Turning your Bibles to Hebrews
chapter 11, if you would please, we're going to look at a few
verses here, just a moment. I've entitled this message, Strangers
Here, Home in Heaven. Strangers here, but home in heaven. I used to like to hear any time
a preacher would preach about heaven. It didn't seem like it
happened enough when I was growing up. And I didn't really hear
about heaven, I think, in the way that it was presented in
scripture either. But there was always something
that I was interested in knowing, and I think most children are
like that. What is heaven like? What is heaven? and I don't claim
to be able to describe it for you in ways that you'll be able
to understand. In fact, if you were to remember
in 1 Corinthians, it comes to my memory as I'm standing here
talking to you now, but in 1 Corinthians chapter two, these words are
spoken. I hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. Now, if we were to
stop right there, we would think that that has to do with eternal
things we haven't yet seen, and we won't know them until after
death. But the next verse says, but
God hath revealed them to us by his spirit. So even though
we don't have a full comprehension now, yet God has revealed them
to us by his spirit because we understand them by faith. And
so what we learn of heaven, from scripture, we believe that and
we want the Lord to teach us further about that. So I want
to read here in Hebrews chapter 11 verses 9 through 16. Many wonderful things are said
here, not the least of which is said in the latter part in
verse 16 where it says that God is not ashamed to be called their
God. Think about that for a minute.
God is not ashamed to be called their God. Now this is true of
every believer. It causes my head to tingle,
literally, to think about that. God is not ashamed to be called
their God. And I know that when, according
to the promise of scripture, the Lord Jesus Christ will present
all of his sheep, without losing one, all of his sheep, in the
very presence of God in all of His glory and He will present
them as faultless to the exceeding joy of God and to Himself and
to us. There will be a whole family
of joyous people and the Lord Himself will be leading that
train. So think about that. God is not ashamed to be called
their God. Amazing grace, isn't it? That
the Lord, He would call those who believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, who look to Him for all their salvation and wait for
Him and look for Him. He would say, he's not ashamed
to be called their God. But let's begin in verse nine.
Actually, let's pick up verse eight. We read that last week,
we went over that. And if you recall, what we tried to, what
we were understanding is that God gave promise, a promise to
Abraham. That promise had to do with eternal
inheritance. But it also had more specifically
to do with the justification of the heathen through the Lord
Jesus Christ. that God would give them life,
God would give them faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in
believing Him they would be enabled in their experience of their
life to receive the promise of God of a righteousness worked
out by His Son and God justifying them on the basis of that righteousness
without any contribution from them. And God would give that
to them in the operation of faith so that they would receive it
as the very truth of God for themselves. I, a sinner, an ungodly
sinner, laying hold on Christ as all of my righteousness, all
of my salvation, And that was the promise that God gave to
Abraham when he said in Genesis 12, 3, that in thee and in thy
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. I know
that's true because Galatians 3, 8 says that that was the promise
that God would justify the heathen through faith. He would give
them the gift of justification so that they would know it, and
they themselves would receive it through faith alone, without
any works of their own, because it's all of grace. All of grace. Don't you love
that? Don't you love the Lord Jesus Christ is God's gift of
grace, and that He Himself is gracious to us? In 2 Corinthians
8, 9 it says, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. that
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you,
through his poverty, might be made rich. That's grace. Through
Christ's poverty, we are made rich. Amazing, isn't it? But that's what Abraham believed. He looked at the eternal inheritance
promised in God's promise of giving him the land of Canaan,
and he saw that that promise could only be fulfilled through
the previous promise that he would, through his seed, the
Lord Jesus Christ, would justify the heathen by faith. He himself
looked to Christ as all of his righteousness. So that's what
verse 8 says, By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out
into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
obeyed. And he went out not knowing whither
he went. That's an incredible thing. We look for eternal glory,
don't we? None of us have ever been to
glory. None of us have ever seen the Lord Jesus Christ with our
physical eyes. None of us have ever actually
been, have ever heard God say to us, enter into the glory of the Lord,
enter into the presence of the Lord. Well done, thou good and
faithful servant. We haven't actually heard God
say that in our experience, have we? Abraham didn't have the experience
of what God promised, but he had it by faith. And that faith
caused him to live his entire life expecting, living and waiting
in anticipation of the fulfillment of God's promise concerning an
eternal inheritance and concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why he looked patiently and waited patiently, looking for Christ
