I want you to open your Bibles to Hebrews
chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. This scripture has been on my
mind all day long. You know, I do all my seems like
all the construction projects that aren't quite done to get
them all the time. We're going to have to show up
progress. I've been on the house. Actually,
I have a project week before I was one of these projects and
doing the step down to our basements. And so. The project grew and
so today I'm trying to get everything printed and because tomorrow
I'm going to pick up Jean-Claude from the airport at about 6.30
in the evening. So looking forward to that. Looking forward to getting to
know Jean-Claude. I met him face-to-face only once, and, you know, well,
in the elections, we preached when he was down in Texas one
time, and I was also visiting. And then, you know, we chatted
a few minutes after the service, but that was our only face-to-face,
and we've met each other on one of those FaceTime-type apps, you know,
where you can talk to each other on your camera and even see. Anyway, I'm looking forward to
getting to know him better. And I'm sure we're going to have
a good meeting. He told me already what he's
going to be speaking on. Three messages from 1 John 3,
verses 1-3. It starts, now, are we the children
of God? Oh, I believe I've got that right.
I'm doing that for Mary. My memory's not what it used
to be. I think 1 John 2 starts off with these things to you
that you sin not. If we sin, we haven't had to get with the
Father. And then 1 John 3 says to your children, now are we
the children of God? And it does not appear well.
It may not be, but we know this. We shall be like him. When he appears, we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is. At any rate, he'll
be speaking to us from that text of Scripture. And for everybody
who's listening via our live stream, just to let you know,
Jean-Claude is going to be at our church this weekend. He's
going to have the worship service at 7 o'clock Friday night, then
6 o'clock Saturday night. And then a regular Sunday morning
schedule, which in the main service, and all those times are central
daylight times. It's the time observed here during
this time of year. So, make whatever adjustment
for your time zone if you want to tune in. That's Friday night
at 7 o'clock, Saturday night at 6 o'clock and Sunday morning
at 1030. So now we're going to Hebrews 11 tonight. And this
is the scripture that's been on my mind is verse six. It says,
without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone
who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards
those who earnestly seek him. Now, there are several things
in this verse which might strike us as, I won't say contrary to
what we preach, but we have to work at it a little bit to fit
it in to the whole scheme of grace, because it talks about
pleasing God. God says without faith, it's
impossible to please God. Consequently, we must assume that with faith
it is possible to please God. And yet we say that everything
we do is sinful. Well, how can our sinful actions
please God? So it speaks of us pleasing God. And then it talks about reward. Now reward doesn't sound right,
does it? I mean, we think of a reward as something you earned,
something you worked for, and in fact, even the Greek word
indicates that you're getting what's due you. And that doesn't
seem to fit within the scheme of grace, because grace is about
getting things freely, not the things worked for. And then it
talks that says he rewards those who earnestly seek him. And yet,
Paul said, there is none who seek God. Let alone earnestly. So we have
several things in here in this one verse confronting us that
seem to be at odds with what we commonly preach. But I think if we learn this
within the context in which it's being that it was written, we'll
find that there is no problem between this text of Scripture
and anything that we've preached. In fact, this clarifies some
of the issues for us. It says, without faith. Now,
we must make much of faith. Now, faith is not the action
of natural man. It's impossible for a natural
man to believe. Now what do I mean by a natural
man? I mean someone who has not been
miraculously born again by the Spirit of God. You know, people
think, most people think that we're born again because we believe,
and that's not, that's impossible. We are, we must be born again
because we're spiritually dead, and a dead thing can't do anything. Now faith is a spiritual act.
