Hebrews chapter 11 and talk about God, the great
designer, the great designer. Sometimes we're tempted to use
our faith as a jumping board, a springboard, a sounding board,
if you will, into something else. And that's never been truer than
it has been in politics. No matter how many years I think
we live and continue in the faith, we're always going to have election
time. And we're always going to see
the gospel being usurped by politics. Some people say, well, it's an
issue. It's a gospel issue. It's not a gospel. It has nothing
to do with the gospel. It has nothing to do with Christ. Well, there are Christian
principles we must live by. Great, live by them, but don't
conflate them with who Christ is and what the kingdom of God
is. And how would it feel? I know
how it feels, because I've had to sit under it. If you come
to the gathering and you assemble with the saints, and instead
of Hebrews 11, you hear a lecture on the electoral college with
some Jesus sprinkled in. how God elected his people, we
elect a president. I mean, you know, I could make
it work. We can do some algebra lessons here that would be extremely
beneficial for YouTube subscriptions, or insanity charges, or public
discipline, whichever came first. We could talk about recidivism
in the context of juvenile justice. an issue. We could come to a
place where we could just get excited about
any old thing we wanted to. We could even create excitement
and say that it was God's work because we are good at building
things as human beings. We are good at building arguments.
We are good at building opinions. We are good at building religion.
We are good at building ideas. We are good at building walls
and fences and boundaries and borders. We are very good at
what we do as human beings in our creativity and our ability
And so we can create all sorts of things. And beloved, humanity
has been creating false gospels and false religions since the
very first day. All it takes is to take that
which is true and to not believe it just a little bit, to change
it just a little bit. See, Lucifer, according to the
narrative of scripture historically, is the first and father of revisionism. So just revise the truth just
a little bit or worse than even being somebody that's revised
or something that's revised, it's just the fact that you just
call into question that which is true. Did God really say,
the enemy asked? I don't know. I've never really
considered that, Eve probably thought. As a matter of fact,
I never heard God tell me anything. It was you, wasn't it, Adam?
Did God ever talk to me? No, He talked to me. That's what
He said. Are you sure, Eve? That's what He said. Well, I'm
not sure that's what Adam said He said. You said He said that.
Is that what He said? I don't know. What did you think He said? This
snake saying that God might not have said that. Now, where do
we go from there? Such is sin. The greatest sin
in the world is to revise that which is true and then to give
God credit for it. The greatest sin in the world
is to not believe that which God has clearly said and what
God has clearly revealed simply in the context of his prophets
and his apostles and now his written word. Most of all concerning
his son. And in Hebrews chapter 11, we've
been talking about this for months now. We've been looking at faith.
We need to be reminded that this letter was written as a polemic
against Judaism to give confident assurance to the Christians who
were Jews because they were being pressured to fall in line into
the cultural idea of what true Christianity looked like, a.k.a. Judaism with Jesus. More explicitly, falling into
the practice of keeping the precepts of Moses, following Sabbath laws,
eating certain things, not eating certain things, touching certain
things, not touching certain things, wearing certain things,
not wearing certain things, and the list goes on. We could talk
about it. 613 of them we could talk about. And Paul has said up to this
point that we know that God's promise of eternal life is true
because he said it out of his own mouth. He promised it and
it has come to pass and all that God has ever said has been and
all that has ever been is because God has said it would be. The philosophers of our day who
try to really make sure that God's not put on trial against
fairness. They make it in this idea, you
know, God could see all the possibilities of the volition of creation and
creatures and humanity. And he chose to create the perfect
one in comparison to all the different ones. That's stupid.
To be so smart, we can be so dumb. I'm the dumbest man in
the world. And sometimes I can be so stupid
to think that I'm so smart that I've got things figured out. In 2006, I started my blog. The
blog bears my name, .com, among some other URLs that point to
it. But the title of the blog in the beginning was to be being
wise and more stupid. Being wise and more stupid. Because
it was around that time when I realized just how dumb I was
and that the smarter that I got, the dumber I was. And that if
I listened to what the scripture said, the dumber I realized or
admitted that I was, the wiser I became. 1 Corinthians chapter
1, specifically verse 25. God uses the what? Dumb things
of the world to profound the wise. God uses the what? Weak
things of the world to take over the strong. God uses the what?
