Living by Faith Between the Shadow and the Cloud

0 (0s): And I'm so excited to worship with you all this morning. I'm in Psalm 104, the where it says I were to enter his gates with Thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise. So I want to take a moment and let's just, let's just thank God for what he's doing in our, in our, in our lives. Whether it's big or small, just 2 (4m 49s): and call. They fall to our lives. All the, all the things we did at first, you're clearing out your cleaning out We are your people. 2 (5m 27s): You see all the nation call to pray. 2 (6m 52s): 1 (7m 9s): Your 2 (7m 9s): Hearts. Oh Lord. Our shepherd. You to all things. 2 (8m 51s): We come in. We're not, oh God, we need your service. come in. Not walking. God, we need me servant. God, we need reserves. 2 (11m 18s): So we re surrender your car. We're coming or not. We're running that. We need research. We research. 1 (12m 1s): I see. 2 (12m 3s): When I lock eyes with 1 (12m 5s): You, I feel you. 2 (12m 10s): I love to get 1 (12m 14s): Your, 2 (12m 15s): My obsession when I log. 1 (12m 28s): I see . 2 (13m 56s): I see 1 (13m 57s): I don't care. 1 (15m 22s): I don't care what it does. 1 (15m 26s): is you just, you just, 0 (17m 14s): Yes, Lord. Let that be our prayer and our worship this morning. We just love you, Lord. We want more of you and always sees all we need is your all we need to in this life, you you're you're you provide every extra thing that we ever could need in Florida. Your provider, your, You are a salvation. You are a God. We worship you. Jesus. 1 (17m 59s): Thank you, Lord Jesus in Jesus name. Amen. 3 (18m 9s): All right. Good morning. Harvest church. I am. My name is Jeremy. I'm normally the announcement guy, but this week I get to bring the word, be the, bring the word guy I got promoted. Hey, I could definitely use your prayer, huge prayer requests. Next weekend. I'll be trapped on a bus with 39 youth headed up to the mountains. Now the youth group is next week is headed. Next weekend is headed to Heartland Christian camp, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or rented a 48 passenger bus. We got 39 students going six liters, be praying for us that the goddess just, just reaches those students. 3 (18m 55s): During that time up there, it's a really neat testimony is one of the junior high boys that's going. His dad went to Heartland Christian camp when he was in junior high and gave his Lord to give his life to Lord at that camp. So it's going to be a special time. We're really looking forward to it. Been planning for months. So it's, it's, it's really neat to see the fruit of that coming out. We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 11 this morning. Steve's let me pick up right where he left off. I feel like the bases are loaded in a, in a sense. Everybody knows chapter 11, the hall of faith. So I'm going to bring, do my best to bring the word this morning, but let me geek out with you on a few things. 3 (19m 37s): I I'm a nerd. Okay. I used to be more of a math and science nerd, but lately it's been more literature nerd. I love these chapters. I love the word of God. I've grown in my just love of English, literature, poetry. And so let me just geek out first for a second with you. The word Smith there's wordsmithing that goes on in Hebrews is phenomenal. We know that it's God breathed. It's inspired by the holy spirit. God does use these authors to write this, but if you go back, think back really quickly to Jen, sorry. See Hebrews chapter 10. It starts out this way. Verse one for the law, having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things that the law, the old Testament was a shadow of things to come. 3 (20m 30s): And so I think we read through that so quickly. We just think, oh yeah. Shadow. Okay. Yeah. Think about it for a second. You're out on a sunny day. Not now because it's cloudy, but John was saying, Hey, and you look down and you don't see a shadow either it's noon and the shot, the sun is directly overhead or something's wrong, right. That shadowed. But that shadows are always following us around. And yet there, they don't have an actual substance. It's an outline of our, our bodies that are laid out depending on whatever the sun is. But you can deduce a few things from a shadow. If you, if you went outside and just walk up strangely behind somebody and look at their shadow, but don't actually look at who it is. 3 (21m 13s): You might be able to figure it out by their shadow, who it is. Especially if you know a few people around here, you might be able to do this, but it doesn't give their exact skin eye, hair color. There's no, all the details are lost. One of my classes at UCFB was a class on photo interpretation. And that's where they, these, these airplanes from above would take pictures over the ground. And then often there were times farmers use them within their fields of, for looking at crops and stuff. But also we got to look at some unclassified photos of area 51, and it was really cool. Cause we had like over the decades, we got to see like area 51 from the fifties and the sixties and the seventies. 