You want to turn in your Bibles
to Genesis chapter 23. Probably never heard a sermon
from Genesis 23. We're going to look at that chapter
today. I've never heard a sermon from
Genesis 23. Before we begin, let's ask the
Lord to be with us. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank
you for your word. Thank you for the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Savior, our only hope, and all of our salvation. Thank you for these people you've
gathered here today, we pray. We pray, Lord, that you would
see the needs of their heart, and you would speak from your
word to them, and you would speak to my heart also. Lord, help
us to be faithful to your word. Help us to be faithful to our
Savior. Help us to be thankful, and in
our hearts, our very hearts, to worship you. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen. Genesis 23, last week we had
a, we looked at just the first two verses of Genesis 23. This
week I want to consider the rest of that chapter with you. It's
a very endearing chapter. When you read the Bible, sometimes
you read sections of scripture and you wonder, I wonder why
the Lord put that there. Sometimes we continue wondering
that throughout our lives, never knowing. but hopefully we'll
see something from this that helps us to see why. In this
chapter, just to summarize for you, Sarah, Abraham's wife, died. She was the beloved wife of her
husband Abraham. She died at the age of 127, which
is which is an old age in our time. It's very rare to hear
somebody living over 100. And beyond that, it's unheard
of. I've never heard of anybody living
that long. But in those days, 127 was still
old. But anyway, she was the wife
of her husband, Abraham. Abraham is the most talked about
man, I think, in all of scripture, perhaps more than, maybe Moses
more than Abraham. But he's spoken of throughout
all of the scripture. As we've seen in the book of
Genesis, God has used Abraham to teach us the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that we are taught
in the gospel has been spoken before in scripture in the life
of Abraham. God called Abraham when he lived
in a land of idolatry. He called him out of the Ur of
the Chaldees. God made promises to Abraham. God's promises to
Abraham were concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And God justified
Abraham by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, not
by his own obedience, not by his own worthiness, but by the
obedience and the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
God promised Abraham to give him an eternal inheritance. All
these things are true of God's people. And so we see in this
man's life the entire gospel. And here we have the end of the
life of his wife, his wife Sarah. And so, in this chapter we see
this, and I'm just going to read through the chapter. There's
20 verses here. Give me a minute to read through this with you.
It says in the verse 1, and Sarah was 107 and 20 years old. These
were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in... I think
Sarah is perhaps the only woman in the Bible whose lifespan is
spoken of in this way. It's common among men because
they were patriarchs. God tied their ages to various
things, but Sarah is a very unusual woman in this way. So Sarah died
in Tirgith Arba, the same as Hebron, in the land of Canaan.
And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Now
this is touching, isn't it? That Abraham would mourn for
his wife and weep for her. Can you imagine? Abraham is at
this point 137 years old. He himself was an old man and
they had had one son together, Isaac. And he was 100 when Isaac
was born. 37 years had passed and now his
wife dies. and he mourns and he weeps for
her. There's something about this
that instructs us. First of all, the most notable
saints, the most notable of God's people die. And there's a number of things
we learn from that. First of all, it's a comfort to know that
even God's favored people die. And their death is on purpose. It's appointed unto men once
to die. And after this, the judgment,
Hebrews 9, 27. So, throughout scripture we see
this. In the book of John, chapter 11, Lazarus got sick and died. And Jesus loved Martha and Mary
and Lazarus. And He went to raise Lazarus
from the dead. The death of the saints, according
to Psalm 116, verse 15, is precious in the sight of the Lord. It's
precious. Because God views His people as He views His Son. He
views them as His Son. And this is grace beyond description,
comprehension. We can't understand how that
could be. But God looks upon His people as He looks upon His
Son. And He loves them as He loves
His Son. Because He has given them to His Son in order that
He, the Lord Jesus Christ, might stand for them. and do for them
all that God requires from his people. And that is grace. As I say, it's incomprehensible,
unspeakable grace. And so when Abraham's wife died,
he mourns and weeps for her. Even though death comes to all
of God's people, it's on purpose, it's by God's purpose, and it's
not the end. But he did mourn for her. He
mourned and wept for her because he loved her. And I like to think
about this for a minute. Abraham loved his wife. Remember
from last week, they were both brothers and sisters and she
was his wife. She was the sister of Abraham
and became the wife of Abraham. And I don't know how old they
were when they got married. If they were maybe 30 years old,
then they were married almost 100 years. That's a long time. No wonder he loved her. She was
his sister and his wife. And I was looking back for some
pictures for someone who had asked me of our own childhood
when we were just little bitty kids. And I thought back about
that bond between brothers and sisters that God creates. I used
to wait for my brother to come home from kindergarten so he
could play with me. And I was younger than he was.