Nothings of the world to bring to what? Nothing, the things
that are. Paul asked these smart folks, who do you think you are?
Where are you wise men? Who of you are of noble birth?
Who are you of somebody? Which of you in the church over
there in Corinth have got some clout or smart? You've got something to say.
You can stand up and say anything to me even. You know, Paul was
like, you're going to argue with me about what the Bible says? You know I'm a Pharisee, right?
You know I'm named after the first king of Israel, right?
You remember his Philippians resume? You don't argue with
a smart man like Paul about the law. But Paul had to become stupid
in order to see the simplicity of grace. Now, that doesn't mean that we
aren't to think. That doesn't mean that we aren't
to learn. That doesn't mean that it's wrong.
Even though I got ejected from the World Wide Web Sunday night
with three minutes to go in the last part of what I was trying
to say, I love to read, and I love to read theology, and I love
to read historical theology, and I love to read biographies,
and I love to learn and see. If I could have any superpower
that would be the most usefulness to my desires, invisibility would
be it. So I can just sort of sneak up real close, real close
and just listen. Just listen, I don't wanna be
a peeping tom, I wanna be a peeping ear. I just wanna hear, I like
to listen to how people talk and what they say. And cause
I can learn a lot and I enjoy the human condition as it comes
out of the mouths of humanity. Because you can learn almost
everything. Jesus even told us that we can see what is in the
heart of man by how he speaks. And what he talks about. When
we get through with John's first letter, we're gonna have a parting
shot of about three sermon series on idolatry and what it looks
like in the context of loving God through loving others, and
that everything that is standing in the way of that is an idol,
no matter what we may think it might be. But as we get smarter in our
own flesh, we really are getting dumber, but as we get dumber
in our own flesh, our spirit is made wise because Christ is
our wisdom. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians.
Christ is our wisdom. Christ is our righteousness.
Christ is our holiness, our sanctification. But even in our intelligence,
we come to the place where we think we understand that better
by parsing it out beyond the pages of the Bible. But beloved,
God has given us intellect, but intellect without the Spirit
of God is ignorance. Intellect with the Spirit of
God is absolute majesty. And the amount of intellect that
is required to understand the gospel is zero. You take guys like Bart Ehrman,
brilliant people. You take atheistic apologists
and scientists who I read. I mean, I've read them all. If
there's a physicist that writes a book, I read it. And I enjoy
pondering the magnificence of the infinite theories of the
universe. And then I get up and I brush
the crumbs off my chest. And I say, well, that was a good
little snack, but it sure is malnourishing. And then I pick
up the true bread. and I'm in more awe, and I'm floored. Sometimes we look for things
that we don't need to look for because we're looking for something
better, looking for something different, trying to tie the
ends of an ineffable God to itself and say, okay, now I got it,
like a little leash that you found, a cat you tied up with
a shoelace so it can't get away. We can't do that to the Lord. And we see this by faith, by
faith, by faith, by faith. Last week we looked at what it
meant to live by faith and draw near to God and believe that
He exists and that the reward of these things is the fulfillment
of the promise of God, which is eternal life through Jesus
Christ alone, period. And beloved, if there's ever
a time that the church needs to rest in the sufficiency of
the bread of life, these days are it. There is no hope in our
world. Jesus has not promised to bring
hope to the world and to the kingdom of man. He brings hope
through another kingdom and His inauguration and His crown was
a crown of thorns and His throne was a wooden beam. And His people are not of this
world though they are in it. Yet we live sometimes even in
our faith, even in our religious activities, even in our assembly,
we live not by faith in the Son of God, but we live by faith
in our own understanding of how it's all going to work out. I
told my neighbor earlier, just trying to encourage them in the
faith. As I listen to nonsense across
the street, nonsense across the block, and nonsense across town,
and this preacher, and that preacher, and the other preacher, everywhere
they look, it's always somebody promising them something that
God's Word has not promised. And they always say, the reason
you haven't got it is because you don't have enough faith.
Well, look at this. Look at verse 13 of chapter 11.
