let me ask you a question. When you shut your eyes for the very last time you're on earth, who are the people you're going to be gathered with? Are you going to be gathered together in heaven with the saints who have gone before you? Or are you going to be gathered in hell with the blasphemers, the skeptics, the critics?
We're all going to be gathered with one group of people or the other. Abraham knew he was going to be gathered together in heaven with his ancestors. You say, Pastor, that sure is reading a lot into this, to read heaven into this. How do you get heaven out of this?
By reading the Bible. Hebrews chapter 11 verses 9 and 10, by faith Abraham lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For Abraham was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Even though he was a wealthy man, he never owned a piece of land until the end when he bought a cemetery plot. He never built a permanent house. He lived in a tent, even though he could have afforded much more.
Why? He was looking for something better. And at the end he experienced it because of faith. Abraham was willing to let go of his desire for money, for approval, for fame, in order to grab hold of that which is eternal.
That's why we honor the life and the death of Abraham. When I think about letting go of the temporary to gain the eternal, I think of that legend from India that Erwin Lutzer recounts in his book, Your Eternal Rewards. Remember the legend of beggars stood beside the road with a little bowl to beg for rice from those who would stop by? One day a wealthy chariot pulled up and a wealthy raja descended from the chariot. He went over to the beggar, looked into his bowl and said, give me a grain of rice. The beggar was perplexed. Why would a wealthy man want a grain of rice?
But he gave it to him, felt obligated to it. The wealthy raja asked again, give me another grain. And now angry, the beggar gave him another grain. I want another, the raja demanded. And seething with bitterness, this beggar gave him the last grain of rice that he had.
The raja left. The beggar was standing there not understanding, resenting what had just happened until he looked into that little bowl and he noticed something glittering. It was a piece of gold, a grain of gold the size of the grain of rice that had been taken. And as he looked further in the bowl, there was a second, there was a third. For every grain of rice he had given to the wealthy man, the wealthy man had exchanged it for a grain of gold.
And then Irwin makes this application. If we clutch our bowl of rice, we shall lose our reward. If we are faithful and give God each grain, he gives us gold in return. And the gold God gives will surely survive the fire. Abraham was willing to let go of that which was temporal, to gain hold of that which is eternal and will never fade away. He's a perfect demonstration of Hebrews 11 6.
For he who comes to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek after him. That's the life of Abraham. Abraham was called the friend of God.
What an amazing compliment. And this is my prayer for you and me that we would follow in Abraham's footsteps. May all of us be known as a friend of God. Well, we've come to the final message in my brand new teaching series called Walking by Faith, a study of the life of Abraham. Along with this final program, we created a variety of resources to facilitate your spiritual walk, each one tailored to address this one primary goal, learning to become a friend of God.
And what could possibly be more important than drawing near to the one who has your best interest in mind? Please grab a pen and paper and jot down our contact information. For example, I'd love to send you my brand new book, Walking by Faith, as a gesture of my thanks for your generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Today is the last day to request your copy. Then Pathway to Victory is pleased to offer DVD and CD recordings of this brand new teaching series, Walking by Faith.
This format is helpful to many of our listeners because the DVDs and CDs are unedited. Today's sermon, for example, was abbreviated in order to fit inside our half hour program, but the original presentation was much longer. Now, David is going to repeat all this information. Please take a few moments to get in touch with us today. And thanks again for your generous support of Pathway to Victory. God is using our partnership to pierce the darkness with the light of his word.
David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you invest in the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the brand new book by Dr. Jeffress, Walking by Faith. Call 866-999-2965 or visit our website at ptv.org. And when you give $75 or more to support this ministry, we'll also send you the complete collection of audio and video discs for the Walking by Faith teaching series.
You'll get that along with the study guide. Now, this is the last day we'll be mentioning this very special offer, so don't wait to get in touch. For more time, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org.
You could write to us if you'd like. Here's that address, P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, wishing you a great weekend. Then join us again next week for a study in Revelation called Final Conquest, right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska with Dr. Robert Jeffress set sail from Vancouver, British Columbia on June 15, 2024. Join me along with musical artists Rebecca St. James and Michael O'Brien and comedian Dennis Swanberg for a vacation you'll never forget. I promise you will come back spiritually, physically and emotionally refreshed. Book your spot on the 7-day Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska at ptv.org.