3 (21m 59s): And you get to analyze like what's changed over time. So you get to see the runways that were lengthened. Like why, why an extra 5,000 feet on that Renu? Why do you need, you know, that's interesting or you get to see where buildings are are, are, are either buildings were built or whether they're added onto the, in their elevation and what you could. The beginning of the details that emerge from those photo interpretations was if you knew what time and what date that photo was taken. And he knew the elevation of that airplane that took that photo, you could find out actually a lot of details depending on the angle of the sun, as myth from the date and time you could say, well, the sun was at this angle that way, this shadow from the building cast a 60 foot long shadow. 3 (22m 47s): And at that angle, well that means that building is six, six stories tall. And so then all of a sudden these do, you can pull out little details, which help when you're looking at your enemies and trying to figure out, well, what do you, why, why do you have a missile? That's nine. You know, all these different things. You can pull out some details, but you'll never looking at area 51. You'll never know what's inside those buildings. You can figure out the height. Then you can figure out a few things, but you'll never, the details are lost. And the same with the shadow, the shadow of the things to come in the law, the outline is there, but there's the details were somehow lost. They were, they were just darkened. Compare that contrast chapter 10, with chapter 12, the next chapter we'll be looking at chapter 12, starts out with this. 3 (23m 34s): Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. So when from a shadows to now clouds, I love that the word play that's going on. The clouds are interesting because clouds can cast a shadow, but clouds can also block the shadows from happening and in a sense clouds or something, that's kind of a theorial there. They're real, but they're not. They're kind of they're there, but they're not. And this is, this is from this morning, driving into work. I live in Santa Maria. I was crossing the Santa Maria bridge, a, a car going about 90 miles an hour with Arizona license plate flew by me. 3 (24m 16s): And right after the bridge, there was this big fog bank. I don't know if any of you experienced that. There's this big fog bank and this, this, this Arizona licensed plated car, all of a sudden you can just see him hitting the brakes. He didn't know what to make of this fog. And he put on his flashers, like he needed to do that. I guess Arizona drivers don't know what Tulley fog is. You know, for those of you who've ever driven the central California as because there's, this fog was so thick and it was about, I had a, maybe a hundred yard visibility. It was a, it was a thick cloud. Or maybe it's like this when you're flying in one of those small passenger airplanes, you know, like the Cessna, you know, those little four-seater airplanes had a chance a year, a few years ago to go with a pilot and we're flying. 3 (24m 59s): And on our course was going to take us right through a cloud. And as you're approaching the cloud, you want to, I wanted to like, Ooh, you know, like we're going to, we're going to hit the cloud. We're going to have to go. And then all of a sudden the cloud, we just pass right through the cloud. It's there, but it's not. It's the strangest thing. So that is the cloud of witnesses that are cheering us on. They're in a sense, they're there, but they're, they're not, you know, so between the shadow of the things that come and the cloud of witnesses, we find ourselves in the hall of face, this chapter 11, living by faith between the shadow and the cloud chapter 10 ends with how to live by faith. 3 (25m 39s): And that's going to give us a number of examples of how patriarchs and how people from the past are ancient heroes. Show us how to do that, how to live by faith. Let's pray this morning, heavenly father, we thank you Lord, for your word of God. That's open on our laps. Lord. It's living, it's acting active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword Lord. So will you cut to the joints? And the marrow is a division that only you can do through your scriptures. Lord illuminate your word of God to us this morning in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. There's a number of different chapter titles that have been given to chapter 11. 3 (26m 23s): I I'll refer to it as the hall of faith, as in like, you know, baseball hall of fame, the legends of the sports, those, those people are kind of like solidified in there. You know, he got babe Ruth, Pete rose was, but then he wasn't right. And all that drama, but the different titles titles that have come out of this chapter, I like, it's just interesting to follow. So the new king James version says titles. This chapter by faith. We understand by faith, we understand the NIV says just simply by faith, newly living translation says faith and action. I kind of liked that this is how they showed their lived out by living in action by faith and action, the way mouth and older translation. 