I'm going to back up to verse 8, and then we're going to go
back to verse 13. Actually, I'm going to go through verse 16. All these died in faith, not
having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted
them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and
exiles on earth. There's a verse for us today, beloved. And one of the greatest weaknesses
of our flesh is that when we start to think that there's hope
in a kingdom that's not Christ. Or worse, we listen to someone
who's supposed to carry the gospel to us and they teach us that
Christ's gospel is that he's going to transform America. He's
going to transform it all right into a ball of fire. That's the
best magic trick. I can't wait. It's gone. Verse eight, by faith, Abraham
obeyed when he was called out to go to a place that he was
to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing
where he was going. By faith, he went to live in
the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac
and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was
looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer
and builder is God. I'm gonna get past there tonight.
Let me just, I'll read it and then we're gonna stop. By faith,
Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was
past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born
descendants, as many as the stars of heaven, and as many as the
innumerable grains of sand on the seashore. These all died
in faith, not having received the things promised, but having
seen them from afar, and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged
that they were strangers and exiles on earth. For people who
speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
If they had been thinking of that land from which they had
gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as
it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared
for them a city." It's hard not to usurp the purpose
of this text and preach about America today. You see what I
mean? It's so easy. It's just almost
divine. I mean, if I were somebody who
looked at the bottom of my coffee cup for what I'm supposed to
do tonight, I might say, the Lord just laid this out perfect.
Look at the timing. And some people think, well,
the Lord ain't that good. You work this out. 28 weeks ago. I'm not that organized, y'all.
I couldn't even remember what verses I was in when I got here,
and I didn't want to type the wrong ones down, so I had to
look again. Because remember, I don't read
out of a Bible with verses. I don't know where I'm at. I
just know what I'm doing next. So here we are, by faith, living
in the promises of God and that which God has prepared for us.
God has promised to prepare for us. And it has nothing to do
with this world. Yet we see the narrative of the
Old Testament and all the stories therein. I had a sister ask a
question about how best to teach children. And I answered it very
quickly on YouTube. I think it was Monday morning,
early. It might have been, yeah, it was Tuesday morning early because I had to
get up at four o'clock. We need to teach children the
Bible by reading it to them. We need to teach children the
stories of the Old Testament. But most importantly, before
they get all of that under their belt, they need to hear the gospel
of free and sovereign grace over and over and over again, as it
is witnessed in the gospel account. Specifically, I believe a child
should hear the gospel of John almost continually. I believe
the believers need to hear the gospel of John almost continually.
Because even though I might think, you might think, well we need
to stick to the foundations. Yeah, what has Paul already told
us? We need to also grow up. But we can't walk without feet. We cannot fly without wings.
And even when we're walking, we are not cutting off our feet
because, well, we learned how to use our feet. Now we're walking,
we don't need our feet. We always need the foundations
of the gospel, even in the highest excellent things of doctrine. Because otherwise, it's just
heady nonsense. Otherwise, it's a time for humanity
to create their own ideas. See, that's what we do. We create
our own ideas. Well, you know what Gideon's
really trying to teach us, right? Have you ever heard a sermon
on Gideon? and some nonsense. I was 18 years
old the first time I heard a sermon on Gideon, and I was sitting
in the room of about 40 other 18-year-olds on the campus at
Georgia Southern. And a 20-year-old stood up there
with all wisdom, and he read the story of Gideon like I'd
never heard it before. And then he goes, what's that
mean to y'all? And I'm looking at it, and I'm
looking at him, and I'm looking around the room, Nobody's raising
their hands. I think, what does it mean to
me? What does it say? It says it
right there. It's the story. I've been hearing this story
since I was two. What else? What are we looking for here?
Come on, anybody, what does it mean to y'all? And this girl
raised her hand and she gave this most profound answer I've never
heard anything like it in my life. I'm like, do I have the
same Bible? Next thing you know she triggered
a chain reaction. The guy next to her said, well I think it's
this and you know when I'm taking tests and stuff like that I gotta
trust the Lord even though this and you know what it's wet fleece. The wet fleece is my mind when
I'm tired and you know it's just awesome God can overcome a wet
fleece. My goodness I'm looking and then
by the time it was over 10 or 12 of them had spoke up. Everybody
has a different interpretation of what Gideon's talking about.
And I thought I'd missed it. Y'all, it set me on fire for
getting deeper knowledge in the Bible. I don't see these things.