to come through Isaac. his son by promise. And he knew
that because God had promised he would give him a son, Isaac,
by Sarah, that God would also, through Isaac, bring Christ into
the world. and he would require of him what he said of what Abraham
said when he offered up Isaac, my son, God will provide himself
a lamb for the burnt offering. And so Abraham rejoiced to see
Christ's day and he sought and he was glad according to John
eight by the Lord Jesus Christ having spoken there. So here
we see that Abraham heard The call of God. The call of God
to come out of this idolatrous land, out of the household of
his own father and his brethren and leave them and go to a land,
an inheritance God would give him. And so he left. He didn't
know where he was going. He didn't know what that inheritance
would look like. But he went out believing that
what God said was true was as good as done. He believed in
God who calls those things which be not as though they were. So
he walked and he lived his entire life expecting God to fulfill
that promise. And he knew that the fulfillment
of that promise would actually come after he died. And yet he lived his life wandering
around in that land, that physical land of Canaan, which pointed
to the spiritual land. And we'll see that as we read
through here. Verse nine, by faith he sojourned in the land
of promise. To sojourn means to live there
as a stranger, to be there temporarily. You're not at home there, that's
not your home, but you're there for a while. You really don't
fit in because the people there aren't really your people while
you're living there, but you're living among them. You're part
of the world, I'm sorry, you're in the world, but you're not
part of the world. You have another home. You have another master. You hold to the truth of God. not the imaginations of men.
So by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange
country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs
with him of the same promise. Sometimes we think, well, my
house is only so many square feet and my yard is small. My
neighbors are within earshot and I can see them and they can
see me. I just need more space. I need at least 50 acres. Abraham
had a lot more than 50 acres, but he was still a stranger among
the people of that land. They couldn't see him by lifting
their eyes above the fence, but they knew he was there. And he
lived his life among them in the land of Canaan as a stranger.
And all the people that were with him understood that he lived
for another home. He was a stranger in this place,
even though God had promised to give it to him and to his
children. And when it says that God promised to give it to him,
it's referring, as it says in Romans 4, verse 13, that he should
be the heir of the world, not the heir of this land of Canaan,
which is surrounded by boundaries in the Mediterranean area of
this world. So he lived by faith, he sojourned
by faith in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling
in tabernacles, not palatial estates, not castles, but tabernacles,
in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same
promise. He actually was the heir of the world. Everything
was his. And it says this in 1 Corinthians
3 and verse 21, which I will read to you. Listen to the way
God speaks of what is the possession of his people. He says, let no
man glory in men, for all things are yours. And in case we're
wondering, well, he didn't really mean everything, did he? Well,
let me tell you. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas,
which is Peter, or the world, or life, or death, or things
present, or things to come. All are yours, and here's why. You are Christ's, and Christ
is God's, all given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. His inheritance
is our inheritance. We have our lot in what is His. And so Abraham also. He sojourned
in this land, he dwelt in tents, he had the world, and yet all
the people that were there and all the land that was there were
strangers to him. And he lived his life looking
for the fulfillment of God's promise. And this is what every
believer does. We look for a promise yet to
be fulfilled. We have the promise. We have
God's word on it. We're confident that what God
has said is true, even though we haven't experienced it in
our own lifetime. In fact, it's so true that we
live our lives with this as the most important, the most dear
thing to us, that we have another home, and that one day we're
going to be there, and it won't be long. In James 4, verse 14,
it says, what is your life? What is the length of it? It
is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes
away. It's like the steam that comes
up off your hot coffee. It just, it's gone. Oh, it's
gone. It doesn't matter if you lived
one year or a hundred years, your life is but a vapor. in
the eyes of the Lord in eternity. God says it's just a vapor. So
we live our lives, and in that short interval of that vapor
of our lives, by God's grace, we have found a treasure. And
that treasure is what God has done for us in Christ. That treasure
is Christ for us, and us in Him, and He in us. It's that union
with him and the knowledge of it from God's word and the faith
to believe it. That's our treasure. We live
this life having no higher treasure than knowing that before God
we are in Christ and God receives us for his sake alone. And that
all that is his is ours. And all of God's revelation is
made known to us in him. And so we seek the Lord. Lord,
make yourself known. And he does so. And He does so
in His saving work in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the way
we understand God. That's the way we know our Savior.