3 (27m 5s): He's he called it faith and his ancient heroes kind of like that one faith in his engine heroes. Cause I like picture books. Anybody else? Like picture books, love, picture books, even reading to my daughters, the picture books. It's fun as especially the beautifully illustrated ones. There's this fun to follow along. But recently as my girls have been good, getting older, we've kind of trans, you know, we're, we're still reading some picture books, but we're starting to get into some novels. So I've been recently reading the Chronicles of Narnia with my daughters. And I think we're on book four or five and it's so fun. And so my girls will be up in their beds and they're kind of playing with their dolls and doing different stuff while I'm reading out loud to them every once in a while, you as you're, as you're opening through the book or you're reading through the book, there's a little black and white sketch. 3 (27m 53s): And my girls are always like dad. If, if there's a picture, we want to see it like stop. Like just, you have to stop reading. We have to take this and show us the page because they want to know if what they're hearing is is, is, is what the art, the artist or the writer was portraying. They want to see that it aligns up. And that's why I love the old Testament. And that's why the Hebrews that he author is pointing back to the old Testament patriarchs because the old Testament is a picture book of new Testament truths. The old Testament is a picture book. It's, it's how it's lived out of new Testament truths. It makes tangible, it makes faith a tangible thing. 3 (28m 34s): It shows us encouraged us of examples, of those who have gone before us and encouraged us to live in that way. Now faith is verse one. What faith is now, faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. This chapter starts out with almost a working definition of what faith is. It's the substance of things. Hope for the evidence of things not seen. And another definition of faith would be what can be believed in a state of certainty with regard to belief. And this definition that the book of Hebrews gives is, is twofold. 3 (29m 16s): In relation to one, in relation to the future, faith is the substance of things hope for, so the things that are yet to come and in relation to that right now, the invisible it's the evidence of things not seen. That is what faith is and that word substance. It's an interesting word. It's almost like substance is something that you're able to tangibly grasp a hold and different translators translated that Greek word. That's only used five times. The new Testament is called Hoopa. Stacy's it's only translated five times. It's only in the new Testament five times and it's translated a little differently. Sometimes it's translated to assurance or confidence or reality and the biblical usage. 3 (29m 59s): It has this, this picture of a steadfastness from resolute much like the, like the foundation of a home. That's, that's how this substance is used. The substance of our faith. It's this foundation. So over the years, I've, I've loved doing construction. Most of my jobs have been remodeling. So kind of fixing what's already there. But my dream is to someday build my own home. And you start out with a blueprint. You, you design your home on a blueprint and then you take that page and then you, then you have the concrete foundation poured and is from that foundation that then you can walk on. 3 (30m 39s): You can stand on that foundation, begin to see all my walls are going to go here. The window's going to open up to that viewpoint. Okay? This is, this is where the different things are we, and it becomes really it's this it's the substance that's there. It's the foundation it's underlying of all the building that's going to take place next. And that's what that word substance speaks to is tangible. It's the reality. And it's the reality of things yet. Hope for you walk onto that foundation. You begin to see the things that you're hoping for, that this house to turn out this way, you can begin to see it in your mind's eye. Second Corinthians says that this is how we are to walk. We walk by faith, not by sight, walk by faith, not by sight. 3 (31m 23s): And then first Corinthians 13 says this now and now abide faith, hope, and love. And these three, but the greatest of these three is love. Why is love the greatest of faith and hope? 'cause when you're standing on that finished house, inside the finished house, as dry walled and furnished, you don't have to have faith that this is how, how the house is going to turn out. You don't have to have hope that it's going to turn out this way. You are standing within a Fe finished house on the foundation that you placed because it's it's there. You just do. You love your house. Now you don't have to have faith or hope in these things. 