Then I got creative and I learned how to do these things. And then
a well-meaning mentor, the next summer, snatched a knot in my
behind. Boy, you're blaspheming God,
interpreting his word based on whatever the heck you think you
got going on in your creative brain. God don't need you, dummy.
Thank God for men like that. Hurt my feelings bad. Because
I was in a whole crowd of folks sharing them all the great insights
I just got from Gideon. Which were dumb. Same thing with
Noah. Same thing with Abraham. Well
guess what? The Word of God tells us very clearly. God's Word says
that God is the builder of everything. That God is the builder of everything.
That God has created and more specifically revealed himself
as the creator of everything from the very foundations of
the universe. That the cosmos and everything
in it came to being because God said that it was. And it was. Then God said it was good. And
then God created the world and everything in it. We already
heard that in the first three verses of this chapter. God created
the world and by faith we understand the universe was created by the
word of God. So that what is seen came from what is not seen. We can trust God on the issues
of eternal life and the promises of salvation and the promise
of the gift of faith and the promise of the sealing of the
Holy Spirit because God created the world. And if He can say,
let there be and it was, then He can say, let there be and
Christ was. But Christ is not a created being.
Christ is the eternal God. Christ is the eternal Son. He
is from the beginning. He was the one who said, let
there be light and the Father and the Spirit together. We,
let us create man in our image. But God has sent His Son into
the world to create a people for Himself. God created the
world so that He could fulfill His eternal decree from His own
counsel to be the Redeemer of His elect.
And that's why the Genesis account is what it is. Genesis, you notice,
is only just a couple of paragraphs about the world and its origin.
But God wants us to see that everything started with Him and
what He did to create His glory, revealed through His Son to be
shared with His people, started with creation. And so God's been
in the business of building His entire life, eternally, since
the beginning. So God created man, God built
man, God built humanity, God designed humanity. Then God designed
the purposes of the fall, and God designed the purposes of
restoration, and God designed and promised the gospel in the
very first moments of life. And God's built it. And then
all of human history has brought us to the place where the cross
of Christ is the pinnacle. And God has designed it all.
He's designed every bit of it. I found a journal. I used to
journal a lot in hand. I found a journal from August
11, 1996. And keep in mind, I've been married
June, July, August, three months. And of course, it was on submission
and a few other things. And by the Lord's mercy, I had
it right. I understood what Paul was teaching Hebrews. And that's
carried us well, just to have the word of God and the gospel
in our marriage. It's saved us a thousand times over. And I'm
reading a lot of this stuff, and it's funny that some things
you get right and some things you just get really, really,
really wrong. Some things you just don't even
have a clue. And I asked the question in the notes in the
margin of one of the things, is God in everything? And I was
opining and positing on the idea, probably sitting in a hammock
looking at the clouds, Or when it says that Christ is all in
all and I was just expanding my creative mind what that might
mean. And I was just asking questions,
that's what I do. And then I answer them and then I go to the Bible
and prove myself wrong. So I can get the right answer, see. But I know for years throughout
ministry I've always come to conclusions that I thought, you
know what? I have discovered this. I have thought this through.
I have defined this term. I have coined this phrase. You
find it in a book that's 300 years old and you go, oh man,
I wasn't the first to get here. I guess Columbus, I don't get
the holiday. I don't get the holiday of being
the guy who started the idea of particular redemption in vernacular. No, don't get the holiday. I
thought I coined the phrase, I really did. I'd never heard
of John Calvin. I'd never heard of sovereign
grace in that term, none of that stuff, but I just started developing
a vocabulary. I thought I had designed it all. God has designed
it all. God has designed everything. God has designed it all. And
there is nothing outside of His hand. Nothing outside of His
will. The Lord's will be done. I was
with the candidates last night until a little bit before 10.