That's the most precious thing to us in this world and will
be for all eternity, is to worship God in Christ for what He's done
for us in saving our souls. I love the Lord, Psalm 116, because
He has heard my voice. You see? And so he heard us in
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. So by faith he sojourned in the
land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tents or
tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same
promise. Abraham lived in tents in a strange
place, but he lived with people who were the heirs of promise.
Isaac and Jacob. God had promised it to them.
And we live our lives in this world, and though we live amongst
people, like Abraham did, remember when he took his 318 servants
to go rescue Lot? We have a lot of people around
us, but he lived with the heirs of promise. And when we live
in this life, we're strangers, but we live with the people of
God, and that, to us, is the nearest and dearest thing in
this life. We would rather have the fellowship
of Christ's people over the gospel of his son, eating and drinking
of Christ with them, than we would have any other pleasures.
I like to see the forest, I like to see the mountains, I like
to see the waters, I like to do things outside, but even when
I'm out there, I'm still unfulfilled. and still a stranger, because
there's something nearer and dearer, much nearer and much
dearer to me. It resides so much so that it's
part of my spirit and soul. And it's this God-given grace
of faith in Christ, which is by Him living in me. I live,
Christ lives in me, and I live by the faith of the Son of God.
Verse 10. Notice, Abraham lived in tents
with his sons, Isaac and Jacob, and also Sarah, the heirs with
him of the same promise, because he looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. What is the foundation
of this city? The Lord Jesus Christ. No other
foundation can any man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the foundation. If we build our house on anything
but Him, our house will fall. And I think of the house falling,
and I think of the scripture that I gave to the children for
memory, a verse in Isaiah 54.10. Listen to this. For the mountains
shall depart, and the hills be removed. But my kindness shall
not depart from thee. Neither shall the covenant of
my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.
This world will pass away. The mountains shall depart. Don't
be alarmed when the governments collapse. It has to happen. The governments are represented
a lot of times by mountains. That's the high point. Remember,
Satan tempted Jesus to take him up onto a high mountain or a
high pinnacle of the temple and promised to give him all the
kingdoms of the world. That's the way men think of things.
The mountains shall depart. All the things that we consider
great in this world and holding things together are gonna be
dissolved. Expect it. But here's the confidence we
have. But my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed.
Just like everything was flooded in Noah's day, and the Lord saved
Noah, that's the way the Lord's going to save his people in Christ.
So he looked for a city. What city did Abraham look for?
Was he looking for Jerusalem after he died and his children
would go into the land, the physical land of Canaan, and would build
Jerusalem on that mountainside? Was he looking for that? Of course
not. No, in fact, the next chapter over says, in verse 22 of Hebrews
chapter 12, We are come, or you are come, unto Zion, Mount Zion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You see, Abraham looked for a
heavenly city. It was called Jerusalem because
the Jerusalem on earth was just a figure of that, a type, a representation,
a picture of that holy city. In Revelation chapter 21, listen
to the way God describes the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. In Revelation 21, verse 1, I
saw a new heaven and a new earth. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
revealing to the Apostle John what is about to take place in
history, in reality. God calls it as so, and it is
so even before it happens. And Jesus Christ is revealing
to John, and John writes this way, I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away, and there was no more sea. The sea represents God's judgment.
Remember, Jonah was cast into the sea. Jesus Christ spent three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And so the
sea is the judgment of God poured out on this world. In the beginning,
God separated the land from the sea. He took a place out of that
sea and now God says, in the end, there will be no more sin,
no more condemnation. It was all absorbed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So he goes on, verse 2, Revelation
21, verse 2. And I, John, saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven with this beauty,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The husband is the
Lord Jesus Christ. The city are the people of God.