3 (32m 3s): And that is the foundation of we're called in our Christian life. Someday, when we meet Jesus face to face, we won't have to say, well, I hope I get to see Jesus. No, we will see him face to face. We won't have to say, well, I have faith that this is going to happen. No, we will be in the presence of God. That's why those faith and hope are just going to pass away and there's going to be love. They won't be needed. So it's the substance of things. Hope for, and as the evidence of things not seen, it speaks to future award. It speaks to a furnished proof. It's it's a police officer takes evidence, takes substance from a crime scene stores away. 3 (32m 46s): And then at the court trial later, when bringing it to court, he would produce that evidence. But you don't take an empty bag of evidence and say, well, this is my evidence. Now you have to have firm evidence. You have to have some kind of substance. And that's our faith, our substances, the things hope for the evidence of things, not seen the way Mount translation translates this verse this way. He says now faith is a confident assurance of that, for which we hope a conviction of the reality of things we do not see. Do you have that conviction for the things we do not see this morning? Verse two says for by it, the elders obtained a good testimony and those elders that is speaking of our, that chapter 12, those in the Coliseum that are surrounding us and saying, go go, you can do this. 3 (33m 36s): We were able to do this by God's grace. You can do it. Go in there. They're encouraging us on by faith. They have a testimony. Now they're here to cheer us on verse three gives us now, but what faith does, what does faith do? Faith verse three says by faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. So the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. So heavy verse faith understands is what faith starts with. Faith understands. Fifth understands that the worlds that all that we can see was framed by the world. 3 (34m 16s): God, that God created that. And if you've ever read the haul of this, this chapter and been like, man, I wonder if my story could fit in there or do I have the faith to be in Hebrews chapter 11? Guess what you do? Do you notice who that, that first, where it starts off the list, what faith does it says by faith, we understand who is that as us. If you believe that this whole universe, the ages that the worlds were made and created by God and for him that puts us right top and central into the hall of faith. I think that's amazing having not even been, been born yet when he rose was written, we, we are included in that list by faith because we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God, you and I, and that word worlds speaks of the Greek word, a on its universe, it's its ages. 3 (35m 16s): It's all that we can see. And it was all created in Quip. It goes back to Genesis one when God created the heavens and the earth, we are included in that list. And what I love about the Bible is it's not, it's not a science book, but when it speaks about science, it's a hundred percent accurate. No matter what the current thought is at the time of this was written. The understanding of what all matter was made of was very different and the different theories. And, and in fact, 500 years before the book of Hebrews was written, they said everything was one substance. That was their understanding 500 years before that everything was one substance. 3 (35m 59s): And then about 500 years before the book of Hebrews a philosopher came on the scene and he said, well, if you take a rock and you split that rock into, you have two halves, well, let's just take that half and split that in half. And then you have half of the half, and then, then you have that. And then all the way down until you have these small indivisible, polar particles, or little, little things, little tiny things that you can't quite see, but they're there. And that is an Adam. That's what we're made of these, the small indivisible particles. That was the thought. But if you dig into this, we in what we've come to know is that the Adam is not the smallest of things Adam's are made of electrons, protons, neutrons, and then those things are made of corks and matter. 3 (36m 52s): Anti-matter all of these crazy stuff. And yet at the core and Adam, if you, if you were to take an electron cloud of an atom, it has a radius 10,000 times greater than a nucleus nucleus follow me. I know you didn't, you weren't expecting a science lesson, but the electron has electron cloud, which is the electron is like the free floating negative charge. And that's floating around the knee, the nutrient, the nucleus, and the proton neutron to proton. And it has a thousand times greater radius than the nucleus. And that was according to Los Alamos national laboratory. So to make that into a tangible way, if the proton, if the center of the atom was the size of a basketball, the electron would be circling three miles away. 3 (37m 42s): That's a lot of space facts. There's more of nothing than there is actual substance in our world that we see. And we look at is what the Bible was saying. It has been saying all along, there's more of nothing than actual substance Genesis. One says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And he created that science says 13.7 billion years ago. There was a clump of mass that was so tightly compressed and it exploded. And that's what created all that we see. And it was some say the title, the size of a pinhead is what all that the universe would encompass if all that space was taken out. 3 (38m 24s): So the Bible says that all that we see is made from stuff that we cannot see, new living translation says this first it's translated by. It says, by faith, we understand the entire universe was formed at God's