And that's the one thing that I kept telling them all afternoon
and all evening. God's will is being done this
very moment. God's will is being done in your
life, God's will is being done in this election, God's will
is being done in your job, God's will is being done no matter
what, and no matter how hard it may be, or how frustrating
it may be, or how wrong it may be, or how twisted it may be,
or how sinister things may come about, God has all of it in His
will. And when it's all said and done,
the way it turns out is exactly the way God intended it to be. And that's just statements true
about God. And Abraham was granted the faith
to believe that. Because I don't know about you,
I am not a person. When it comes to answering the
call of God, I will go. And I won't look back. I will
never second guess what I know I should be doing in the context
of ministry. Going. I will never stop and go, well,
I don't know. I have never asked, should I? I go. But on the way, And before
I get ready to leave, I plan everything. I wrote a 30-page
document, May of 2011, describing how I was going to plant Grace
Truth Church. My deadlines, my dates, I wrote
out the date that I wanted to see the church planted, and it
was three plus years from that date to have our first official
church meeting. Because I still lived in Oakland. Well, I lived in Hayward. And
I was out there and I let it all out. I had a list of names,
a list of families, a list of things, prayer needs, what we
would do, what would happen here. Oh, if this, this, I had a list
of contingencies and lines drawn here and different footnotes
everywhere. And I could have just given that to y'all and
y'all could have planted the church too. So I present it to
my elders, and everybody's excited and sad at the same time. Well,
this is what we've been praying about. Okay, we got two more
years here, so here's what I think we need to accomplish in the
two years that I have left, so that when I leave, God's work
here will continue. You see how arrogant that is? But that's how I, that's my nature.
That's my nature. And then I spent my whole life
not sleeping because I can't control the wind. And God had a different plan.
Same call, different plan, different timeline. So I told the church
in May of 2011 that I was going to be planting a church in Georgia
within two years. And we moved and we pulled up
into Evans County, September the 10th of 2011, and it was
probably the end of that month that we had our first meeting
at my house, wasn't it Dave? Somewhere around in there, and
that was nine years ago. And we've never not met yet, even
after Matthew blew all the lights out and all the roofs off, we
still met that morning with the doors open. And that's how the Lord's done
it. So I wasn't as faithful as Abraham, because I had a plan.
I knew how much money I needed to move, which was a lot. I didn't
know how I was going to get it, but I knew where it had to come
from. I knew I had to have a house. I mean, I already had a deposit
on stuff before. I mean, just things like that.
It's just in my nature. Abraham was different. Abraham
heard God. Imagine this. Now, let me play
a little story game. Abraham's up on the ziggurat
in Ur, which is still standing today. I've got friends that
live there. And if I had a picture on screen, I could pull it up
and show you. I've had friends say, hey look, is this the earth
that's in the Bible? Is this the ziggurat? Probably. So Abraham's
up on this flat top pyramid, way up in the sky, and he's bowing
down and burning incense and praying to the disc that he calls
God, to the moon. And somewhere, in some way, through
some opportunity, God spoke to Abraham, probably in his heart.
and clearly said, I want you to stop worshiping the moon that
I made, and I want you to just get your family and your stuff,
and I want you to walk that-a-way. Would you wait that-a-way? Where
are we going that-a-way? How long is it gonna take me?
Just get that-a-way. And Abraham said okay, and he got up and
he left. And that's Abraham's temperament. He believed God.
God granted him the faith to believe in the promise. God called
him, didn't know where to, but he knew that if God called him,
it would be okay. But I think we'd all live to
be about 700, 800, 900 years old if we just live like that.
Just be relaxed. Oh no, we gotta figure out what
direction. Are we sure, God? I mean, last time I was that
away, I got lost and there's nothing that away. Oh, we must
be going across Texas then. We're just that away. I mean,
you know, this is faith. And it's not an example. This
is not written so that we'll just get up, get in our car and
go that away. This is written for us to believe that God will
not lie. That he will take care of everything
that he has ordained. And it was not an easy ride for
Abraham. It was not an easy ride for Sarah, namely because he
was just such a liar. And he was such a scoundrel in
the context of his faithlessness. He believed God, but when things
didn't sort of work out, And the newness wore off, and the
old car smell turned sour milk. He decided he'd take matters
into his own hands several times over, and he just continued to
get blessed by the Lord. So he went out and God designed
that going. God designed those encounters. God designed it all. He purposed
it all. Why? So that through the promise
that He made to Abraham in a temporal way, Christ would save His people
from their sins. That's why. This is about the gospel. Abraham
was given the good news of God. That's why verse 13 says he died
in faith, thought and had received what he was promised. But he
was promised a son, but that wasn't the promise. The promise
was Jesus. And it was some thousand years later when Jesus arrived
or more. Abraham goes by faith, living
in a land as a foreigner. So he knew when he was in the
land, it was not the point. He understood. That's what Paul
is writing here. The point is the good news of Jesus Christ,
living in tents. I mean, many of you have moved
to Claxton in the last few months. Some of you, all of you have
a place to live. But what if when you got here, everything
was mowed over and all we had was sleeping bags and tents?
