I'm going to pray. You can record
it. All right. Let's pray, guys. We thank you,
Father, for your word and for the gospel, for the good news
of Jesus Christ. Lord, your promise of eternity,
your promise of hope, your promise of salvation, your promise of
redemption, your promise of righteousness, your promise of life. We thank you that we can call
ourselves your children because we are your children. We are
thankful that we are brothers and sisters in the truth because
you have adopted us and you have purchased us through the blood
of Christ. And Father, I pray that as we just look at this
text tonight, as we continue to see what faith in you is all
about, Lord, that we would be strengthened. that we would put
aside the concerns of this world, that we would lay down the burdens
for just a moment, that we would be fed the truth of your gospel,
the truth of scripture, the truth of your spirit. And Lord, we
are glad. We are glad that we can pray
and that you hear because we are righteous before you and
you listen to those who share in your righteousness. And we
are glad that you answer our prayers. You don't just listen
with disdain, but Father, you listen with response. You have
promised us that you will provide for our needs. And so, Lord,
we pray for the needs that we have individually and collectively,
Lord, we pray that we would have peace in our hearts and minds,
that we would lay down fear and live by faith, that we would
not seek to pursue our own righteousness, but trust as you've granted us
the faith to believe, let us therein walk. Father, we pray
for the physical needs. We pray for relationships. We
pray for our bodies and the sickness and the frustration that comes
along when things just stop working the way they should. Lord, I
thank you that we can pray. And I'm so thankful that we can
pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. As you've
learned already, for many years through the teaching together,
we know that there is one but true promise that God has given
and that is the covenant, the promise, the contract, the covenant
of grace, that there is no other promise that God has established
through which man or woman or child could find hope in life.
Though we see temporal blessings, though we see seasonal and passing
promises, though we see lands and nations and children, the
ultimate focus of these temporary things are to point us to these
permanent things. It's a lesson for us tonight
as we think about life, as we think about the ups and downs
and the uncertainties of today, much less tomorrow. As we also
have seen God bring us through the trials and the fire of yesterday,
there's still something in our flesh that causes us to not believe.
There's something in our flesh and something about our flesh
that causes us to think that we are self-sufficient. Yet the
word of God continues to remind us, gently, with great discipline
and care, with the love of God himself, rewarding us by granting
us the ears to hear. And seeing these truths and the
promises of God's sovereignty, we do not lose heart except when
we take our eyes off the goal of Christ. But when we do, God
is faithful to arrest us, to take us back to that center,
to put us back on track, to keep our gaze upon the truth, It is
much easier when we are together as a body, as a family. It is
much easier when we are in the discipline of assembly and being
in the Word of God. For it only takes for me just
a few minutes before my flesh can rise up alive. I can imagine some that have
not been in the Word for weeks or months or years. And we see
the promises of God and we see continually the teaching of faith
in the promises of God. And that's where we've been over
the last few weeks and that's where we'll continue to be tonight
and over the next few weeks as we continue in Hebrews. In chapter
11, we see Paul continuing to teach and using example after
example after example of those who have died in faith, though
they did not receive what was promised, they greeted them from afar.
That faith doesn't look at the present day, that faith doesn't
look at the circumstances, that faith doesn't look in the obvious
answers, but faith looks in the one who is faithful, who has
promised that he has already finished salvation, that he has
already satisfied his wrath, that he has already declared
his people righteous before him, even the ones who have yet to
be born. And when we as the saints learn these things, it gives
us more than just a foundation to stand upon, it gives us an
archway, it gives us a bridge, it gives us a ribbon of connectivity
to not just see our own lives in a vacuum, but to see how our
lives play the same song of praise, that that same doxology of worth
and worship that the saints of old ascribed to God, that we
now ascribe to God, and through the lineage of unnamed saints,
throughout all of human history have all praised him for his
glorious grace. And we continue to see that.
We don't see gaps. We don't see times when we wonder
what God was doing. We don't look at the archaeological
or historical problem of the intertestamental periods and
go, Oh, God wasn't at work. God was at work. The same way he's at work today,
the same way he was at work before there was ever anything to behold
him. God is the same. He will not
change. He cannot change. He will not
fail. He cannot fail. He does not lie. He cannot lie. And we can take
all that he is at his word. He's proven himself faithful.