command. And that we now see, sorry, what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. ESV says by faith, we understand the universe was created by the word of God. So that it seen that what is seen is not made of things which are visible. Young's living translation from 1862 says this by faith. We understand the ages to have been prepared by a sane of God, in regard to the things not having the in regard to the things seen, having not come out of things that appeared Websters in 1833 S wrote this. 3 (39m 19s): He said through faith, we understand that the worlds were not framed by the word of God. So the things which are seen were not made of things, which appeared that is us. That is what we believe that God created the heavens and the earth. And if you look up the word Bible and in the Webster's English language from 1828, he was an amazing man. It may surprise you. This is what he wrote about. If you, if you read the entry Bible, this is what he said. He says the Bible, the book by way of eminence, the sacred volume in which are contained the revelations of God, the principles of Christian faith and the rules of practice, it consists of two parts called the old and new testaments. 3 (40m 6s): The Bible should be the standard of language, as well as a faith. That's what no Webster had to say in his dictionary in 1828. And he was also often called the father of American scholarship and education. Webster took 26 years to complete his dictionary in the process of learning 28 languages, including Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. And he knew so much after writing his dictionary, that he wrote his own translation. And five years later, the Webster's Bible in 1833. And he wanted the difficult king James version to be understood by schoolchildren. And it's one of the reasons why he wrote the dictionary in the first place. 3 (40m 47s): He felt inspired by the holy spirit to write the Webster's dictionary so that people could read the Bible and understand it. And he, in his own words, he said, education is useless without the Bible. And I think, man, how far have we come from from that? And now we're going to get into the exciting part. Sh the examples of the faith, not only are we on the list by implication of believing that God created the heavens the earth, but now it's going to give out how some characters in the Bible actually respond to that examples of the faith verse four says by faith, Abel offered to God and more excellent sacrifice than Cain through which he obtained witness, that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. 3 (41m 28s): And through it, through it, he being dead still speaks. So faith offers it's the Firth first encouragement is faith offers. And what did Kane offer Keene offered, but some of the fruit of the ground, and he'd worked for that. He'd worked for that fruit he'd toiled and pluck in the weeds and preparing the soil and all the hard work that went, that goes involved with farming, the sweat off his brow, the blood, and often his hands. You know, he has his, his labor, his work in his hand of his hands. His effort is what he offered to God as a sacrifice. And it wasn't accepted, but evil. 3 (42m 12s): What does evil offer? Well, he offered the first, the best in the bloodied. Why did evil offer sheep that time? Why was able even a keeper of the sheep at that time, man, it wasn't until after the flood that man be candy, eat meat. So why did Abel even keep sheep in the first place? Why did he spend all this time? Keeping sheep? Well, it would have been for covering you go back to Genesis chapter three, verse 21. We find this scripture that says this, you see, God had just laid out the consequences of the fall of man's sin and their choices thereof. 3 (42m 57s): And while they're still in the garden, it says, and also for Adam and his wife, the Lord, God made tunics of skin and clothed them. So they're in the garden before they had to leave the garden to protect them from eating the tree of life. God looks at their condition and they've sinned. They've messed up and they've done what's best. They took of some of the plant around them, the fig leaves. And they covered themselves with that. And fig leaves, if you know, they are scratchy and itchy, I could not imagine having fig leaf clothing, they would break apart. They would tear up, it would just be gone in no time, but that's what they use to try to cover their sin because they knew that they were naked. And so God says, I got something better for you, but God, in the garden of Eden says he made tunics of skin. 3 (43m 45s): I don't think God just called a tunic of skin and Vina. I think in that first temple on the garden of Eden, God took an innocent lamb and he sacrificed that lamb in a sense, and then took of the skin of that lamb and then covered Adam and Eve. So when Kane said, I need to make an offering for sacrifice, this is what God's called me to do. He knew the pattern already that the pattern of the bid set an Abel speaking, not only of the pattern that the covering of sin was, was made, that God had made the covering of skin and clothed them. That, that one days, someday soon he would look forward to the coming lamb of God that would come and sacrifice on his part. 3 (44m 28s): In honor of heart, he was looking forward to something and that still speaks. Abel looked forward to the sacrifice of the lamb of God. And we look back on it that still speaks back to Hebrews 11, verse five. We come to one of my heroes of the faith by faith. Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death. And he was not found because God had taken him. And for before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God, faith, pleases God, that was his testimony that he pleased God. He was just this strange guy that he, he walked with God. 3 (45m 8s): And then he was not for God, took him. He simply continued his walk, his journey with the Lord, forgetting about his contemporaries, keeping his eyes on God, just continue that walk of faith until he was raptured up, he was caught up into heaven. You see, he was a prophet of righteousness. Jude would say he was prophesied to his generation of the judgment. That was to come namely the flood that he would never have to see because he was raptured out of it. He was, he was walking to be above the ways of his fellow man, the culture around. And he chose to walk with God, not with his friends as the how Enoch pleased God by faith for six says the ness is the necessity of faith. 3 (45m 55s): It says by without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is. And that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. If you, if you take that into account, that's really serious. But without faith, it is impossible to please God, how do we please? God, only by faith, not our, at our works, not our attitudes, not the things that we can do towards or for him. It is by faith alone. Ephesians two eight says for by grace, you have been saved through faith and is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. So not only is it impossible to please God, without faith. It also, we come to God in a certain way. 3 (46m 37s): For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder. And that of those who diligently seek him. So we believe that God is that he rewards and that we, he can be sought out. And as our God, maybe this morning, you want to be, you're building the foundation of your faith. If you're just starting to set that foundation. If you're reading the blueprint of the word of God and you say, I wanna, I want to start building that house of faith. A few resources, just from our church. Our provost wrote a 600 page book. He assembled it called what is your foundation for life? 3 (47m 17s): And in it, he pulls all these different science and mathematics and all these things to point that we have a good trader God and I have that available in my office. If anybody is interested, shin shin, Sharon Dutcher also wrote a book called new beginnings. She, she goes to our church and just on the foundations of faith, that's what you're building. Look, because God can be sought after so many atheists like CS Lewis, Lee Strobel sought to disprove God. They said, I'm going to disprove the Bible. I'm a disproved God. And in fact, they ha they ended up proving God and coming to God, love CS Lewis love his books. 3 (48m 2s): So we have these continued examples. Continue on in verse seven, we have the example of Noah. Noah listened. It says by faith being divinely warned of things, not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an Ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith, faith, and listens. And he surfers out there. You ever been in on the water and you hear somebody yell outside. It doesn't mean that you're out of doors and you're just enjoying the outside. Outside means there's you are in the set waves currently, but there is a wave that's breaking and it's bigger than any other wave. 3 (48m 49s): And it's coming right at you. So you yell outside. And the thought is to warn everybody else that there's this big wave coming out. And if you don't start paddling out, out in PA, try to get past that wave. Then it's going to take you out. So y'all outside. And that was what Noah was doing to his generation. At that time, no one had ever seen rain. It had never flooded. And so God is listening to God and God warning him a things to come. He moves with godly fear. He yells outside to his contemporaries and begins building an arc. And he began building his arc for not only himself, but his first household. 3 (49m 33s): It cost him. Everything cost him. His reputation. People would have called him silly, dumb. What, what are you? This thing? That's that's coming. Rain sucking, arranged or rained. We have the do that comes other ground at waters. The grass, no, that's not going to fall from the heavens. That would be ridiculous. Building large ships was not known as occupation before that. So it cost him everything. If you think of the timeline and this, this, this, this gives me a little bit of curiosity. But if you think of the timeline, the Bible says in Genesis seven, that the floods came upon the earth. 