It'd be a shock. But that was Abraham's experience.
And yet he still stayed. Then the son that was promised
to him came, Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him, and then the
same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that housed
foundations. See, he wasn't looking forward. Now some people say,
well, what do you mean? Doesn't Atlanta have foundations? No. Savannah doesn't have foundations.
They do in an engineering sense. They do in a historical sense.
But they don't in the spiritual sense. There's nothing holding
these things up. What holds it all up? I'm glad
you asked. Remember, God eats potato chips. Colossians. Galatians, Ephesians,
Colossians. Philippians, Colossians. He is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation. And for by Him all things were
created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were
created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things. And in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the
church. He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in
him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through
him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in
heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. So the only foundations
that are there in a true sense is when we are found in the blood
of Jesus Christ. And everything else is held up
by the purpose of God. Not because he's just long-suffering,
though that is true, it's because his purposes will be fulfilled
and his will will come to pass for his people. By faith, he lived in a land
of promise as a foreigner. a sojourner as an alien in tents
with Isaac and with Jacob. Heirs of the same promise. Because
he was looking forward to the city that has foundations. The one who was built through
Christ. That's how Paul has exhorted
these Christians earlier over in chapter 10. He says, but recall
the former days when After you were enlightened, you endured
a very hard struggle with suffering, sometimes being publicly exposed
to reproach and affliction, and sometimes partnering and being
partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those
in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property,
since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and abiding
one. So don't throw away your confidence,
therefore. Don't throw away your confidence.
which has a great reward because you need endurance so that when
you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.
The will of God is to believe in His promises concerning eternal
life. This is the point. God is the designer and the builder. Moses was the steward over the
house of God, but Jesus Christ was the builder. This is all
refreshment. This is what we've already learned
in all these 28, 29 weeks of Hebrews thus far. Just reading
quickly. Understand, I'm reading quickly. I'm going through, in
this particular night, probably a good five hours of teaching
that could slow down and bog us in and would be beneficial,
but for the sake of continuing in the rest of the letters that
we have planned, specifically the book of James, we want to
go this rate. By faith, Sarah herself received
the power to conceive, and even when she was past of age, Sarah
laughed. She didn't believe that it was
possible, but she knew that God had promised. She laughed. Now what would you do if somebody
laughed at you when you promised them something that would change
them forever? You'd probably change your mind. I love you,
and I'm going to give you this. Please. I know you. That's ridiculous. Well, fine then. I'll keep my
present. But even though she laughed,
God was faithful. And that's what it says here.
By faith, she received power to conceive. Even when she was
past age, since she considered him faithful, who had promised. Faithful who had promised. It
wasn't about Sarah. It wasn't about her mishap with
Hagar. and Abraham's wickedness with
Hagar. It was sin, evil, what he did
with Hagar. Therefore, from one man, as good
as dead, were the descendants as many as the stars of heaven
and as much as the sand on the seashore. But all of these people
were trusting in the design of God to build something that could
not be seen with the human eye, that did not and will never exist
on this planet. because this planet is just a
cog in the wheel of glory. These all died in faith, verse
13. They did not receive the things promised, but they did
receive a son. They did receive many heirs.
They did receive a land, but they knew that this wasn't the
point of these promises. The promise is that Jesus is
the promised land. Jesus is not to take us back
to Eden. Jesus is Eden. Eden was just
a shadow of Jesus. Jesus had to show up in the garden
and hang out with Adam. But in the New Kingdom, we will
never escape the presence of Christ. They acknowledged and greeted from afar. They acknowledged
that there were strangers in exile on earth. This emphasis that Paul places
here puts us in the right perspective. I'm not trying to get back to
the good old days. I'm not trying to go back to Egypt. We've already
dealt with that, right? We see that in chapter 2 and
3. We're not looking to try to make
things better. We certainly don't want to go back spiritually.
