Faith in God in the Future

[00:00:00] To God in prayer, Father, indeed, you have given us honey from the rock that we see in your word. [00:00:13] The scriptures that have been preserved and have been revealed to us. [00:00:21] That very precious and sweet message of the grace and love that you have for us through Jesus Christ. [00:00:33] And we pray now, Father, that you would open our hearts and minds to your word, that we would gain in our understanding of it, grow in our obedience to it, and rejoice and delight in your word forevermore. [00:01:00] In Jesus name we pray. Amen. [00:01:04] Please be seated. No, we stand for this reading. [00:01:11] It isn't a long one, though. Hebrews, chapter eleven. [00:01:21] In light of what we read from the Old Testament, listen to what the writer to the Hebrews says concerning faith here. [00:01:33] By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of Joseph's. Of the sons of Joseph bowing in worship over the head of his staff. [00:01:46] By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones. [00:02:02] Please be seated. [00:02:44] Of all the things that the writer of the book of Hebrews, and just for your information, I don't believe it's Paul. I think there's good reason. But a disciple of his that the writer to the Hebrews, moved by the Holy Spirit, chooses the end of Jacob and Joseph's life. [00:03:23] Those two men lived a long time, a lot longer than I'm counting on living. [00:03:30] I'm kind of committed to live to be 100. [00:03:33] I have a foster mom back in Kansas, and she will be 99 in August. And she told me, she said, robert, I don't want to live to be 100. And I said, okay, Linda, I'll live to be 100 in your place, so you don't have to. And she's pleased with that thought. [00:03:57] You do get to a certain age where it is your time, or I should say God's time. [00:04:11] And it's interesting what is on the mind of these two men. Very similar. Do you notice there in the verse, though? It fascinated me, that it says there by faith, Jacob when dying. [00:04:25] And then it says, by faith, Joseph at the end of his life. Those two greek words, there are different words. [00:04:35] They're not contrasting in the sense that they're entirely different, but they're just different ways of expressing that. We have a lot of ways of expressing the end of life. [00:04:46] Some of them are more direct and forceful. [00:04:50] I actually tell people that I'm going to die, and I don't hesitate, that I'm not going to just pass away or pass on, but I'm going to die physically. I know that. [00:05:08] And they knew that. [00:05:13] And so it was by faith that Jacob, when he was dying, blessed Joseph's sons, and he blessed them according to God's will. [00:05:32] And he predicted, if I'd had the time, I would have gone into reading all of those passage, that passage there where he goes into each one of his sons and his grandsons as well and tells of their future. [00:05:56] Both of these men had faith in God in the future that was beyond them. [00:06:07] And I ask you that question this evening. Do you have faith in God beyond your life here? [00:06:21] There are those who teach, and I find it disgusting, but they teach that in the Old Testament that people didn't believe in life after death. [00:06:35] Or if they did, it was some kind of floating on a cloud someplace. [00:06:40] As a matter of fact, I said at a funeral, I got up and I said, I want to make a confession to all of you here. You may find this shocking coming from a preacher, but I'm not looking forward to dying. [00:06:54] That's not my hope. [00:06:58] My hope is in the resurrection. [00:07:05] I once had the opportunity to talk to a young man who's an atheist, and I started asking him about the future, and I said, so what are you looking forward to? Oh, he said to me, I'm looking forward to graduating from college. [00:07:21] And I said, and after that? Oh, I'm looking forward to a job, and after that? Well, I'm looking forward to getting married. And after that, I said, do you plan to have children? He said, probably. [00:07:35] And after that? [00:07:39] Well, after you've raised the kids, is what I asked him. He said, well, eventually I'm going to retire. [00:07:48] And I said, and after that? [00:07:51] And he finally saw where I was going, I think, because he just gave up and said, well, then I'm going to die. [00:07:58] And I said, and after that? [00:08:00] And he looked at me like I was crazy. [00:08:03] And I said, when I die, there's going to be an after that. [00:08:11] Because when you die in Christ, you go into his presence. Your spirit does, but your body doesn't. [00:08:36] Turn with me to Matthew, chapter 21. [00:08:42] I think it's important to establish this very clearly in our thinking that men like Jacob and Joseph believed in the resurrection. [00:08:56] Otherwise, their request doesn't make much sense. [00:09:01] Think about it. What difference does it make whether you're buried in the promised land or not? [00:09:08] What difference does it make? [00:09:11] What difference does it make if they bother to bury you at all? [00:09:15] I've told my children their mother was cremated. [00:09:20] And they asked me, they said, well, dad, do you mind if we cremate you? And I said, I don't mind that. [00:09:26] But I'll tell you what I don't want, and that is to end up in a jar on somebody's shelf. [00:09:35] I said, when I die, I want to be buried in the ground, because I love the symbolism of that. [00:09:45] I could be killed in some big explosion, and they never found any pieces of me at all. Some of those who died on 911, they never did find a trace of them. [00:09:59] But God will still raise from the dead. That doesn't keep him from raising from the dead. But I like the symbolism, the picture of the body being placed in the grave. And as the Westminster confession says, that your spirit or soul goes to be with Christ, and that your body, still united with Christ, remains in the grave until the day of the resurrection. [00:10:41] That's amazing to think about. [00:10:44] God won't lose track of your body, and he will raise you from the dead. [00:10:55] Matthew, chapter 22. And beginning with verses 23, the same day sadducees came to him, that is Jesus, who say that there is no resurrection. And they ask him a question, saying, teacher, Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up an offspring for his brother. Now, there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother, so to the second and the third, and down to the 7th. After all, after them all. The woman died in the resurrection. Therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? [00:11:40] For they all had her. [00:11:44] But Jesus answered them, you're wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. [00:12:03] And as the resurrection of the dead. As to the resurrection of the dead, have you not read of what was said to you by God? [00:12:17] I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. [00:12:26] He's not God of the dead, but of the living. [00:12:32] And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. [00:12:41] There