And I always looked forward to that at that early age. That
bond goes with us through life, doesn't it? The bond between
brothers and sisters. But also the bond is especially
strong between a husband and his wife. And so when you think
about this, think about how God has given that love that Abraham
had for Sarah and that she had for him. Sarah was a woman who
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and she obeyed her husband and
called him Lord. It says in 1 Peter 3, 6, because
she loved him and respected him. And she did that in faith, knowing
that God was going to, through her and him, bring the Lord Jesus
into the world, who would save them from their sins. And so
she was especially dear to Abraham, and Abraham was dear to her.
And so his tears of mourning were genuine tears of love for
her. And remember how Mary and Martha wept for their brother
Lazarus. And remember how it says in John 11.35 that Jesus
himself wept. And there's a big lesson in that. I'm not going to get into that.
But it shows the compassion that the Lord Jesus has for his people. Tears of mourning that Abraham
had for Sarah were genuine tears of sorrow for her. Also, his
tears were to show the thankfulness he had to God that in his life,
in the providence of God, that means God's dealings with us,
he had given to Abraham a wife. That's a good thing. It says
in the Proverbs, he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing and
obtaineth favor from the Lord. And so he was thankful to God.
There's no greater love and there's no greater cause in this life
I chose my words carefully there. In this life, there's no greater
cause for thankfulness than the love of a wife and a husband
for each other. That's a special, special thing. And if you have that, then give
God thanks for it. And don't think that if you're
not married or don't have that, that God's not been gracious
to you or hasn't had favor on you, but just think about the
treasure that God has given you if you have a wife or a husband. Our wives, and I can speak of
this from my own personal relationship to my wife, but our wives, think
about this, if you're a husband, your wife has given up her life. to be your husband, I mean to
be your wife, to be yours, to be with you and to follow you
and do whatever in life you've chosen for your family to do.
A wife has given up everything for you. That's something that
causes us a great deal amount of seriousness in the thinking
about how God has given us something so precious as a wife that she
would give up everything for us And I love her, my wife, I
love my wife all the more for that. And I thank my God for
his mercy and goodness to me and her. That an entire life
of a person, especially one so dear, would be so willingly given
and God would give that woman to me in grace. That's a wonderful
thing. No wonder that Abraham shed tears
and had mourning for her. Especially when we consider our
own undeservingness and our own ill-deservingness and our pride
and our stubbornness. and our selfishness and our foolishness
and all the things that we are and that God would be so gracious
to give us someone so precious. My wife is the dearest in life
to me. Through good and bad, in my worst, in our lives together,
in childbearing, in child training, in child rearing, in my foolishness
that's cost her much, in all of this, she's loved me with
a genuine love and concern of tender kindness for me. So patient
and loving, hiding my sins and covering them. But in all this we see God's
goodness to us, don't we? The Lord Jesus Christ. This is
not a sermon about my wife. It's a sermon about the goodness
of God to us. And Abraham knew that. And so
I think about this though. I think when I get to heaven,
the first person I'm going to look for there, which I will
see, is the Lord Jesus. I'm sure of that. But I believe
the next person will be my wife because I want to see her again.