We don't want a pocket full of religion in a city full of holy
rollers. What good is that without grace and without the gospel,
without the power of God? Nothing. It's just a bunch of
people with false hope. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment
of all these things. The narratives of all the Old
Testament are Him. He is the true Joseph, and He
is the true Jonah, and He is the true Noah, and He is the
true Moses. He is the one to whom all those point. And by
the bearing of His own name, Joshua, Yahweh saves, and Arameah,
Yeshua. He is the one who leads us truly
into the Promised Land. Verse 14 says, For people who
speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
We're seeking a better place. We're seeking a better location.
We're looking for that day. But beloved, in our world, listen
to me, in our world, the gospel of the enemy, the false gospel
of our culture has taken Christ and put him in the bus driver's
seat. And they made him this glorified
bus driver to the celestial hope. And all you gotta do is get on.
You gotta stop driving this way over him and head in that direction
and you gotta get on the bus and get up here with Jesus. But
if you don't get on the bus, see, they try to make the ark
the ark again. When Jesus is the ark. Only when
you are sealed in Him will you survive the waters of judgment
and not die. And what is the seal? Paul says
it in Ephesians, the Holy Spirit. Through whom we call God Pops. Through whom we know that we've
been adopted. Through whom we know the promises of God are
yes and amen. Through whom we have the knowledge
of the truth. Through whom we are able to love
one another because God has first loved us in His sovereign election
and His eternal grace to send His Son into this world to save
us out of it. It's not about this life, and
this life has really no purpose. Remember what I preached about
Sunday, how I opened up my sermon. What is it that we want out of
life? If we are truly focused on the
truth of the gospel, all the other junk that we do will be
of zero consequence. And as a matter of fact, there
are many times when I sit in my quiet place, which is really
trying not to fall asleep, I feel like I waste 80% of my
day doing this, saying this, going here, going there, putting
out fires, starting fires. I'm a pyro. I love to burn stuff.
But such is the design of God for
me. That he gives me the window, he gives me the margin, he gives
me the opportunity, he gives me the mind, and sometimes he
gives me the physical strength to do that simple thing that
he's called me to do, which is to stand here simply as a dummy
and teach you the truth that is beyond all wisdom. And if
that's all I ever do, praise be to God. But oh, goodness,
if I had a brainstorm session of vision, I could fill these
walls. and run out of markers writing. Doesn't matter. I should teach
from a whiteboard one night. It might blow you. You definitely
will walk out dumber. Or spitting on yourself. Because it doesn't make sense
to much anybody but me. People speak of the truth of
Christ and they know and they make it clear they're seeking
a homeland. But if they've been seeking the land from which they
had gone out He went that away. You know,
this call of God isn't working out too much. I'm going to go,
as you say down here, I'm going to go back yonder. I'm just going
to leave and go back yonder. If it wasn't about an eternal
hope, what would stop us from just going back? Nothing. Once
you see the truth, you can't go back. Once your eyes have
been opened, you can't go back. And the people who go back to
the old life, people who go back to the temporal promises, people
who go back to the things the way they were because they were
just more comfortable. Beloved, these, the word for
that is apostate. And Paul is writing to these
people so they don't go back. So this emphasis here is of great
importance to the original readers here. Don't go back. Don't go
to Moses. He's dead. Let him stay dead.
He's not a true husband. He's gone. Your true husband
is Jesus. Don't go back to Abraham. He
was looking for something else anyway. Y'all have misinterpreted
Abraham. He rejoiced in the day of Christ. He ain't going nowhere,
see. Don't go back. It's just easy
in our flesh. So we fight that, don't we? We
struggle with that, don't we? We struggle thinking that if
I could just change this or change that or change the other, if
I could just have this in this place and that in this place,
if I could just know what tomorrow would bring. You know what tomorrow
is? Not promised. So if you're living for tomorrow,
you are in a dream right now. Well, I can't wait till I'm 20,
I used to say. Well, I can't wait till I'm 30.
Oh my God, I'm almost 50. I mean, you know how that works?
I thought when I turned 30, nobody would call me a kid anymore.
I forgot all these old men grew old too. I looked 11 when I got married,
I think. If I could just get there, how
about where am I now? What am I now? I'm standing in the promises
of my Lord and His hope is my hope. And beloved, every Wednesday
night, I come in this building worn out. Y'all do too. I mean,
it's a long day of working and doing and taking care of stuff.