People who have not been born again are spiritually dead, so
they cannot believe. So when we speak of faith and
we say we must make much of it, we're not making much of what
natural men can do. And this is where we part ways
with those who are free willers in the theological sense of the
word. Now, I understand most people
think free will just means I may do whatever I want. And that's true. I mean, you
know, I've illustrated when you're going down the birthday line,
if you want green beans, you can choose green beans, or you
can pat that out and get the corn, or you can get some of
both. You can make those choices. And when we say that we don't
believe in free will, we don't believe, we're not saying that
we believe that a man does not choose to call upon the name
of the Lord. What we're talking about when
we say we don't believe in free will, What we're saying is that
everybody's will is bound to his nature. In fact, the will
is just an expression of the nature, isn't it? When you're
choosing, you're just expressing the kind of person you are. If
you choose to steal, it's just showing you're a thief, that's
all. I remember when a fellow, he's dead now, been dead for
many years, but he visited our church early on. He always talked
about, you know, that he didn't smoke. Well, he gathered after
church out front and were having a smoke and he bummed a cigarette
off of one of them. And he looked at me, he says,
I guess you're surprised to see a non-smoker smoke. And I said,
well, it just proves to me you're not a non-smoker. You might be
a light smoker, but you're not a non-smoker. And he's a guy
that usually, you know, up to people when it came to win. He
wasn't used to having somebody fire back at him in a way he
couldn't answer. They never came back to church. I don't know
if I said to him or what, but I just said, you know, he's not
a non-smoker because there he is smoking. He chose to smoke
and that said something about him. I'm not saying whether it
was good or bad, it just said something about him. If you choose
green beans, it says something about you. So the will is just
the expression of the nature, which means a man cannot choose
contrary to his nature. And the nature of a man who has
not been born again is the nature of unbelief. He doesn't believe
because it's not in his nature to do so. So when we say make
much of faith, what we're saying is make much of something that
God works in us. not something that we come up
with on our own. If you believe God, it's not
because I persuaded you. God may have used my voice and
I may have spoken words, you know, and made an argument and
everything. But if all, if, if I'm the only one that convinced
you, you're still lost. And the sad thing is, if I'm
the one that convinces you, somebody else will come along later and
convince you of something else in all likelihood. And we've
seen that happen, haven't we? We've seen people listen to this
message for a little while, say they believe it, be baptized,
and act like they're all excited about it. And then sooner or
later, they get convinced of something else and go off to
something else. But what happened? They liked what I said. But my
voice was the only voice they heard, evidently. Spurgeons,
I believe it was, said, if my voice is the only voice you hear,
You are, of all men, most miserable." We need to hear the voice of
God. And I realize we don't hear with these ears, but we hear
it. And when God convinces us of something, we are never unconvinced. Because His conviction starts
with giving us the kind of life that we must have in order to
believe what He says. So without faith, it's impossible
to please God. And here's one reason, because
if you have no faith, it means you have no spiritual life. And
if you have no spiritual life, you have no way to communicate
with God at all. Because God is spirit. And you
must have spirit in order to be able to connect with him.