Anyway, it says here in verse 4 and verse 3 that Abraham stood
up from before his dead and spake unto the sons of Heth. Those
were the people in the land of Canaan that he was living amongst. In verse 4 he said to them, I'm
a stranger and a sojourner with you. A sojourner. What's a sojourner? Well, a sojourner
is someone who's staying only temporarily. A sojourner is someone
who's not going to be there very long. Just a short time. They're not at home where they
are. They're staying there only. They're
passing through only there as a present dwelling place. And
Abraham confessed this before the sons of Heb, before the people
of Canaan. He said, I'm a sojourner and
a stranger with you. And in Hebrews chapter 11, I
want you to read this attitude that Abraham carried throughout
his life after God called him. Hebrews chapter 11, listen to
what it says here, beginning at verse 8. It says, By faith,
Abraham sojourned in the land of promise. That was the land
of Canaan. God promised him the entire land
to him and to his children. But he sojourned there. He was
a temporary occupant of that place. Only there for a short
time. He wasn't at home there, and
it wasn't his home. But God had promised it to him.
It seems like a paradox, doesn't it? But listen on. It says, By faith he sojourned in the
land of promise, verse 9, as in a strange country, dwelling
in tabernacles, that's another word for tents, with Isaac and
Jacob. the heirs with him of the same
promise. Isaac his son and Jacob his grandson
had also been given the same promise by God that this land
was going to be theirs, and yet they themselves dwelt in it as
strangers. And there's a spiritual lesson
in that. It says in verse 10, "...for he looked for a city
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." His
city had foundations. It wasn't a temporary thing.
It was a permanent thing. An everlasting. thing. It was heaven itself, the city
of God, the kingdom of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the church
of God. That's what that means. And verse 11, through faith also
Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered
of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful
who had promised. a very definition of faith, is
to look away from myself to the Lord Jesus who is faithful to
do all he promised to do. Verse 12, Therefore sprang there
even of one, and him, as good as dead, speaking about Abraham,
so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand
which is by the seashore innumerable, these all, Sarah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, these all died in faith not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth, For they that say such things declare
plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from whence they came out, they might have had
opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.
What majestic words describing the believer's attitude in life
towards God's promises in Christ that we would look for the eternal
inheritance and not see our life in this world, this temporary
place, as our inheritance. Abraham lived his whole life
in Canaan and God did not give him anything in that land all
the time, yet he promised it to him. That's an amazing thing. He lived his life knowing that
his inheritance was not what he was walking on. It's not what
he was living in. It was somewhere else. It was
a place with foundations, an eternal home. And so like that
song, I think it was Hank Williams saying, this world
is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My
treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. I don't know
how much he understood, but that was an accurate statement. Laid
up by God in Christ for God's people. This world is our present
dwelling place, but if you look at 1 Peter 1, just a couple pages
over from Hebrews, he says this concerning God's people who believe
the Lord Jesus. He says in verse 1, Peter, an
apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers. scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Strangers. We're strangers. But listen to
how He describes them. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. In other words, God chose them.
That's what the word elect means. When you choose, when you vote
for somebody, we elect that official. God elected His people. He chose
them. And He chose them in Christ.