3 (50m 14s): When Noah was 600 years old, Noah's sons were born to him when he was 500 years old in Genesis five, but Genesis six, verse three, we find this verse. It says, the Lord said, spirit shall not strive with man forever for he is indeed flesh. Yet. His days shall be 120 years now, does that mean the limits of us are only going to be 120 years old? I believe it was God speaking in 120 years because of the condition of mankind. I'm going to bring a flood. So if you do the math that puts the flood at when no one was that puts God warning, making that warning, making that call the prophecy that he was gonna be 480 years old. 3 (50m 57s): That's 20 years before his kids were even born. It was God giving him a prophesied. Noah, your don't have kids yet, but you are going to have kids. You're going to have sons. And if you want to prepare you, if you want to save you and your household, then begin building this arc begin preparing for the future. No heard that. And he moved with godly fear. He didn't wait. He didn't delay. Think we have an amazing example of how faith listens to God and moves. Verse eight says now Abraham obeyed, when he was called to go out of the place from which he would receive as an inheritance. 3 (51m 39s): And he went out not knowing where he was going. Abraham gives us the example of faith, obeys, faith, obeys, faith, obeys, the voice of God. And most likely he had an inheritance inheritance in his own land, in the land of earth, the Kaldi's and it was probably would have been a great inheritance. Early. The Kaldi's was known to be a place of a luxury living. It was a place where there's many temples to different gods. It was, it was a place where a lot was happening. It was a metropolis. It was a place where hot tubs were invented. God says, Abraham, I want you to leave your hot tub. And I'm going to bring you to this special place where you're going to live call to leave that place and go out faith, obeys and faith obeys. 3 (52m 27s): Even during that time, you don't leave a family. Moving was not something that was common in that culture. You would have to move away from your family, your land security, all those were tied up from where you were yet. Faith obeys, hearing the voice of God, not knowing where he was going. But once he was there, verse nine says by faith, he is an Abraham dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise for he waited for the city, which has his foundations, whose builder and maker is God, what example? 3 (53m 11s): Faith lives it out. He had to live it out day to day. He had to live in a tent. The rest of his life, traveling around. I go backpacking from time to time. Living in a tent is not a comfortable thing. He had to leave his, the wealth land of earth. And didn't now live in tense, waiting for that promise that God was going to give him in 1859. The third hottest temperature on record that we have on record was recorded in Santa Barbara, 133 degrees. 3 (53m 51s): You can fact checks me 133 degrees in 1859 in Santa Barbara. according to documents. And at it began to blowing this warm, warm air off the off from, from Arizona. And by the time it was four or five in the afternoon, it was 133 degrees. You can imagine there's a pre air conditioning. So people are trying to get out of this heat. And that was recorded on a schooner ship out in the Harbor, 130 to three trees on the water. So you can only imagine how hot it was on the shores. 3 (54m 32s): And people did everything to try to escape the heat. They, they, they, they tried jumping down their Wells and some people died down there. The, the, the trees were scorched on one side from this hot wind cattle died out, out in the, out in the pastures. It was a ho. It was, it was called the day that hell came to Santa Barbara, 1859. But a lot of people were able to survive because they went into their Adobe homes and those Adobe homes helped buffer the heat. And they were able to survive because they had those thick walls. And that was the same thick walls that Abraham had to leave and earth that he went to now live in a tent. And if you've ever woken up in the morning, out in a tent on the backpacking, you know that the second that sun hits that tent is blazing hot. 3 (55m 20s): So there Abraham and his sons are sitting in the shade of their tent and they're have their fans out in the heat of the day. And they're talking and his son says Abraham or dad, why can't we live in a house like everyone else? Why couldn't we build a house? We have the resources we're rich beyond measure. Why can't we build a solid house? And Abraham would have to remind them, no, these are our promises. God has promised us this, that we have a foundation we're waiting for heaven. There's something greater than building our home here. God is making a city for us, which has this foundation to builder and maker is God. And I look at the way that I try to raise my own girls. 3 (56m 0s): And I think of all the times they said, dad, why can't we watch this movie? Or why can't we go this place? Or why can't we do that? I'd have to say, well, that's because we need to listen, obey God for his plan for our life. Sometimes there's things we can't do. There's sometimes it won't do because we're looking forward to our future home for seven, by faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed. And she bore a child when she was past age, because she judged him. Faithful who had promised faith, receives faith, receives the promises of God. Sarah was 90 years old when she gave birth to Isaac. 