So without faith, it's impossible to please God. Now, with faith,
it's impossible not to. You think of that a minute. Without
faith, we cannot please God. And I mean, that's no matter
how moral you act. Paul said, as touching that righteousness,
which is of the law, I was blameless. Yet he did not please God. And
he said, later on, he said, I am the chief of sinners. And if
he considered himself at that time to be the chief of sinners,
what was he before he ever believed? He talked about how hateful he
was. He hated God. He loved himself,
but he hated God. He hated people that didn't agree
with him. In fact, what you find is unbelievers. set themselves up as God. They've
made a God out of themselves. That's why I've said atheists
need to change the first letter of their designation. They're
atheists is what they are. But even those who believe anything
other than what God has said, they have made themselves God
because what they're saying is, I'm the source of truth. I'm
the standard of truth. You know why? I don't preach
unless I'm using the Bible. I dare not. I don't have permission
to say anything that God didn't say. It would be bad for you if I
stood up here and said, well, I like to think. You know, it'd
be bad for me, too. Paul says, whoa, be unto me if
I do not preach the gospel. I'd be woe to his hearers too,
but it'd be woe to him. But without faith, we cannot
please God. With faith, it's impossible not
to please Him. And why is that? We believe everything
we do is filtered through Jesus Christ. Now, spiritually speaking,
once we have believed what we do spiritually, there's nothing
wrong with it. In 1 John, it says, he that is
born of God does not sin. Now, I know in Paul said, in
me, that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing. But we're not
just flesh. There's a part of us that's been
born of God, and it does not sin. Why? John goes on to say,
because his seed remains in him. we have, if we've been born of
God, we have the nature of our heavenly father. So spiritually
speaking, we don't sin. I remember in my first year of
Bible school in particular, if you did anything contrary to
their rules or found any kind of fault with how they were doing,
they'd say, well, you got a spiritual problem. You know, that was just
their, their go-to. It was kind of like, how are
you going to argue with them? They just, you know, The fact
that you might have presented them with a good argument doesn't
mean anything. You're setting forth something
they don't agree with, and their go-to answer simply is, well,
you've got a spiritual problem. Years ago, I was preaching to
Brother Tim James, and I made the statement, I said, believers
do not have spiritual problems. They can't. Spiritually speaking, they're
without sin. They've got horrible fleshly
problems. And these fleshly problems grieve their spirits, but their
spirit doesn't have a problem. Now, when we believe that in and of
itself is pleasing to God, it's God's work in us coming
back to Him. Faith is the breath of spiritual
life. Everyone who has spiritual life
believes. And everyone who has faith, he
has faith only because he's been given spiritual life. And our
faith is simply our callback, if you will, or the echo, let's
put it that way, is the echo of his work of grace. God spoke
to us and gave us life. in the echo of his voice is our
faith. And that pleases God. So with
faith, it's impossible not to please God. You say, well, but
we continue to sin. Ah, but if we believe the scriptures
say of God's people, and they are the same ones as those who
believe their sins and iniquities, I will remember no more. Not only this, when we believe,
God credits to us a flawless righteousness. Consequently,
regardless of what we do, in the sight of God, we are utterly
without sin. So by faith, When we approach God by faith,
and we'll see what that means in a minute, but when we approach
God by this God-given faith, we come before Him as those who
have no sin. Because through Jesus Christ,
we've been rendered sinless. The judge finds no fault in us. We find much fault in ourselves,
don't we? Now, our Father, our Heavenly
Father, He's not inept, as though he doesn't realize that we commit
sins. And he may deal with us as a
father does with children, to discipline us for our own good. But God never looks upon us as
the judge and sees sin and punishes it. That relationship was taken
care of in the Lord Jesus Christ. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. With faith, it's impossible not
to please Him. But then he goes on, anyone who
comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards
those who earnestly seek Him. Now, we realize that, once again,
this business of coming to God, no one does that naturally. People
will come to church. People will come to all kinds
of religion. They'll come to preachers. They'll come to the
front of the sanctuary and make a profession of faith. They'll
come to the baptistry. They'll come to any place but
God. That's what a natural man does.
But there are people who do come to God. They approach God. That's
a dangerous thing for a sinner to do. To come in the presence
of God with sin upon you is to bring eternal damnation on yourself. And yet there are those who come
to Him. Now, they come to Him, of course, because once again,
He's given them life, and therefore they've been enabled to hear
His call to come, to look. And Isaiah, look unto me. all the ends of the earth. And
that word is translated look in some translations, it's translated
turn in others. Both ideas are there. And there
isn't a single English word that would encompass the entire meaning
of that Hebrew word. But it's like, you know, you're
turned away, looking in the wrong direction. So he says, turn and
look to me. Quit looking the way you're looking.
Look to me. So God says that. But there's
not that many people that really hear. They says, look to me,
all the ends of the earth. So there's nobody left out of
that call. That is, there's nobody who's
disallowed from turning and looking to God. Absolutely no one. I believe in election as much
as anybody on the earth does. But that's just a simple fact.