Abraham looked for a city which consisted of all believers, made
beautiful in the righteousness and holiness of the Lord Jesus
Christ by his shed blood on the cross. We are living stones. 1 Peter 2, living stones built
into a temple made by the Lord. This city is the Lord Jesus Christ's
own bride, his people. He dwells in them. Look in verse
3. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. In that tabernacle in the Old
Testament, the law of God, Aaron's rod that budded in the manna,
all were placed. And on the lid of it, the mercy
seat. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the altar that sanctifies
the gift. The gift is Christ and Him crucified,
sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat, God representing the cherubim
looking down in justice upon that mercy seat, seeing the blood,
and God says, He passes by us, He receives us, He justifies
us for Christ's sake. The propitiation, the Lord Jesus
Christ's blood was shed, wrath is appeased, God is reconciled
to His people. We're reconciled to Him through
His blood. This is what he's talking about here, the tabernacle
of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is with
men. In the fulfillment of it, we
not only see it by faith, it will be there. The Lord Jesus
Christ, who? The Lamb of God, slain from the
foundation of the world, and we will behold Him. He goes on,
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them, God himself shall be with
them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are passed away. You see this? And we'll keep
reading the next two verses. And he that sat upon the throne,
That's the Lord Jesus said, behold, I make all things new. And he
said to me, write. We know it was Christ speaking
because he's talking to John in this book. Write, he says
to John, for these words are true and faithful. You can count
on this. Remember last week? This is a
faithful saying. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. This is true and faithful. And
he said to me, verse six, it is done. The consummation of
the eternal will of God, worked out by the Lord Jesus Christ,
given to his people in time, now is consummated in glory in
heaven. And they receive the full fulfillment
of the promise of God, made to Abraham, made to Christ, and
made to his people in him. It is done. Jesus says, I am
Alpha and Omega. From the beginning to the end,
it's all about me. The beginning and the end, I
will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water
of life freely. This is the fulfillment. Don't
look for a land in Israel. Don't look for a nation to occupy
that land. Look, as Abraham did, for the
heavenly Jerusalem, the city in glory that has foundations,
whose walls, according to Isaiah 61.10, are salvation, and the
people are clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll
read that to you as well. Isaiah chapter 61. Let me read
this. It says in verse 10, I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord. This is what happens when we
realize by faith what we have in Christ. I will greatly rejoice
in the Lord. Isaiah 61 10. My soul shall be
joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me. With the garments
of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride
adorneth herself with her jewels. In other words, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ is both His beauty and ours. The bride
is clothed in the beauty of the Son of God that he worked out
as man on earth in his own submission unto obedience even the death
of the cross. And so we see that here. Now,
going back to Hebrews chapter 11. So the city Abraham looked
for was the heavenly Jerusalem. The foundation of that city is
Christ. The walls are salvation. The people are clothed in righteousness.
And God is the builder. It says in verse 10, Hebrews
11, 10, whose builder and maker is God. God built this. We couldn't do this. Salvation
is of the Lord. And aren't you happy that it
is? So happy. That means that it's
not of me. It's impossible for me. Everything
about salvation is impossible for me. But nothing is impossible
for God. That was Jesus' promise to his
disciples when he spoke of that rich young ruler in Matthew chapter
19. That should be the cause for
ultimate optimism. No doubting, because it's all
on the Lord. It's by grace, which means it's
completely apart from our works. It's entirely of His grace. You wonder sometimes, am I a
believer? Am I a Christian? Could I even be so bold as to
claim that? Don't worry about that. Look
to Christ. Believe that God's salvation
is by Him. Believe these words from Romans
3, 24. Being justified freely by His grace. What else is there? It's all of grace. Do you believe
the grace of God is able to save you? Period. Question mark. Of course. Look at Matthew chapter
9. Read this place to you. I was
thinking about having the kids look at this today, so we'll
look at it together. In Matthew chapter 9, in verse 27, when Jesus departed
from that place, two men, two blind men, followed him, crying,
saying, Thou son of David, have mercy on us. And when he was
come into the house, the blind men came to him. So these men,
somehow these blind men found their way to Jesus. Isn't that
the gospel? We're spiritually blind somehow
in God's providence. He has brought us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. These blind men came to Jesus
and Jesus said to them, listen, believe ye that I am able to
do this. Yes, I actually do. I believe
the Lord is able to save me by his grace. I don't have any obedience. I do have sin. That's all I am. I'm sinful. Aren't we? And yet in the Lord Jesus Christ,
I believe he's able to save me to the uttermost. He does the
work. It's all his work. And that's
what we're gonna find out here. Look at the next verse. Hebrews
chapter 11, verse 11. Through faith also, Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child
when she was past age." She was past the age of childbearing,
long past the age. In fact, Isaac was born when
she was 90 years old. Nowadays, women don't have children
past maybe 45. That's a high age nowadays for
women to have children. She was twice that, 90. And it
says that she received strength She received strength. God gave
her that strength to conceive. See, the child Isaac was conceived
in her womb by God's strength given to her, and her body was
dead, and yet she received this strength. And she was delivered. In other words, she brought Isaac
to birth, and he was actually delivered. They both were healthy.