He says through sanctification of the Spirit, He chose us to
salvation, and that salvation is through the sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ, grace unto you, and peace be multiplied. Verse
3, listen how he praises God here. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant
mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. Christ rose from the dead. His
people also are given life because their life is Him. It's in Him. It's His life. And then look
at verse 4. Listen to this. He has given
us this hope to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, not on this
earth, but in heaven, who are kept until that time who are
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to
be revealed in the last time. So we're kept by the power of
God through faith. In other words, God gives us
faith to see the certainty of the truth which He's promised
us in Christ, and we look to Christ, we rely on Him and depend
on Him as all of our salvation, and we look in hope, expecting
God to give us in Christ all the blessings that Christ deserves,
not what we deserve for what we are, because we deserve only
God's wrath. God in Christ has been merciful,
and He says this to us, a salvation that's going to be revealed in
the last time. He says, wherein you greatly rejoice, though now
for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold
temptation. And this is what we do in our
life. All the days of our life in this world is described in
the next two verses. That the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not
seen, you love. in whom, though now you see him
not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your souls." That's what Abraham was living for. He was looking
to the truth God declared concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, and His
salvation in Christ, and He lived His life in this world, entire
life, through every trial, in all that He did and said, with
the reality of that before His eyes, so that He lived on the
truth of God, even though he couldn't see it. And he loved
the Lord Jesus Christ, even though he couldn't see Him. It says
this in Philippians 3.20, Our conversation, or our citizenship,
is in heaven from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. But at this time, we're not ready
for our inheritance, are we? How do we know we're not ready
for our inheritance? Because we're still walking here. We're
still living here in this place. We're sojourners and strangers
here. We're not yet ready. God's appointed time for us hasn't
yet come. And our inheritance isn't ready
for us either. We're not prepared for it, and
it's not yet ready for us. Jesus told his disciples, I go
to prepare a place for you. But if I go and prepare a place
for you, I'll come again and receive you to myself, that where
I am, there you may be also. We know it's not ready because
Peter said in 2 Peter 3 verse 13 that God's promise to us is
that there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth. And
in that new heaven and new earth, then it will be prepared for
us when God does away with this existing earth and heavens to
prepare it new for His people. And He's going to give it to
us then. And so we look for it. We look for this, not because
we deserve it, but because God has chosen us to it and given
us this grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. But at death, we
will be ready. We will be ready when the Lord
calls us. Remember Job 14? Last week we
read from Job 14, and he said there, he said, If a man die,
will he live again? But I will wait until my appointed
time, he said. And then the Lord will call,
and I will answer. And he will have a desire to
the work of his hands. We are the work of God's hands. Our life is the work of God in
us. So throughout our life, he's
bringing us, he's conforming us to the Lord Jesus Christ,
giving us faith in him to see and behold him, and in looking
to him, seeing how great he is in his salvation of us. and how
thankful we become, then at the appointed time God will call
us. He will call us first to death
and then to life. Then our souls will go to be
with the Lord and then at the resurrection our bodies will
be raised and we'll be forever with the Lord. That's God's call.
And so he says this, he will call me and he'll have a desire
at the work of his hand. At his appointed time, he will
call. I will answer him because we cannot, we can't. If you're dead, you can't hear,
can you? Can you move? Can you even think
when your body's dead? No. All of your body is unable
to respond to anything. But when the Lord Jesus calls
our body, our body will hear and we will respond. Because
the power comes from Him and not from us. That's the way life
is from God. He'll call and then we'll answer. And He will know us. He calls
His sheep, He says in John 10, 27, He calls His sheep and they
follow Him. They know Him and they follow
Him. He will call those He knows. And He will have a desire for
them. When He sees them, He will know them. And I'd like to think
about that. We've never seen our Savior,
but He knows us. We know Him through faith, but
we haven't seen Him with our eyes. But when He calls us, then
we'll see Him. Then we'll know Him, and we will
be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. It says that in
1 John 3. And in Psalm 73, 24, look at
this with me, Psalm 73. And verse 24, I like to think
about this because Abraham spent his life thinking about this.
He lived as a stranger in this life. Psalm 73 and verse 24 he
says, Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." That's God's way
of dealing with us in this world. Throughout our lives, through
God's Word, He's going to guide us with His Word, with the Gospel,
and give us faith to believe what He's telling us, so that
we'll look to Christ and live in the reality of the truth we
can't see, except by God's declaration of it, and we'll live depending
on Christ, and God will then bring us to glory. That's our
life. in this world, and it's a wonderful thing to think about
it. He will be glad to see me, because he purchased me with
his own blood, therefore I look to my Savior, and I will wait
for his call. And then back in Genesis 23,
I think about how Abraham lived his life as a temporary occupant
in this world looking for his eternal rest and his eternal
home with the Lord Jesus Christ. He says here, In verse 4, he
stands up, he speaks to the people of this land, he says, I'm a
stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me a possession of
a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my
sight. So in other words, his wife Sarah
had died, and now Abraham is asking them, give me a place
to bury her, my dead. Verse 5. And the children of
Heth answered Abraham and said to him, Hear us, my lord. Thou art a mighty prince among
us. In the choice of our sepulchres,
bury thy dead. None of us shall withhold from
thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. Now,
they called Abraham a mighty prince, and he was. He was a
great man. God had given him a great deal
of servants, and wealth, and animals, and yet he was a stranger
in this land. But they call him this mighty
prince. But notice how Abraham responds to this. He humbled
himself. He says, And Abraham stood up,
in verse 7, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even
to the children of Heth. It's important that we humble
ourselves, isn't it? We have nothing to be proud of
about ourselves. Everything about ourselves we
have to be ashamed of. But we need to understand that
Abraham had much. God had blessed him with much.