You know, that's like believing two and two equals four. You
know, election is right there in the Bible. A person says,
I don't believe in election. You say, well, then you don't
believe in the Bible because I can show you the words right there.
So we believe in election. But election is not a principle
by which someone who would want to come to God is prevented from
coming to God. You see, election begins with
perceiving all people as unwilling to come to God. And out of the
unwilling, God chooses some whom He makes willing in the day of
His power. And then they come. But this
Scripture here is addressing us, not trying to deal with the
abstracts of looking back, looking at things from God's perspective,
and from the eternal perspective, and all that. This verse is talking
about us right in the midst of our lives, in the here and now.
And right now there is nobody disallowed from coming to God
in Christ Jesus. No one. There is no barrier put
up. We are free to preach. And I've been called a free will,
and it's probably for saying things like this. But for saying
things like, if you want God's salvation, take it. It's yours
if you want it. Problem is, I can't find many
people that want God's salvation. Once you explain to them what
salvation is, no, that's not what I wanted. I wanted to go
to heaven, but I didn't want that, you know? But anybody that wants it may
have it. In fact, when you find somebody
that really wants it, it means they've already got it. Because
part of God's work of salvation is making us see our need of
it and giving us a desire for it. Anybody who wants a proper relationship
with God through Jesus Christ, the door is wide open. In fact,
it's wide open even to those who don't want it. They just
won't come through. If anybody comes to God, there'll
be nobody to whom credit is owed but God himself. But those that
do not come, they've only got themselves to blame. Because
there was no door that said the elect may come through here.
The door said, come. all the ends of the earth, come. And if that's free willism, and
I know it's not, but if that works, then you're just going
to have to call me one. You're going to have to call me a sovereign
grace free willer, but that's not really what, that's not free
willism at all. In fact, it's a denial of free willism. We
know the door is open and we know that all may go through,
but nobody prevented them. Free willism or the free willism,
sovereign grace, contrast is over who can come. And the only ones who can come
are those who are made alive by the Spirit of God. He who
comes to Him must believe that He exists. Now, this is not one
of those commandment musts. It's not like, well, if you're
going to come, here's what you got to do. Now, if anyone comes
to Him, you can put it this way, it must be that he believes that
God exists and is a rewarder. Otherwise, why would he come?
You know, when a man comes to God, he's coming for what God
has. And he wouldn't do that unless
he believed that God exists. And he wouldn't do that unless
he believed that God indeed rewards those who diligently seek Him.
So, these are not musts by commandment, but they are musts because coming
to God will never happen unless these things are in place. Must
believe that He exists. Now, the devils, Satan and all the demons, they
believe God exists. In some sense, they believe it
better than you and I do. They've seen Him. They've had dealings
with him. They believe. James says the
devils believe, and they tremble. But there's more to this believing
he is than simply, you know, our translation says must believe
that he exists. I believe that what the author
here, and we don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews, but the
author here is what he's done is taking God's name, I am, then
simply put it in what in grammar you call a second person. In
other words, anyone who comes to me must believe that I am,
must believe the I am, must believe that he is. In other words, if you're a false
God, that's not faith. And that's not pleasing to God.
People say there's lots of road to God. No, there's not. There's only one God and there's
only one road to Him. I do hear people say this. They
go, well, you know, all religion leads to the same place. And
my response is, well, all religions but one lead to the same place,
but it's not a good place. And we're not saying that because
we think we're better. No, it's not our way. The right
way is not our way. It's the way we're on, but we
didn't make it up. We didn't choose it of our own,
did we? God put us on that way. He showed
us that way and worked in us to walk that way. When I say
walk that way, I don't mean walk like this. I mean walk that path.