We can see that the Bible teaches that God will grant faith to
those who have been given to Christ. Those who were given
to Christ before the foundations of the world. Those who belonged
to Him before God said, let there be and there was. The genesis
of all things is to show us the beginning of God's decree which
is eternal. The idea of eternal means with
no beginning and with no end. And the gospel is an eternal
promise. And then when God was ready,
not even when, because there was no when at that moment, but
for us, there's no way to fathom it otherwise. At that moment,
when God created a moment, He said, let there be light and
there was light. And the whole purpose of that is that He would
create a people for Himself with whom He would spend the rest
of eternity. who were purchased through the
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, who is the God of heaven. And we see these promises continually. I've said this a million times,
hyperbolically, that we see better now than they saw then. They being the saints of old,
here in Hebrews chapter 11. We are able to look and see Christ
in a way that they never could. We are able to understand and
know His name. We are able to see the work that
He gave, that He did, the life that He lived, the death that
He gave for His people. We are able to look at the record
of the apostles and then by the Spirit Himself, we are able to
see Christ in a way that the Old Testament
saints never could. But they still believed in Him,
the One who is faithful. Even though they did not have
the fullness of the knowledge of the details of how God would
work His redemption, they knew because God made certain they
knew that He was their Savior and that His sacrifice would
be their propitiation. And that His righteousness would
be their righteousness. These all died in faith. We saw
last week as we begin to look at Abraham, verse 17, let's begin
to read there tonight. Hebrews 11, 17. And by faith,
Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had
received the promises was in the act of offering his only
son of whom it was said through Isaac, shall your offspring be
named. He considered that God was able
even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking,
he did receive him back. By faith and like manner, Isaac,
the son of Abraham, invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau,
his sons. And by faith, Jacob, when dying,
blessed each of the sons of Joseph. his son, bowing in worship over
the head of his staff. By faith, Joseph, at the end
of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites
and gave directions concerning his bones. By faith, Moses, when
he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because
they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the
king's edict. By faith, when he was grown, Moses refused to
be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to
be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting
pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of
Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was
looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being
afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him
who was invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled
the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch
them. By faith, the people crossed
the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted
to do the same, were drowned. By faith, the walls of Jericho
fell down after they'd been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab,
the prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient
because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. Of course, we're not going to
get through all that tonight, but it's good to hear this in context. It's good to hear the stories
that we know. It's good to be reminded of these
old tales of childhood, these old stories of days gone by. And that's exactly what they
were for the recipients of this letter. They were stories of
childhood. They were tales of days gone by. But they were not
just stories and tales. They were promises. The lives
of these patriarchs were just like the promises of God themselves.
That as God dealt with these people, so God would deal with
the people of Paul's day. And so as God deals with the
people of Paul's day, so God will deal with his people of
this day. And so we see the unchangeability
of God that everything that he's doing, no matter how man, and
mankind is what I mean, no matter how mankind would do something
to destroy God's plans, nothing can thwart the truth of God's
promises. And you'll notice that there
were a lot of visible things promised to these people. A lot
of visible, tangible, real promises. I will give you a son. I will
give you land. I will give you wealth. I will
give you blessings. But ultimately these tangible
promises were not to be considered the point. And God granted faith
to these saints of old so that they would understand that these
were just shadows. And that's what Paul is writing
here. Moses wanted to see the promised
land, but he died before he saw it. Then he saw it. Noah. Abraham. Abraham never saw the world filled
with his progeny. But as Jesus says in John's gospel,
that Abraham longed for his day and rejoiced in it. Abraham understood
the promise of God. And the only son that he had,
he understood the promise of God in the context of God's faithfulness. You see, it's not about the details
of God's promises that matter. It's about faith in the fact
that he will keep them. believing that manna was not
just for the sustenance of the Israelites during the exodus,
but manna was to point to the bread who comes down from heaven,
whose name is Jesus Christ. It wasn't about the Israelites
and the exodus that mattered so much and what they would become
and how they would land their plane, if I could say it that
way, and where they would be generations from then. It's about
the fact that out of nothing, God created something. And out
of no one, God created someone. And out of an impossible couple,
God created the entire nation of Israel and the bloodline therein
of Abraham. That only that which was visible
was doable by God. So that in that same way, when
we look at the invisible promises, we know that he can surely do
them too. We can also understand that as Isaac and his children,
and Jacob and his children, and Joseph and his children, and
Moses as a child and so on and so forth. We know. We know that
God has done it all. We know that God has orchestrated
the steps and the words and the comings and the goings, not just
of these men and women and children, but of all men and women and
children. And for some strange reason in
our pseudo intelligence, we think we have to put God on trial and
say, well, then am I guilty for what I do? Please. This is an infantile question.