When she was past age, notice, because she judged him faithful
who had promised. You see, that's what faith is.
Faith is believing that God is able and faithful to do what
he promised concerning our salvation in Christ. And she judged God
faithful. She judged him faithful. He's
the one who promised. And if God's the one who promised,
God's going to work it out. Isn't that the case? If God speaks,
he's the one who does the work. Remember in the beginning, let
there be light. Did everybody put together the
scaffolding and create light? No. Light leaped out of the darkness
at God's word. Isaiah 46 verse 11, I have spoken
it, I will also bring it to pass. There you go. I will also do
it. Isaiah 46 verse 11. God does his will by his word. He accomplishes it. And his word
spoken is the living word, Christ, and God has accomplished our
salvation by his word. And so, God promised to Sarah,
you're going to have a son, Isaac. At first, in the tent, she laughed.
I can't believe it. And the angel said, asked Abraham,
why did your wife, why did Sarah laugh? And she said, I didn't
laugh. Oh, yes, you did. And here though, it says, she
judged him faithful who had promised, which is the case. Did she or
didn't she? Well, I like what Todd pointed
out a long time ago about the way that God shows the obedience
of these people here in Hebrews chapter 11. in the New Testament. God depicts the work of his spirit
in the believer's life so that he shows them, he shows to us,
the work of Christ and his spirit. And there's no deviation from
the obedience. She believed and she received
strength. But in the Old Testament, we
find still the old man being represented in the lives of the
believers. So they're following and doing all sorts of things.
But here in chapter 11, Abraham believed God. There was no hint
of his unbelief or disobedience, no delay. He believed God. His
life was condensed into the work God did, and God says, well done,
thou good and faithful servant. The Lord judged this way, so
it's a delightful thing. But here's the definition of
faith. We judge Him faithful who promised. Who promised? God
the Father. What did He promise? Christ and
Him crucified. Did He do it? He gave His Son.
Christ gave Himself. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ took His people with Him,
and He confessed their sins, and He endured the punishment
due to us for our sins. He was buried. He put those sins
away. God remembers them no more. They're
put out of God's sight and He raised Him from the dead and
justified Him with Him, all of His people. And that's why we
have life. That's why when we hear the gospel,
we believe it. This life is given to us because of righteousness.
Romans 8.10, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And
so we have it here, Sarah believed God, she was persuaded, she judged
him faithful who had promised. Now, verse 10, therefore sprang
there even of one, and him as good as dead, meaning Abraham,
so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand
which is by the seashore innumerable. From Isaac came a bunch of people,
all of the nation of Israel. But he's speaking more particularly
here of the nations who were saved by the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, because it was in Abraham's seed, Christ, that
all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And so the
seed here spoken of, Sarah here, is a figure of the New Jerusalem. Read Isaiah 54, or 50, I think
it's 54, maybe it's 58. No, it's 54. where God speaks
about the woman who was barren, and again in Galatians 4, having
many more children than the woman who had a wife. And it's comparing
the gospel and the church of God to the law, Hagar, represented
by Hagar, the law of God, and those who work for their salvation
and trust their works. Here we are, we've been made
to see that we're sinful and we can't do anything. The corruptions
of our nature keep us, separate us from God. Our sins separate
us from God. We have no hope. We ruined ourselves.