Jesus Christ said, I am the way. And that word translated way
can be road or path or anything like that. So they must believe in the one
God of heaven and earth or they wouldn't come to him. They must believe that he is
and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. reward. Now, I generally like looking
at, you know, original words, particularly keywords of a text
like this. The interesting thing is, when
I do that, what I do is find out what the word is, like in
this verse, and I look at all the other verses I can find with
the same word in it, because I don't want to know just what
the Greek definition of that word is. I want to see how the
scriptures use that word. Problem is, this word is the
only place it appears in all of the New Testament. And it carries with it the sense
of paying wages. Now, wait a minute. We say that
what we get is freely given. The wages of sin is death. So what we earn is death. The gift of God is eternal life. So how can he talk about that
God pays wages as a reward to those who earnestly seek him?
Well, God often speaks to us in words much kinder than we
deserve. He speaks of us as being rewarded
for our earnest seeking. even though our earnest seeking
isn't nearly so earnest as it should be. And whatever seeking
we do, He's the one that prompted it and caused it in the first
place. God does a work in us and rewards us on account of
it. Now, that's the grace of it.
But the outward appearance of it is this, and our experience
is this. We earnestly seek Him. And there
is a reward for that. there's a benefit that comes
from it. What is that reward? Well, it's
not eternal life. Wait a minute, I thought that's
what the reward was. No, if you seek Him, you already have eternal
life. That's that spiritual life we're talking about. We have eternal life already.
We're not going to be given eternal life. What is this reward? Well, as near as I can tell,
it's all summed up in that we shall be made to be like Christ
and shall forever and always be with Christ. That is the reward. Heaven, I remember we used to
sing a song in our youth group, you know, heaven is a wonderful
place filled with glory and grace. I'm going to see my Savior's
face. Heaven is a wonderful place.
There's a couple of good things mentioned in there, but it just
seemed like they're always talking about heaven. Heaven's not the
reward. Christ is. And it is a reward
to be with Him. And it is a reward to be like
Him. And while God gives it to us
as though He owes it to us, we know He doesn't. We know everything
we ever get. was earned by Jesus Christ. You see, I couldn't obligate
God, but Jesus Christ did. You realize that? Now, not that
God had to be put under any pressure to do good by us. because it
was His desire to do good by us that caused Him to send the
Son. But once Jesus Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree,
God was therefore obligated by His own justice to justify us. Isn't that true? God the judge,
He had no choice because our sins were gone. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
prayed, Father, I would that those that you have given me
would be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.
Now, this is our substitute before he goes to the cross. And it's
all it's as though, you know, he's he's he says, now I'm coming
to you. And of course, he was going to
come to the father through the cross. It's as though he's saying,
I'm coming and here's what I want. And it was as though in that
passage from John 17, we get an insight into what people speak
as the covenant of grace between the father and the son. Before
time came to be, the son entered into covenant with the father
to take responsibility for the elect, take responsibility for
their sins, pay for them. And he was guaranteed a reward
for that. His reward was us. And his reward
was that we would be with him where he is. You know, this is an amazing thing to think
of. He wants us to be with him far more than we want to be with
him. Isn't that an amazing thing to
think on? Christ desires our presence more than we desire
His. How do we get that? Because He said, Father, I would
that those you've given me be with me where I am. And that was God's sinless Son
praying right there in the presence of the Father. And He said, this
is what I want. Now, we desire Christ, but the Lord Jesus Christ
desired our presence with Him so much, He was willing to suffer
the cross in order to get it. Isn't that amazing? People talk about what they sacrificed
for God, and I'm like, oh, come on, folks. We don't have as many dollars
as we might have if we didn't go to church and give an offering
to support the work, or we lost a few friends along the way.
I don't think anybody here has been crucified. I know that no
one here has been forsaken by God in order to be with Christ,
and yet Christ was forsaken by God because He wanted us to be
with Him. That's something to ponder. So the reward we receive, it
is a reward that was earned. This wasn't earned by us. It's freely given to us. But
it's given to us, Paul says, freely through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. Christ paid for it. We get it
free. But that doesn't change the fact
that we get it. You know, people say, well, no,
faith never earned anything. No, faith didn't earn anything.