As Paul has already said to these very recipients of this letter,
you ought to be grown by now. But yet you're arguing over this?
You're arguing over what these things did? What the law did? What the cleansing did? What
the sacrifices did? What the washings did? They did
nothing but what they were intended to do. And that is to point to
the promises of God. God, through His sovereign grace,
that God, through election, would fulfill his promises to the people
that he has foreknown before they ever existed. Not knew about,
not looked into the future, but loved. In the context of redemptive
love, foreknowledge means love. So Abraham's son Isaac was given
back to him. Abraham believed God. And then
we see, look at verse 20, Isaac. Isaac. Now imagine as I spoke,
I think, yeah, I said this last week, Abraham talking to his
son Isaac and telling Isaac, you're going to die. But God
has promised that through you, the world would be blessed. So
you're going to live. Now how does that look? How does
that look in today's culture? Well, you're going to die, but
you're going to live. We incarcerate people like that,
who are trying to kill their children so that they might live.
We call those types of people cults. We talk about insanity,
psychosis, Yet no one ever in the Bible has ever said Abraham
was psychotic. No one has ever said that he
had a problem. No one has ever said that he
was the father of cults. It's not written. He's the father
of Israel. Or the grandfather. He is the one to whom God gave
the promise that He gave Adam and Eve. that the work of the
enemy, that the sinful separation, it's like I try to teach it to
children, that sin made a mess between us and God. And the only
thing that can clean that up is the blood of Jesus. And when the blood of Jesus cleanses
the people of God, they are free. Every generation from Adam who
had died to the very last person that will breathe life on this
earth and its destruction. All the elect are clean. They will believe just like Abraham. They will believe just like Isaac
who after his father's death remembered this promise. Remembered
the promises of God. Not the promises of Abraham,
but the promises of God. Isaac remembered because God
granted him faith. How easy it would have been for
Isaac just to do the normal thing. To bless his sons, leave his
farm, and die peacefully. Wish you well, my boys. Daddy's
out of here. And the same thing could be true
with Jacob. The same thing could be true
with the sons of Joseph. And we look over and over again
at these happenings and we don't understand them if we don't understand
the gospel. We don't understand them and
why they're important if we don't understand the covenant. And we can't understand the covenant
as long as we are intellectually dividing the law and dividing
Judaism and dividing history and dividing all these things
outside of scripture in such a manner that makes us think
we're smart. God does not Expect us to do
these things. Abraham and Isaac were not experts
on the doctrines of redemption. Moses wasn't an expert on the
doctrines of atonement. He became one. But he was just
a dumb shepherd up on Mount Sinai. barely able to speak. And God showed him his righteousness. Isaac on his deathbed. Romans
chapter 9. You know the story, right? Why
is it that we see in this text, nothing about Jacob's deception.