We deserve all that we're going to get. And yet God in his mercy
has rescued us by the Lord Jesus Christ and declared it to us.
We're the children of the free woman, the children of grace.
And that's what Sarah here represents. And so when it says that, so
many as the stars of sky and multitude, and as the sand which
is by the seashore innumerable, it's referring to all of those
the Lord Jesus Christ purchased with his blood, the church of
God, who shall be with him at the last day. Okay, let's go
to verse 13. These all died in faith. These
all, meaning Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah,
all these. They all died in faith. All believers
die looking to Christ. God gives them grace to do so.
Remember, Jesus prayed for Peter's faith. He denied him, but yet
he was recovered. It doesn't mean that we will
never doubt or that we won't also sin in unbelief. It just
means that Christ is going to uphold us in that faith. It says
in, well, I won't get into that. So notice here that they all
died in faith. Now, this is important. We understand
this. Look at the next part. Not having received the promises. They believe the promise. They
believe God. They believe that what God promised
is as good as done. And so Abraham lived his life
waiting for it, looking for it. I don't care. I got just this
dirt and these sheep and a tent and a couple of kids. And I'm
happy because I have the promise of God. I have Christ by faith. But notice, not having received
the promises. Even though he was content to
live by faith as a stranger, he was looking forward to, in
hope, in confidence of receiving the actual fulfillment of what
God promised. Now God has promised us many
things, the most dear of which we hold fast to is that Jesus
Christ is all of my salvation. Don't we? We come to God when
we have sinned against God, we come to God knowing our sinfulness,
and we come to Him, Lord, receive me for Christ's sake, and we
hear from the gospel that we are complete in Him. We've been
perfected by his one offering. He has obtained our eternal redemption.
We've been reconciled by the death of his son. When we were
yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. When we were without
strength, when we were the enemies of God, God did this. And that's
our hope, isn't it? That God looks upon Christ, as
Rommel said, by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. Even
so, by the obedience of one, our Savior, many shall be made
righteous. so that God has made him for
us to be wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
He is our all, isn't he? Christ is our life. He's everything. And that truth, which is the
gospel, that we were united with Him in all that He did, in all
that He did. He did to God for us, and God
received from Him for us, as us, and God received us as Him,
and blessed us with all that He gave Him. That's the Gospel. So, like them, we hold to that. We live our lives trusting him
and coming to God at all times that way. Like Isaac, God spoke
to him and appeared to him and gave him these promises in Genesis
chapter 26 and it says right there Isaac pitched his tent
there and his servants Doug O'Well, and he called there on the name
of the Lord. That's what we do, don't we?
God has shown us mercy in the justifying work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is where we plant our tent. This is where we dig the well. We look to Christ at all times
by faith, and we're constantly drinking this in, and we fellowship
with those like Isaac's family who lived with him in that tent.
Doug O'Well, let's stay right here. That's where we are. We
won't leave this. Will you also go away? Lord,
where are we going to go? You have the words of eternal
life. And so they died in faith, not having received the fulfillment
of the promises in their own experience. We believe that God
has received us for Christ's sake, but have you heard God's
word say that? I mean, Him actually speaking
it to you? Enter into the joy of the Lord.
Well done, my good and faithful, thou good and faithful servant.
Have you heard Him? Have you received the experience
of standing before God in the presence of His glory without
fault? I haven't yet, but I believe it's so. I believe God has received
me for Christ's sake, and therefore when He calls my name on Judgment
Day, Christ will answer for me. And He Himself is my answer,
because He answered at the cross. I believe that. I live by that.