But faith gets everything. Faith lays claim to everything
that Christ earned. And it gets everything that Christ
earned. And that's a lot. And it's a good thing to think
on this. None of us here are young anymore. Well, maybe Bonnie,
but the rest of us, I've only got to say something nice about
my wife. You know, I'm sorry. We don't want to leave this world. Most of us don't. And yet, Such was Christ's desire
for us to be with Him. He was willing to die under the
wrath of God to make it happen. And while we will die before
we go to be with Him, we will not die under His wrath. We're just going to move. We're
going to just drop the part of us that is causing us endless
trouble. That's all that's going to happen.
We're going to be set free. Paul said, Who shall deliver
me from this body of death? He didn't look at his coming
death or the return of the Lord as something to be resisted.
He looked upon it as a deliverance. When we die, that will be God's final work,
so to speak, in saving us. He finally delivers us from this
wretched existence within these bodies that are still corrupt,
these minds that are still warped in their understanding. This
flesh that wars against our spirit continually will be set free. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. With faith, it's impossible not
to. Anyone who comes to Him, it must be that he believes that
He is, and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Now, I just
want to make a couple of points. It won't take long. And this
is actually what I've been thinking all along. What does it mean
to earnestly seek God? Well, the first thing is, it
means to seek Him according to His Word, to believe His Word. It says in verse 3, by faith
we understand that the universe was formed by God's command,
God's Word, so that what is seen was not made out of what was
visible. Faith believes what God says, because faith believes
God. You know, I am what would be
called a creationist. I'm not a creationist because
there are some believing scientists who supposedly come up with scientific
proof for it. I'm a creationist because the
Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He commanded and it was he spoke
where he spoke and it was he commanded and it stood firm.
I can't believe anything else. You say, well, how do you explain
all the evidence science says, well, I don't. I mean, I've got
some ideas about it, but it's not my problem. Once God speaks,
that's it. So to seek him earnestly means
to seek him, taking him at his word. Peter fished all night,
didn't catch a thing. The Lord said, let your nets
down on the other side. And Peter said, well, Lord, we
fished all night. We're fishermen. We know what
we're doing. That's the right time to fish. But nevertheless, at
your word, I'll let down the nets. At your word. So to seek
him earnestly means to seek him according to his word. Secondly,
we read in verse four, by faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice
than Cain did. By faith, he was commended as
a righteous man when God spoke well of his offerings, and by
faith he still speaks, even though he is dead." Faith, or excuse
me, earnestly seeking God means to come to Him and seek Him by
the right path, which is through Jesus Christ. Now, by faith,
Abel offered God a better sacrifice. Now, it wasn't his faith that
made it a better sacrifice. Rather, his faith made him offer
a better sacrifice than Cain did. Cain was an unbeliever,
so he offered an unsuitable sacrifice. It didn't matter how good those
vegetables from his garden were, not one of them had a drop of
blood in them. And without the shedding of blood, there's no
remission of sin. Cain didn't believe that. He didn't believe
what God had said, so he brought an offering of his own wisdom,
of his own making, of his own works, and God rejected him.
Abel believed God. He believed God concerning the
promise of one who would come, and the devil would strike at
his heel, and this one to come would crush the serpent's head.
And I'm sure God must have spoken more about this one because he
understood a blood sacrifice is required. So faith moved Abel
to offer the right kind of sacrifice that would be acceptable to God.