Isn't that an important part of the story? Jacob by name actually
is my name. James is an English variant of
Jacob, Jacobus. It's a variant and it means at
its root, the deceiver, the supplanter. That's what the name means in
Hebrew. Yet Jacob isn't called out here in chapter 11 for his
deception. Moses isn't called out here for
his drunkenness. Abraham isn't called out here
for his sexual illegal promiscuity. For his deception. And we could go on and on. They're
called out here for their faith. And the very nature of this list
proves that the one who promised is faithful because these men
were not. These women were not. Sarah is
said by faith she was given the power to conceive. The very name
of Isaac means what? It means laughter. She mocked
God and laughed at the premise of her old behind getting pregnant
and having a baby. Abraham, I don't know what you've
been doing, but you're so funny. I imagine that's probably what
she said. You must have fell down into some cow turds, because
you are really funny today. And so the story continues. Isaac, through Isaac shall the
world be blessed. Isaac has these two sons. And the younger deceives him. The younger deceives him. The Bible says that God says,
Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Paul asked the question, what
shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? Is God unjust
because He has love and affection for certain people and not love
and affection for others in the context of His plans of redemption? No. By all means. By no means. He said to Moses,
I will have mercy on whomever I want to have mercy and I will
have compassion on whomever I have compassion. So Paul then says
it does not depend upon human exertion. What doesn't? God and anything he wants to
do. The promises of God do not depend
upon human exertion. The faithfulness of God does
not depend upon human faithfulness. There has never been an elect
person leave this world without knowing the truth of God's finished
redemption and justifying them through the blood of Jesus Christ.
They will not leave the world without knowing the gospel. Yet
one of the greatest motivators in raising money for missions
is to say what? There's going to be a lot of
people die and they're not going to go to heaven. Is that really
the motivation for evangelism? No, it's not. The motivation
for evangelism, according to the Bible, is God's name. The
motivation for evangelism is God's faithfulness. The motivation
for evangelism is to do that which God has called us to do
because He is doing it. He will cause His people to hear
the voice of Christ if Christ is preached. Now see, that's
the problem now. Evangelism in America is just
a bunch of stories and lies with Jesus' name mixed in there with
it, with human assertion, human will, human volition, human activity,
human intelligence, human dedication. It's not what Paul's writing
here and it certainly isn't what Paul wrote to the Romans or the
Galatians. Oh, or the Colossians or the
Ephesians. We can go on. Peter didn't write
such nonsense. John certainly didn't record
anything of that nature. Matter of fact, John records
Jesus saying, you can't come to me because you're not of my
flock. But yet, what do we do when we
live in a culture that lies about Jesus over and over and over
again? To the point that we become deceived
often on certain things, we become flustered, we become motivated,
we become zealous. Well, what did the apostles do?
They wrote letters and corrected it. What else do the apostles do?
They wrote letters and taught rightly. So that the body of
Christ in that century would know the truth and would remember
the truth and would replicate the truth and would teach the
truth and would continue to press the truth into the culture in
which they lived. And that is the job of the church so that
the elect can come to the unity of the faith. So that together
we can give glory to God through our lives. And most of all, that
we can praise him and give doxology to him for his absolutely marvelous,
sovereign, and free grace. And even though it seems as though
Jacob deceived his father, it was the will of God. It is what
God did. Why? Because God's purposes of
election are the point of his revelation. His glory is bound to his sovereignty. Did you hear that? My brother came in with Lydia
today. I thought to myself, Jesus was just like that. Jesus was
an infant. The God of creation in human
flesh was carried around by his mother and fed from her breast. His diapers were changed. He
learned to sit up, to hold up his head. And then it sort of struck me. When you asked, Nick, you said,
well, I wonder if Mary was worried about dropping God. Not at all. Not at all. Because nothing could stop the
plan. How many children died because
Christ came into the world? How many young boys aged Three
and below were murdered and slaughtered because of Jesus' birth. The world will never know the
number, but I will promise you it was greater than the death
of the firstborn of Egypt. We often forget that that's what
the cradle of Christ brought to the world. Not peace, but a sword from the
very beginning. Yet it was the will of the Lord
to crush him. Christ came to die. Nothing could stop it. Eve and Adam couldn't stop it.
Noah couldn't stop it. The world being destroyed. Could
you imagine the odds of carrying out a plan carrying out a decree
in the context of human understanding with eight people? And the Lion of Judah shall come.