are all kinds of passages in the Old Testament that clearly teach the resurrection. Job states that he will stand on this earth in his body, and with his own eyes he will see his redeemer. [00:13:08] That is our hope. [00:13:14] And the hope that Jacob and Joseph had was similar. [00:13:38] The end of chapter 49 in. In Genesis. Turn to Genesis, the end of that chapter, where we have Jacob's death and burial, beginning with verse 28. [00:13:56] All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. [00:14:00] This is what their father said to them as he blessed them and blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. Then he commanded them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people. [00:14:13] Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Mechfeth, the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. [00:14:35] There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebecca, his wife. [00:14:45] And there I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites. When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. [00:15:05] And then we have the account of Joseph mourning his father and taking his father's body back to the land and burying it in that cave. [00:15:27] And we notice that Joseph had the children of Israel promised that they would take his bones back to the land. And Joseph was embalmed. That's why they could keep that body there. [00:15:44] It's tradition among the jewish people to this day to bury when someone dies, someone before sunset, if at all possible. [00:15:57] But in this case, there was an important burial. [00:16:04] And the children of Israel actually do this. They carry his coffin all the way back. All that 40 years of wandering out there in the desert. [00:16:14] I've been on some long processions that were miles to take a body from the place where the service was to the graveside. [00:16:29] But they had all those years that Joseph's coffin sat there in Egypt as a testimony to know. Someone would see that, maybe, and ask the question, what's with this coffin here? [00:16:46] Why didn't you bury him? [00:16:49] And they would explain that it's because he had faith and trust in what God was going to do in the future for the children of Israel. [00:17:02] Our faith is not a faith just here and now. It should be here and now. You should be trusting the Lord every moment of your life for the way that he sustained you here and now. But our faith is not just for this life. [00:17:18] Now, I know there are those who have proposed, and I've heard this said, and I cringe at it. And that is that, well, if you live a good life, if you follow the gospel principles in this life, and you die, and there is nothing beyond this, what have you lost? Well, you know what the apostle Paul says. [00:17:42] You're a fool to be pitied. [00:17:48] The things that you suffer in this life, for Christ's sake. Some of us more than others. I'm not saying we all suffer equally, but the things that saints have suffered for the sake of Jesus Christ. [00:18:04] And the apostle Paul was one of those who suffered. Many said, no, that's foolishness. [00:18:13] We have a hope, and our hope and our future is in Christ Jesus. [00:18:24] And one day after this age is over, this world is over, we will be raised to newness of life and to a condition that I can't imagine right now in my life. [00:18:40] I told my children on more than one occasion, if I ever wake up in the morning and I feel no pain at all, I'll know that I've died and gone to be with the Lord. [00:18:51] Because the older I get, the more I notice that those aches and pains and the struggles of life and the difficulties of this life will be over. [00:19:03] But my physical existence does not end with the grave. [00:19:10] And I always make a point of that when I stand graveside at someone who has died. [00:19:21] And someone asked me one time, pastor, are you sure all those people that you put in the ground are going to be saved, that they were saved, and that they will be raised to life in Christ? No, I'm not. But I'll tell you something I'm absolutely sure of. They will be raised, and everyone will appear physically before the judgment seat of Christ. [00:19:50] I told a young man that when I was witnessing to him, he was over here in this country studying engineering, and he was from France, and he was telling me about his beliefs. He had some notion that maybe there was a God and wasn't quite sure of things. And we spoke of things. I spoke of Abraham. I spoke of faith. [00:20:12] And as we were parting, he said to me, as he was leaving, he said, well, I guess I'll never see you again. [00:20:22] And I said, oh, no, not so. [00:20:26] I said, you will see me, and I will see you. [00:20:30] But I said, I hope. [00:20:33] This is my hope for you, young man, that we will be on the same side. [00:20:39] You'll be there. [00:20:41] You don't have any choice about that. [00:20:44] But I hope that that young man considered the things that were told him, and the man that had invited him over for supper that evening had been witnessing to him as well. I hope that when he went back to France, that these things, that God's spirit was able to use that through his word to bring this young man to faith. Because I would love to see the day when I spot him in the crowd, or maybe he'll spot me first. [00:21:18] I'm not sure both of us will have perfect eyesight then. Won't have any glasses, so be no problem with that. [00:21:27] But God has given us a faith. That is for the here and now and for the future as well. [00:21:49] Let's look to God in prayer. [00:22:01] Father, you are aware of all things, and you know how difficult it is for us as human beings who live in a world where we witness birth and aging and dying, to find it very difficult to get our minds wrapped around the concept of life everlasting. [00:22:42] We have not experienced that yet, and yet it is ours in Christ Jesus. [00:22:55] And that when we fully enter into that, what a glorious experience it will be. [00:23:05] For unless the Lord comes back before our death, our physical death, we will go through that experience of being separated body and soul. [00:23:24] But one day we will know what it is to be perfect in both body and soul and to ever be with the Lord and to rejoice in his presence, along with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, all the saints of the old covenant, as well as the saints of the new. [00:24:08] Father, we're coming this evening to the table of our Lord, something that Jesus Christ himself commanded us to do, but only until he comes. [00:24:29] And so, as wonderful a blessing as this table is to feed us spiritually in this life and to meet our need, there will come a day when we will no longer have the need to confess sins, to repent of them, and to receive forgiveness. [00:24:57] But we will rejoice in the forgiveness of past sin that you will remember no more and the glories that Christ has purchased for us in his kingdom to set at the wedding feast of the lamb and receive blessings without end. [00:25:28] In Jesus name we pray. [00:25:30] Amen.