And if we come to God earnestly by faith, we're going to come
through that one single sacrifice that God set forth. That one
single sacrifice of which Abel's sacrifice was just a picture,
and Abel understood that. He knew that that firstling of
the flock couldn't take away his sins. but he knew that the
one who was represented by that firstling of the flock, that
one could take away his sins. And so he came that way. Faith
always comes the way God says to. Then it says in verse five,
by faith, Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not
experience death. He could not be found because
God had taken him away, for before he was taken, he was commended
as one who pleased God. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Enoch pleased God. What do we
know about Enoch? Enoch believed God. To earnestly
seek God is to seek him by faith. And no other means. Meaning to seek his favor by
believing him. And I think we could add this,
even though it's not in this text of Scripture, there's very
little in the Scriptures about this character named Enoch. But
it says this, Enoch walked with God. I can only think of two people
in the Scriptures that says that, Enoch and Noah. If there's another
one, well, I'll just say there's more than what I thought that
day. But those are the two. Now, When it talks about, and
I believe all believers walk with God, all real believers
do. But this idea of walking with
God, there are a lot of people quite willing to take a little
stroll with God. They're willing to, you know,
take a one hour walk every week with him down at the church.
But instead of Enoch and Noah, these men, they walked with God.
Not every moment of their lives, they were conscious of God. We
can only hold one thing in our consciousness at a time. And
there's other things that we're supposed to put our consciousness
on. But it's like God's always there. And God is always the
goal of their life. He becomes the reason for it. I remember as a kid, I wanted
to get through Sunday so I could get over the week. Now, I want to get through the
week so I can get to Sunday. And I'm not saying that to brag
on me. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that out of the
many millions and billions of people in this world, God chose
to work that attitude in me. Walk with God. And you can go
on, Noah, speaking of him and his seeking
of God through faith, said, warned about things not yet seen, and
holy fear built an ark to save his family. And we being warned
things that haven't happened yet. The end of the world is
not on us yet. But we believe there's such a
thing as hell. We believe there's such a thing as God's wrath.
Therefore, while we don't build an ark, because that's not the
kind of wrath we fear, but that ark is a picture of Christ. And
we get in. We get in, just like Noah did
with his family. Verse 8, by faith, Abraham, when called to
go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed
and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
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 of him of the same promise. For he was looking
forward to this city with foundations whose architect and builder is
God. One who earnestly seeks God realizes that he's an alien
in this world. This is not his permanent place,
and he's not seeking to put down roots here. Seriously, this is not, our citizenship's
in heaven. And we, like Abraham, have been
called to go to a place that we've never seen. We know the way, because he leads
us, the way is Christ. But we've never been to the destination.
And we live our lives as those who live in tents, never having
a permanent dwelling. Abraham, for all the wealth that
he had, did not have a house as nice as I did. He was on the
move all the time. Why? Even though he was living
in the promised land, he knew that this was not really his
inheritance. He said he was looking forward to the city that had
foundations. He wasn't looking for a tent
city. He was looking for a heavenly one whose architect and builder
is God. And then I'm just going to skip
down to verse 13, and we'll end with this one. What is it to
earnestly seek God? Verse 13, all these people were
still living by faith when they died. Now, that's a paraphrase. Strictly, these all died in faith.
But that's what it means. When they died, they were still
believing. People say, well, I can live
by faith. Well, la-di-da. Can you die by faith? See, that's when it's, shall
we say, it's like in a poker game, when it's time to lay down
your cards. It is so easy to believe God. when it seems as though there's
a lot of life ahead of you. But what about when the last
grains of sand are going through the timepiece? Are you going
to latch on to something else just in case? Or are you just
going to continue being a believer? Those who have that faith that
pleases God They stare at death right in the face. Even though
they may be terribly and strongly tempted to add to some kind of
work to their faith, just as hedging their bet, they won't
do it. They will cry out to God, save me. For Christ's sake. They die in faith. And we'll
just leave it right there. There's more that can be said,
of course, but that's it. Looks like we had four people at one time or another,
including my granddaughter, Elena Christine. Elena was watching. He might still be watching. Yeah. And John. John's watching. John Flaustein,
yeah. And a couple of people from far away. Well, so long,
everybody. Glad you could join us.