Could you imagine having the details of God's promise of salvation? Fifty years before the flood,
and everybody talking about it. Oh yeah, you know, Noah's been
talking about this. And then after the flood, now what, God? It takes some faith, doesn't
it? And that faith is the doing of God. It is a gift. It is the
imparting of a new mind. It is the reworking of the consciousness. It is a making alive of that
which has never been alive. It's not the restoration of anything
in our hearts and minds. It's something new. It's a new
creation in our hearts and minds. To have the knowledge that Jesus
had as the divine nature of Christ informed Him of the will of God
the Father and then He came to understand, which is not revealed
to us when, or how, so we should not debate it, but he came to
understand the fullness of his purpose and all that he spoke
and said being that which God the Father had sent him to speak
and to say and also to do. Imagine this this way, or consider
it this way, that when God the Spirit awakens us to see the
truth of the promises of God through Jesus Christ, we are
given the mind of Christ. And we can see the promises of
God as Christ could see the promises of God. They're yes. They are so be it. They cannot
fail. And this is supernatural. Jacob, not being the oldest son
by a few seconds, took the promise. Why? Because
it is what God does in election. He chooses the other. Man does not get to decide. The
oldest shall be the one to receive the blessing. The oldest shall
be the one through whom the name shall continue. It's like second
place at the Olympics. Nobody really sits around and
goes, yeah, I got seven silver medals. No, they're gold medals.
The silver guys are standing over there in the locker room
going, I lost first. I mean, it's a terrible thing. The first
loser. Doesn't matter if it was a two-tenth
of a second loss. You lost. Nobody knows you. And Jacob. Through Jacob shall
come my blessings. Through Jacob shall come my promise.
It's not Esau. And then Jacob has all of his
boys, and who knows how many daughters, and all of these tribes. And you notice that the blessing
of the twelve tribes of Israel are not listed in this great
wall of faith. But yet, it's Joseph's children. And that's Genesis 48. I was
reading that earlier. Jacob, also Israel, is dying. He's blind. In verse chapter 48 of Genesis,
we hear these words. After this, Joseph was told,
actually after what? He knew that he was going to
die and he tells them where to bury him and all that kind of
stuff. He says, Your father is ill, so he took
with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And it was told
to Jacob, your son Joseph has come to see you. Can you see
this? Let this play out in your mind.
Your son, Joseph's here, Jacob. Then Israel summoned his strength,
Jacob, Israel, summoned his strength and sat up in bed. And Jacob
said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the
land of Canaan and blessed me and said to me, Behold, I will
make you fruitful and multiply you and I will make of you a
company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after
you for an everlasting possession. So God reestablishes His promises
because it is an eternal promise. And now your two sons who were
born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt
are mine. What's he saying there? I got
14 sons now. These boys are mine. Ephraim
and Manasseh shall be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are. And
the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They
shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance.
As for me, when I come from Padan to my sorrow, Rachel died in
the land of Canaan on the way. When there was still some distance
to go, Ephrath, and I buried her, I mean to go to Ephrath
and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.
When Israel saw Joseph's son, he said, Who are these? And Joseph
said to his father, These are my sons whom God has given me
here. And he said, Bring them to me, please, that I may bless
them. Now the eyes of Israel, Jacob, were dim with age, so
he could not see. So Joseph brought them near, and he kissed them
and embraced them. And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected
to see your face. And behold, God has let me see
your offspring also. Then Joseph removed them from
his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. And
Joseph took them both. Ephraim in his right hand toward
Israel's left, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's
right hand, and brought them near. And Israel stretched out,
Jacob stretched out his hand, and laid it on the head of Ephraim.
on his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was
the younger. Whoever was on the right hand received the blessing.
Whoever was on the right hand received the lineage. Whoever
was on the right hand continued the family. Whoever was on the
right hand got it all. And he laid it on Ephraim, this
blind man, laying his hand on the wrong kid. And on his left
hand he put it on the head of Manasseh. But he did it like
this. Joseph put him in the right place
and Jacob goes, nope. It's the first cups and balls
game. Where's the P? And he blessed Joseph and said,
the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the
God who has been my shepherd, my life to this day, the angel
who has redeemed me from all evil. Bless the boys. And in
them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers, Abraham
and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst
of the whole earth. And when Joseph saw that his
father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased
him. And he took his father's hand to move it to Manassas. And Joseph said to his father,
Not this way, father. since this one is first born,
put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said,
I know my son, I know. He also shall become a people
and also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother
shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a
multitude of nations. So he blessed them that day,
saying, by you Israel, we'll pronounce blessings, saying,
God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh. And thus he put Ephraim
before Manasseh. Then Jacob said to Joseph, Behold,
I'm about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you
again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you
rather than to your brothers one mountain slope that I took
from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.