Of all the people here in this setting, in this conversation
that's going on, he should have had a just reason for taking
credit for something, shouldn't he? I mean, God had blessed him.
He could have said, yeah, God's really blessed me. I am a great
prince. Look at all that I have. In fact,
he could have told them, God has promised me all this land
that you're living in. How would they have felt about
that? How would they have felt if he said, you know, God's given
me all this land, so I would like to have this piece over
here for Barry and my wife Sarah. That would have been so arrogant,
wouldn't it? We don't act like that, do we? As Christians, we
understand that in Christ, the world is ours. 1 Corinthians
3, 21-23 says the world is yours. Life is yours. Death is yours. All things are yours. But we
don't run around the world telling people, this is all ours. Give
it to me now. Do we? Of course not. We would
be thrown out of the world if we did that. But we see Abraham
here. He was a mighty prince. In the
eyes of the men there, because he had not only been blessed
by God, but because he behaved himself wisely. And he behaved
himself in a way that made it clear that he was an honorable
man. We've been forgiven by God of
all of our sins for Christ's sake alone. God Himself, by the
payment of the blood of His own Son, offered His Son and now
has accepted His people for the price of that payment. And at
that payment has remitted all their sins. And He's clothed
them in the righteousness of His own Son. He's given them
all things in Christ, even His own Spirit, to dwell in them
and live in them. And we're convinced of this,
aren't we? Aren't we persuaded? Isn't that
what faith is? Seeing the invisible, being persuaded
of it, embracing it, and confessing. Isn't that what we read there
in Hebrews 11, 13? There's no reason whatsoever,
therefore, for us to be anxious about our life, is there? We've
been given everything. In fact, he says this in Hebrews
chapter 13, let your lifestyle, your conversation be without
covetousness, without a greedy desire for things. Especially
things that you see other people have. Maybe it's not their possessions,
maybe it's their looks, or maybe it's their status, or maybe it's
the attention they get, or maybe it's something else about them.
We don't have to be covetous at all. Because faith teaches
us that even though when we were nothing, God gave us all things
in Christ and washed our sins away and clothed us in His own
righteousness and promised us eternal blessings in Christ.
So we have all things. There's no reason for us to be
covetous. Faith teaches us not to be covetous, but he says in
Hebrews 13, and be content with such things as you have, for
he has said, listen, this is God's promise, I will never leave
you, nor forsake thee, not ever, so that we may boldly say, the
Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man shall do to me. This is exactly what Abraham
lived like. He was content with Christ. Like Jacob told Esau when Esau
came to him and said, take this, take this. And Jacob said, no,
I have all things. I have all things. You take the
gift. And so Abraham was like this. Abraham stood up. He was
humble before these people. Faith causes us to live with
the attitude that the Lord Jesus had. Remember, when he who was
equal with God, he didn't consider it something to be grasped at,
but he laid aside his glory, he took upon himself the form
of a servant, laid aside his reputation as God, made himself
a servant, To save his people in honor of his father. He lived
his life that he might have his people and give them and bring
them to God. And that's what Abraham did.
He lived that way. Faith taught him that. The Lord is our helper. And he's our portion. He's our
inheritance, it says. And therefore, we don't have
an anxious anxiety of getting things in this world. But we
do labor, don't we? We don't say, well, I've got
everything, so I'm going to just do nothing, and I'm going to
receive it all by entitlement. Let other people provide for
me. That's not the attitude of the child of God. No. In several
places in scripture, It says, if you don't work, you don't
eat. So we know that that's the case. That's just the way it
is in life. God has designed it. Abraham didn't have what
he had by sitting around. He labored. He had all that he
had because not only God had blessed him, but he was out working.