It's tiring. The sun's, I mean, it's nine
o'clock. I don't care what the clock says. My body knows it's
time to go to sleep or eat Taco Bell, whichever comes first. I think I could do that this
late. But I'm tired. But when the Lord takes me here,
man, I could I could literally stand here and just keep going
until midnight. And not even notice it. Because
he gives us the strength to see and to hold fast. On these little
tiny things. Today is the day. This moment
is the moment. This is what it's all about.
Life is not about tomorrow morning. Life is about this very second.
What is it that you're hearing from this truth? Are you hearing
the promises of God? We don't go back. But as it is,
they desire a better country, don't we all? But what is a better
country? 20 years from now, how the economy's
doing. 10 years from now, how the government's
doing. Five years from now, how our
business is doing, how our children are doing. No, that's not a better
country. And I promise you, if we're looking to that as a way
of sparking ourselves into joy, we're going to very much be disappointed. And if God is true to his promises,
and he is, we're gonna suffer hard. And the closer we get to
trusting Christ alone, the closer we get, the more God fleeces
all that mess out of us, the more he takes our army down to
nothing. There's Gideon again. The more he takes our weapons
and our abilities and our tools away, and then when he's telling
us to work on this Big Mac truck with a toothbrush, and we got
to pull the valves out. I'm going to do that. With a toothbrush? No, I'm going
to do it. You're going to stand there like
a moron with a toothbrush. I'm going to park the seat. You're
going to stand there like a stuttering fool with a stick, Moses. I'm
going to do it. And you're going to stand there.
I can't go by myself. Here's a stick, and take your
brother. There you go. I don't need y'all, but y'all need me. Watch. I mean, this is it. So
where are we? Most of all, and most importantly,
we are in the faith. And we desire a better country,
but that better country is a heavenly country. It's not of this world.
Let's stop looking at the world for hope. Let's stop looking
at the promises of this world for hope, because the promises
of the world are always lies, because they're antichrist. And
for the love of God and His Son and His name, let us not divide
over that which is washing away. Please. There's some practical
wisdom there for today's moment. Let's be gentle, let's be kind,
let's be loving because it's not going to matter in a month. Therefore, God is not ashamed.
I don't have time to get in this, we'll talk about it next week.
God is not ashamed to be called their God. For he has prepared for them
a city. and the city whose foundations
is Jesus Christ and the gospel of free and sovereign grace.
The elect of God will rest on the foundations of Christ. And
the Bible doesn't teach us how to look for the dimensions of
this city and the wallpaper in this city and the toilets in
this city. The Bible teaches us to look
at Jesus as the city, as the good and promised one, the son
of light who was promised before the foundations of the world,
who is our hope. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, that even
in the midst of these struggling times, you still bless us. You still give us things that
even bring us temporary joy. Lord, we have each other and
we have marriage and we have children and we have employment
that we enjoy. We have things. We have wine,
soda, coffee, cake, little things that we put in our mouth that
we enjoy. But none of these things are going to matter. You have
called us to eat bitter things. But Father, sometimes the word
of God is bitter to us. It shows us just how deep our
idolatry can go and how deep our flesh can just sort of grab
hold and try to take root back into the soil of this fallen
world. But Father, you will never let
that happen. And so we praise you that we are in the discipline
of just gathering together a couple of hours a week. And Lord, in
the future, as you open up Without a virus or with a virus, Lord,
give us creative minds to figure out how to open up opportunities
to be together even more. Because the more we are together,
the less likely we are to set down into the seat of the world. Because we will be reminded and
encouraged to do good works and to love each other through service. We will be reminded of the gospel,
the good news of Jesus Christ, come into the world and died
for his people and save them from their sins and that you
by your spirit through the teachings of this same good news bring
your elect to faith and we rejoice together. And so Father, I thank you for
these days. I thank you for the pain. I thank you for the uncertainty. I thank you for the possibility.
I thank you for even the encroachment on our own idols and our own
rights or our own fears that we would see just how frail we
are and that we do not need to spend time wasting away, worrying
about tomorrow. But Lord, let us rejoice in today.
You are the designer and the builder and the creator of all
things. And Father, You have created
us saving eternal redemption. And Jesus Christ has satisfied
the payment that is required for that. By grace we have been
saved. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.