And then Jacob talks to his sons and he blesses his sons. And
there's a lot there. And the funny thing about that
is that Joseph himself was the youngest. And Joseph had a vision and a
dream about how his brothers would bow down to him and serve
him. That he would be in a stature
of superiority over them and God put him there through what? Why? Because God's decrees and
promises are full and true. And it is a picture of the cross
of Christ. Joseph, like Christ, was hated
and despised. Joseph, like Christ, was what? Suffered. And Joseph, like Christ, was
the redeemer of his people. Without which they would have
perished in the famine. And there's a lot there. I might
preach that one day. So by faith, Isaac invoked these
future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith, Jacob blessed
each of the sons of Joseph. By faith, Joseph at the end of
his life made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and
gave directions concerning his bones. What in the world does
that mean? Very clearly and simply this.
That through it all, God maintained a sense amongst his people that
he would fulfill his promise. And that there was nothing they
could do. There was no birth order that could change it. There
was no problems that could change it. There were no imprisonments
or hatred or death or disaster that could change it. Nothing
would change the promises of God because he would see them
through and he would cause his people to believe that he would
see them through. And so long before Moses led the Israelites
out of Egypt, Joseph was believing God's promises that one day there
would be his people back in the promised
land. So what was the instruction that Joseph gave? When you get
to where you're going, and you get to the place where God has
promised us to live, I want you to dig me up and move me home. I want you to promise this. Now
see, we take promises on deathbeds a little lightly compared to
these people. Matter of fact, we take promises lightly all
the way around. Yep, I'll take out the trash.
That's a promise. And then next day when it's not
out, it became a lie. We don't use the same tenacity
when we come to what we say we are and what we say we will do,
because we just don't even think about it anymore. We just sort
of go about our day, oh man, I forgot about that. But the
word was the bond, as it should be. And so when Joseph said, listen,
I want you to take my body, to Israel. He meant it. Why would he say that? Why would
he bind his children and his progeny to a promise that he
didn't think would happen? Because he knew it would happen. He had no doubt in his mind that
they would be in the promised land. He had no doubt in his
mind that God would give his promises to his people. And all
of these patriarchs died and received the promises in Christ
because that's what they point to. And the list goes on. We'll talk about Moses next week,
and then we're going to deal with a long line of people that
will press very quickly over a two week period. And then we'll
hear these words. And all these, though commended
through their faith, did not receive what was promised since
God had provided something better for us. That apart from us, they
should not be made perfect. Apart from Christ, they should
not be made perfect. Apart from seeing face to face
the glory of God in the face of Christ, they should not be
made perfect. Apart from seeing the reality of what all these
shadows were pointing to, they would not be made perfect. Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let
us lay aside every weight and lay aside every sin which clings
so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set
before us. How? And we're gonna preach this again
in a month or two, looking to Jesus. Abraham looked to Jesus. Noah
looked to Jesus. Isaac looked to Jesus. Jacob
looked to Jesus. Joseph looked to Jesus. Ephraim
looked to Jesus. Paul looked to Jesus. We look
to Jesus. He is the founder and perfecter
of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand
of the throne. of God. So don't grow weary. See, this is where Paul's trying
to go. Sometimes we take so long to get to a part in a particular
text, we forget the reason and the place where he's trying to
go. Paul's trying to go here to give them endurance, because
that's what he said. You're in need of endurance. And if you
hold, you won't shrink back because you'll be given faith. Here's
the heroes of the faith, the witnesses who had faith. And
the reason that I'm telling you this is so that you don't give
up. Consider him who endured such
hostility from sinners against themselves so that you may not
grow weary or faint hearted. In your struggle against sin,
you've not resisted to the point of shedding your blood. So don't
lose heart. And he talks about discipline.