He was living like a stranger. He gave the best choice to Lot
and these other things. But Abraham showed a great humility
because of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not striving to
gain. He knew his inheritance was in
heaven. His store, his treasure was there. And now notice, notice
the respect that Abraham gave to these people in Canaan. I'm
emphasizing these things because we think, we have a tendency
in our natural sinful selves to be proud and to be greedy,
and to show disrespect and impatience with people. I'm speaking first-hand
knowledge here. But Abraham showed respect for
these people in Canaan. Notice what he says here. Abraham
stood up, and he bowed himself to the people of the land, even
to the children of Heth. And he communed with them, saying,
If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight,
hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, that
he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the
end of his field, for as much money as it is worth, he shall
give it me for a possession of a burying place amongst you."
So Abraham, in a very honorable and respectful way speaks to
the people there. He doesn't speak as one who can
tell them what he wants and say, give it to me, but he asks them. He speaks to the elders of the
land, the rulers of the land. In the presence of all of them,
I'd like to have a piece of land belonging to this man whose name
is Ephron, the Hittite. I'm willing to purchase it if
he would allow me to purchase it from him. Those are the ways
he's speaking here. Because it says in Micah chapter
6 verse 8, what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Abraham was going
to do justly. He was going to pay for that
land out of the money that he had worked to have. God hadn't
had given him this money, but he had given him that money through
the gift of laboring And so he had labored. And now he's going
to take that money and buy the land, not to give it. Not to
take it by sponging off of others. That's not the way God teaches
us to live. He teaches us to adorn the gospel
of Christ in so many ways. Let me take you to this text
of scripture in Titus chapter 2 to show you how the Lord says
this. In Titus chapters 2, He says,
Titus, Paul is speaking to Titus, he says, instructing him in verse
7, Titus 2, 7. In all things showing thyself
a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity,
sincerity. sound speech that cannot be condemned,
that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no
evil thing to say of you." We're to live our lives like Abraham
did, like Paul is instructing Titus here. So that those who
are in the land of Canaan, as it were, in this world, who are
not believers, who are idolaters, may see our lifestyle and they
will recognize that the Lord is among us. That God has given
us this grace. and honor God for it. Look at
verse 9. Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters.
And if you're not a slave, which we don't have slaves nowadays,
but you do have to work for a living, you're essentially a paid servant,
so be obedient to your own masters and to please them well in all
things, not answering again. not purloining, in other words,
not trying to keep back what belongs to them, or embezzling
from them, but showing all good fidelity, in other words, be
trustworthy, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior
in all things. In other words, they'll hear
of the doctrine that you live by, the faith that you profess,
and they'll adorn that doctrine, that it would produce this in
you. It's not complicated. It's not
rocket science. God's just telling us to live
according to the faith that we have. For the grace of God, he
says in verse 11, that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world,
looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of
the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. There it is. That's
what Abraham did. He was respectful to his people.
He lived among them respectfully and honorably, so that when he
spoke to them, they recognized him as a mighty prince. Among
them, God had blessed him with things, but mostly with faith,
so that his lifestyle was such that they would adorn the doctrine
of his God and Savior. And so we should think and speak
and act and live our lives as those who, though we are undeserving,
have been given all things from our great God and Savior, not
in a religious show. There's nothing more offensive
to people than to act religious around them in order to show
your religious superiority and such. What good is that? That just brings honor to yourself. We don't live our lives for personal
gain or for worldly pleasure. We don't live for the praise
of men and we don't conform to the world out of the fear of
men. That's what faith teaches us. Certainly not to gain acceptance
with God or status with God as if God owed us as a debtor to
us. But we live and we work that
we might give that we might give of ourselves in service to God
and others, in order that God our Savior might be honored,
to make known the gospel of His grace, in order that men might
praise Christ for His grace to them." Look at Galatians chapter
6. I want you to see a couple of
verses here. These are practical verses. in our lives nowadays,
we want to think about the end goal of what we do. That Christ
is honored when we, by faith, live to His honor. Because Christ honors faith because
faith honors Christ. Look at Galatians 6, verse 10.