I love that. And you do too, if you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. So these all died in faith, not
having received, they didn't experience the fulfillment of
those promises. I know I'm holy by the one offering
of Jesus Christ, but I don't experience that holiness, do
I? All I have now is the substance of it in the deposit of faith,
in the gift of faith. So, these all died in faith,
not having received the promise. We don't experience sanctification
yet. We will one day, when we hear
him say, as he says in Jude 24, faultless in the presence of
his glory. We were chosen to this, chosen
before the foundation of the world in Him that we should be
holy and without blame before Him in love and now in glory
we're going to receive the fulfillment of that. But what did they do? Though they didn't experience
the fulfillment of the promises in their own lifetime, having
seen them afar off, it seemed like a long way off while they
were living in this world, and were persuaded of them. God has
persuaded us. If you believe the gospel, it's
because God persuaded you. You didn't produce this. This
persuasion cometh not from yourself. Faith is not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God. And they embraced them. You know
what that means? It means they welcomed them with
joy. We gladly trust Christ. This is not like some kind of
work, well I'm gonna commit myself to Jesus and therefore God's
gonna save me. No. We see the work is done. Christ
is seated in glory. He is our salvation. And we gladly
embrace the truth. God has given us a love of the
truth. That's what it's called in the
gospel, a love. These didn't receive the love
of the truth. You who believe have received the love of the
truth. Don't you love hearing the gospel, knowing that this
is God's own testimony concerning us in Christ? We live our lives
this way, don't we? We praise God. We're thankful. And this is the way they live.
And so he said, they died in faith, not having received the
promises, but having seen them. That's the perception of faith.
And we're persuaded of them. That's the convincing nature
of faith. God persuades us of the truth
of it. This is the way things are. We believe him who calls
those things which be not as though they were. And they embraced
them. They trusted him. They laid all that they were
in the hands of Christ. They brought only Christ. They
looked only to Him. They considered Him alone. They
regarded only His sacrifice like Abel. And they expected God to
fulfill His promise because He's the one who made it. He's the
one who would do it. And they confessed. They confessed
they were strangers and pilgrims in this earth. That's the way
we live, isn't it? We gladly confess this. What
does it mean to be... When I was a little kid, my dad
used to listen to Hank Williams. And so I got this song in my
head. And I think my mom and dad used
to sing it too. This world is not my home. I'm just a passing
through. My treasures are laid up somewhere
beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven's
open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore. Oh,
Lord, you know I have no friend like you. If heaven's not my
home, and I would change it, if Christ is not my all, then,
Lord, what will I do? That's it, isn't it? We live
as strangers. Does it mean that we want to
live in the middle of a thousand acre ranch so that we can't see
our neighbors? Like in a commune or a monastery
or something like that, separate from the world? That's not the
point. It just means while we're in
this world, we feel like we're not home. You know what it's
like to go home? I remember years ago, I flew
from down here up to Alaska where my parents were, and I hadn't
seen them for a long time. I just remember walking in and
feeling right at home. I knew I was accepted there. Not that I was a great person,
but they knew who I was. They accepted me. I was accepted
in my mom and dad's house with my brothers and sisters. They
all greeted me. They were happy to see me. I
was glad that they were. They welcomed me. You see, when
you think about heaven, think about it as home. Jesus said,
he says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God,
believe also in me. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and bring you to myself. That was
his prayer in John 17, verse 23, I think it is. He says, Father,
I will that they also whom thou has given me be with me where
I am that they may behold my glory which thou has given me.
That's heaven. To be with Christ, to see his
glory, the one who gave himself for us, who took our sins away
from us and made them his own and brought in himself to God,
brought those sins and confessed them as his. and received from
God the full forgiveness of them because he endured the punishment
due to those sins. He wiped them away. And then
God justified him once he put them away. And he declares to
us this acceptance by God. The Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me, I want to see his face. I want to hear
his words. I want him to tell me what he did. I want him to
make it known to me, make himself known to me in the intimacy of
that fellowship. There's nothing that excels that.
No amount of swimming in heaven, or riding bikes in heaven, or
looking at the trees in the pasture lands of heaven, as people like
to think. None of that's going to make
any difference to me if I can be with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Heaven is Christ. I am thy inheritance, God told
Abraham in Genesis 15. The Lord is our inheritance and
we are his. And to know that we are his inheritance,
can anything surpass that? Christ's own people. All that
is his is ours and we want nothing but him. And yet he's given us
all this. So what is heaven? Heaven is
like home. It's the home we were destined
to, predestined to, but we weren't fit for it. we had to be put
in Christ. And then we had to go through
this process of God showing us what it actually means to be
in Christ and be brought out of the ruin of our own ignorance
and pride and filth. to be with the Lord. We're the
prodigals, brought to the Father's house. He puts His robe upon
us, and the ring on our finger, and shoes on our feet, and kills
the fatted calf, and He explains to us the kindness of His grace,
the exceeding greatness of His grace to us in Christ Jesus.