Why are we suffering? And he explains it. Why are we
hurting? He explains it. Why is this happening?
He explains it. There's an answer. There's an
answer. And the answer is glorious. The
answer is that God is faithful. And so we have to go through
a blender to come out on the other side of glory. It's what
we have to do. And it's why Paul can say in
other places, to stop. Don't complain. Don't grumble.
Don't argue. Don't bite at each other. Don't
have a bad attitude. Don't sneer. Don't be haughty.
Don't grit your teeth. Don't point your finger. Don't
furrow your brow. Yeah. Don't have this mind. God is faithful. What are we
scared of? What are we looking to? Why are
we doing what we do? God is faithful. And that's the
message. That's what all this is saying.
It's like, Paul, we get it. We don't get it. We need reminding. And though we're not Jewish,
though the Hebrew stories of the Old Testament, though the
history of God's people from the beginning of time is not
necessarily the wave on which we ride our faith. It is the foundation. God is faithful. His promises
are true. He will bring it to pass. So rest. Rest. I've been whitewater rafting
once. I threatened the guide in the
boat that if he tipped the boat over on purpose, I'd cancel the
check. And there were about 40 of us
riding rafts. was a big check. And every boat
out there that day flipped over many times, and mine never did. And there's a lot to that. And
you're riding down the river, and you see these crosses. Isn't
that nice? Some Christians have been here.
No, these are where people died. Didn't have to tell me that.
You turn this boat over, you're gonna have a cross up here, cuz.
You're not going to die on the raft, you're going to die on
me strangling you to death. You know, that's when I was disqualified
from preaching for a few hours. What's the point? There is not
one time in class three or four rapids that you can let your
paddle out of your hands. And you gotta got a good feel
for how that water moves. Because if you're not paying
attention, if you just letting it go, you're gonna crash. And
that, your head and the helmet and all this nice gear and all
that junk ain't gonna help you if that water takes you in places
it wants to take you. And so you fight like all things
matter in that moment because you don't want to be across on
the side of the hill. What we come to find out later
is because people did stupid things, not just going down the
river in a raft. They were doing dumb stuff. rather
than following the rules. But yet, we do the same thing
with God when God says to rest. And we see trouble coming, and
we're trying to back paddle. Not back pedal, back paddle.
We're trying to get it, we're trying to steer away from what God wants. And we can't, it's never gonna
happen. And we could go all the way upstream, but we're gonna
be exactly where God wants us to be. And we think resting in
Christ is all about the lazy river. in an inner tube sitting
there with a flip-flops on and a straw hat on a nice spring
day. No, it's about running Class
5 Rapids with our eyes closed singing. Because that's what
life's like. And that's what the gospel of
peace is. That we can be like Jesus sleeping in the boat because
he is the master of it all. He's in our boat, beloved. He's
in our lives, beloved, because we're in him. Be at peace. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
that your word is sufficient. We thank you, Lord, that there
is nothing, absolutely nothing, Father, that is happening in
our world or the world of anybody in this world right now that
you have not not only decreed and determined, but that you
are not absolutely sovereignly controlling the outcome. It is amazing how we can trust
that you created the world. That we can see that you defy
the laws of the very nature that you create to do miracles. But yet we cannot trust you in
the small things of life. We see that Jesus Christ came
to earth, died, rose again, and promises eternal life. But we
seem to have this great problem. Lord, we're going to always have
this problem. And no matter what example I
give myself or each other, Lord, there's no example or manipulation
or story or anecdote that's going to prove faithful in helping
us rest. It is only when we see the panic
in our hearts and the uncertainty of this world that we can together
point each other to your word so that the promises that you
have made in Christ Jesus are our vision. Help us there. Lord, we don't ask you to take
away the problem. We don't ask you to steer us
away from trials. Father, bring them as you have
determined that you may be glorified in them. And help us not to frown
at each other when we see one another suffering, fearful, or
going through trial. But Lord, that we might embrace
that opportunity to be someone who could hold each other's hands
up. I think they did that image in
Moses' day. And in our day, it would be us
taking our oars out of the water. Stop steering. Be still. That's what you tell us. And
so we thank you for that truth. Help us as we trust in you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.