As we therefore have opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially
to them who are of the household of faith. So do good. We should do good to others,
shouldn't we? We should be kind to them. We should deal justly
with them. We should do it with an eye to
the glory of our Savior. Look at Ephesians chapter 4.
Ephesians chapter 4, he says this in verse 28. Let him that stole, steal no
more. Okay, don't steal. But rather,
let him labor. Why? Working with his hands the
thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth. That seems upside down, doesn't
it, in this life? To work? To give? That just doesn't
seem right. What about me? I'm going to lose
something. No, you actually gain something.
Doesn't Jesus say it's more blessed to give than to receive? The
Lord loveth a cheerful giver. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
didn't come to serve, to be served. I didn't come here to be served,
but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many. This is what
Abraham did. He lived his life this way. It
says in Proverbs 11, 25, listen to this, the liberal soul shall
be made fat. That seems upside down, doesn't
it? How could that be? And he that watereth shall be
watered also again." Rebekah, we'll see in the next couple
of chapters in Genesis, she was asked to give water to drink
to the servant of Abraham, and then she said, let me also give
water to all your camels. And she had to dip the water
out, carry it, pour it, and give that until the camels were done
drinking. He that watereth shall be watered also again. When we
live our lives for the glory of Christ, in order that men
might be watered by the gospel, then God is going to give us
the gospel in abundance in our heart. Not things in this world,
but the gift of faith will increase. It will be refined so that when
we live to God's glory, He's going to show us more and more
of Christ. That's the principle of faith.
We live by faith and we're blessed through faith. It's an amazing
thing. We should live to bring the gospel
to this world. We should also live in a way
that we're receptive and warm and generous to strangers and
hospitable, finding ways that we might give them the gift of
the gospel. We should look for that in order
that we might praise our Savior, that He's given us this faith
Look at 1 Chronicles, Chapter 29. I want to read this to you.
This verse was a memory verse we had a few weeks ago. I have
a hard time memorizing this verse because there are so many words
in it. But look at 1 Chronicles, Chapter 29. And see how Solomon prayed to
God. Now he was at this time, they
were giving, these people were giving an immense amount in order
to build the temple. And Solomon prays this prayer.
He says, in verse 11, 1 Chronicles, I'm sorry, this is David. I said
Solomon, this is David. They were preparing for the temple
in 1 Chronicles 29. He says in verse 11, David says,
"'Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power.'" Because men
tend to think because we've given, we're great. No, he says, Thine,
O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and
the victory, and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven
and in the earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and Thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor
come of Thee, and Thou reignest over all. And in Thine hand is
power and might, and in Thine hand is to make great. and to
give strength to all. Now therefore our God we thank
thee and praise thy glorious name but who am i david said
and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly
after this sort for all things come of thee and of thine own
hand have we given thee this is what abraham did in his life
he lived before these people with kindness towards them with
respect towards them with humility towards them and in justice toward
them. He said, give me a place, but
don't just give it to me. I'll pay for it. Now, there's
a big lesson here in this pain for this. And I need to close
it down because of time. But I want you to see this here.
You would think that if someone like
Ephron the Hittite offered Abraham this land to bury his wife, and
you'd say, oh, that's great! Man, thank you! He would praise
him for being so generous and so forth. But Abraham said, no,
I'm going to pay for it. Why did Abraham pay for this
land? Why didn't he just let him give
it to him? Well, first of all, because he wouldn't be honest.
He had enough to pay for it. Secondly, he loved his wife Sarah.