And He'll spend all future ages doing that. When we think about
heaven, think about the prayers of our mother and father, or
those who loved us and prayed for us in this world, in this
life. and they've gone to glory. Will their prayers be answered?
Well, of course they will be when we stand before the Lord
Jesus Christ. Will God let them know that their
prayers were answered? Of course he will, because we
will see them, and they will see us, and we will be so happy. Happiness is just too small a
word, isn't it? To be united and reunited with
those on earth we had fellowship with around the gospel, whether
it were our mother, our father, our brothers and sisters, or
those who've been brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who had no physical relationship to us, but which gave us such
a close-knit relationship that there's this bond of love between
us. When we're in heaven, then that communion we have with one
another around the throne of Christ will be complete. Then
we will experience The promise. Now we have it by faith. And
now we anticipate it. We expect it. God promised it.
And we're actually looking forward to it. We look to Christ, but
we look for Christ. In Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1, let me read it to you this way. How God says it
here. There's many places we could
go, but here, let me take you there. He says, 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1, verse It's hard to know where to start
here. I was gonna read the whole chapter, but I'm gonna cut it
short. Look at verse nine. They themselves show of us what
manner of entering in we had to you, and how you turned to
God from idols to serve the living and true God. And notice, and
to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead,
even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. We wait
for his son, we look for him, we expect him. Looking to Jesus,
looking for Jesus, waiting on him. Abraham lived his life as
a stranger in this world. We live our lives as strangers.
All the saints of old, Moses, Elijah, Abraham, Adam, Abel,
Seth and Enos, Enoch, Noah, go on down the line. David, Ruth,
All of these saints of old, Hannah, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, all
the saints of old. We're going to be with them.
God wrote of them. God taught the gospel to us through
their lives, through their words. And we're going to sit with them.
We will be received as they are received. Because we're all received
in Christ alone. And we have the same inheritance.
Eternal life, eternal glory with the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Heaven is something
to look forward to. It's Christ with us, we with
Him, in the presence of His glory without fault, experiencing the
full fulfillment, the full consummation of God's promises made to us
in Christ before the world began. And we live our lives, we are
encouraged to live this way. Set your affections on things
above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.
This is Colossians 3. Read it. See how this hope that
we have, we have this work of faith, this labor of love, and
this patience of hope, he says in 1 Thessalonians 1. So we're
living now by faith, living in hope. But when we see the Lord,
we'll have it all. And you know the one thing that
we won't lose then? Faith, we won't need anymore.
Hope, we won't need that anymore either, because we'll have the
promised blessing. But something else is given to us that God
is not going to take away, that we're continually having, it's
called love. then the love of God will be
unfolded to us in all of its grandeur, its immeasurable, incomprehensible,
infinitive. God is love, and we will know
Him in the love He had for us in Christ. Let's pray. Lord,
we pray that you would give us this grace to live now upon your
word, looking to Christ at all times, living our lives as strangers
and pilgrims in this world, looking for a home that's not this earth,
looking for a home with Jesus Christ in heaven, when we shall
see his face and know him even as we are known and be like him,
conformed to his image according to your predestinating purpose
of grace. You did the work, it's all of
grace, it's all by our Lord Jesus Christ. Your spirit makes it
known to us now, giving us life in our spirit and faith in Christ,
to live upon Him in hope and to love Him now by faith. And
Lord, we pray that we would be given this grace, each one of
us, to walk together, patient, with one another, looking for
that common salvation, and praying for one another, that when we
see one another fallen, or whatever it is, we might be coming to
the throne of your grace to Rescue us and uphold us in this faith.
And deliver us from evil, even out of the midst of it, through
the trials of our lives. Help us, dear Lord, to find this
confidence in your word, by your spirit, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his name we pray, amen.