He wasn't going to take something as a place to bury her, as a
gift. He was going to pay for it. But thirdly, he was also
thinking about his children and his children's children. He knew
that if Ephron the Hittite gave him this land and he accepted
it, that then later maybe Ephron or his children would say, you
know, I'm not so happy with you and remember that great gift
of land I gave to you. I'm going to take it back or
maybe I'm going to hold you to do things for me now that I've
made you indebted to me. That's what he would think. But
remember how Abraham spoke to the king of Sodom? The king of
Sodom wanted to give Abraham something that he had recovered
from the fight. And he said, no, I'm not going
to take anything from you unless you say, I have made Abraham
rich. Abraham wasn't going to accept
the gift because then later Ephron the Hittite, or the king of Sodom,
could say, we have given to you. We made you rich. Abraham wanted them to know that
God made him rich. And that he had no debt to a
man, but his debt was to Christ only. So he lived that way. He
lived not because he was being proud, but because he was looking
for his children, that they might not be indebted to these Hittites.
And he was also looking to give honor to God in order that he
might show that what he had was from the Lord. That his debt
of love and gratitude and praise was not to Ephron, but to his
Savior. Render to all men their due. Owe no man anything but to love
one another, it says in Romans chapter 13. The other thing that this teaches
here is that Abraham was making sure that his children understood
something. Remember, God had promised Abraham the entire land
of Canaan. But he didn't own any part of
it, except this place of a burying place. He only owned a place
where he could bury his dead. And what does that say to us?
The only thing Abraham owned in this life was a grave place.
His inheritance was not here. Don't make, don't set out to
make the land and the houses in this world your inheritance. He was basically, remember Abraham
was a prophet. Whatever he said and did was
an indication of the truth he was passing on as truth to us,
to his children by faith. And so he's saying to us, through
his action, he says, look, everything in this world is not your inheritance. The only thing you're going to
have in this world is the place where you're buried, because
you're buried in hope of the resurrection. So in a sense,
Abraham is saying, I'm burying my wife here in hope of the resurrection,
And he himself was buried there. His son Isaac and his wife Rebecca
were buried there. And then Jacob and Leah were
buried in the same place. But he's making it clear that
this place is a token of the fact that my hope is in heaven
and that I'm waiting for the resurrection. And so it was a
testimony to his descendants, especially his children by faith,
that he's purchasing this land. I'm letting you know that this
is the only possession I have in this world. My hope is in
heaven. My hope is in Christ. And you
need to live your life that way. As a sojourner and a stranger.
Living before men in order to bring honor to your Savior. Living
dependent upon your God and Savior. Thankful to Him. In love to Him
for what He's done and given you in Christ. And not for what
you can get in this world. Isn't He an excellent lesson
to us? Isn't Abraham's life in every
way a lesson to us? God is teaching us through this
man. that our inheritance is not in this world, and we're
not to strive with men, we're not to be anxious for things
in this life. Jesus said, consider the lilies of the field, they
toil not, they spin not, and yet in Solomon, in all his glory,
was not arrayed like one of these. Isn't your heavenly Father able
to give you everything? And if you have Christ, don't
you have all things? The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in him bodily, and if we're in him, we're complete. Let's pray. Father, we pray, Lord, that you
would give us this same faith that you gave to your servant,
Abraham, and help us to see with this faith that you've given
to us that all that we have is in Christ our Savior, our standing
before you, the washing away of our sins, our clothing, and
your own righteousness, all is in our Savior. Our life now and
our life for eternity is in Him. and help us therefore to live
our lives by this faith you've given that we might bring back
to you what you've given to us what belongs to you your honor
your glory we might live before men in order that they might
see the Lord Jesus Christ and honor him We don't want attention
for ourselves. We want to give glory to Christ.
We don't want things in this world. We only need to live so
that during the process of our living you would refine this
faith and you would conform us to the image of our dear Savior,
your only begotten Son. Thank you for this mercy and
this grace. Thank you for telling us the truth about the way things
are so that we wouldn't live our lives completely blinded
by the world and its ways. And we ask that You would save
us for Your name's sake, Lord. Bring glory to Yourself, honor
to Your justice, and praise to Your grace. For Jesus' sake,
in His name we pray, Amen.