3 (56m 42s): And yet she looked not to herself, but she looked to God as the promised her. So she received that, that, that blessing because she received that blessing. She was able to pass on to her husband and ultimately the world, therefore verse 12 from one man, and then him as good as dead were born. As many as the stars of the sky in multitude, in numerable is a sand, which is by the sea soar. He goes on to say in verse 13 and all these, they died in faith, not having received the promise, but having seen them afar off. And they were assured of them, they embrace them and they confess them. How do you embrace a promise where you believe it? You embrace it by faith. 3 (57m 24s): They embraced them in the confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things, declare plainly that they seek a Homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come, they would have had the opportunity opportunity to return. They're looking forward to this country, the promises that God has, if they had a chance like, like lot's wife to look back and with wishful thoughts to go back to that place. And she turned into a pillar of salt, no, they kept their eyes forward. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they kept their eyes forward. They said, no, there's a better place, verse 16. But now they desire a better. That is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for. He has prepared a city for them. 3 (58m 10s): Very much reminds me of a young missionary man named Jim Elliot, Jim Elliot, when he was 18 or 19 wrote in his journal, a quote. And I, my dad wrote in his Bible and I've since then re written it in mind, but it says this. It says he is no fool. This is from my dad's Bible. He is no fool who gives what? He cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliot, as a, as a young man realized that there were things that in this world that he was not going to be able to keep. When you go to heaven, there's no limousine or all your, you whole stuff going with you, right? 3 (58m 51s): He's no fool gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. He looked towards heaven and all that was there waiting for him. And he went to down to south America, to a head hunting tribe and lost his life for the Lord because he said, what I have on this earth is temporary. It's fleeting. But what heaven offers is much far greater. These all died in faith because they desired something better. Do you seek that Homeland? I guess I look my bookshelf and I'm like, man, I, my, my, my balance is so off. I have probably 500 books in my office and only two books are on heaven. And my first thought of heaven and forgive me. 3 (59m 33s): But I think of chubby baby angels floating on clouds. My friends growing up, his mom loved to have these little baby chubby baby angels floating on clouds in her house. And that was what just always stuck. Okay. That's heaven. Okay. Heaven's a eternal worship service and my arms are going to get sore. But yet all these patriarchs of the faith will looked forward to heaven because it was so far greater. What are your thoughts on heaven? I think that will shape how you live now. How real is heaven to you? Is it a tangible thing? Every once in a while, I feel like God gives us those little glimpses. 3 (1h 0m 14s): I, and I can remember randomly being in the garage with my brother as a kid. And we were just tinkering replaying. There was just, we were just having the best time. I'm like, man, I wonder if this is what heaven's going to be like, maybe it's outside hiking or maybe it's in the water. Like what is, is cannot be so good. But why do I only have two books at a 500 on this topic of heaven? All these patriarchs. They, they show us examples by faith. They understood by faith. They offered by faith. 3 (1h 0m 55s): They please God, by faith, they listened by faith. They obeyed by faith. They lived out by faith. They received by faith. We can live as strangers and pilgrims and that's expressed by their, by their will and by our will, by the choices that we make, do we have that heavenly hope? Pray. The Lord, give that to us in Jesus name, let's pray. Or we desire that heavenly hope Lord for a place whose foundations will not crumble for a builder that has been building for thousands of years, this eternal home for us Lord, where this, everything of this world that we seem to know is just going to fade away the sin, the death, that pain, the cancer, the, the hurt caused by others. 3 (1h 1m 51s): All that's going to fade away Lord until we are in the presence of you in your immeasurable love in our resurrected bodies, in a physical place, thorn eating the best of foods or God just give us that hope of heaven that these patriarchs have. Lord Jesus name. We pray. Amen. 1 (1h 2m 24s): Oh, I has gone. Bursey feels this coupon Tuesday walk with there will be a day when all about we saved through job and on that day, we joined the resurrection stand beside the heroes with one invoice 0 (1h 6m 43s): Thank you, God, that you are holy. And we just look forward to that day. When we get to stand face to face with, with Jesus who died and rose again for us, made her made our way so we could be there. So we have that hope, that constant assurance, Lord, thank you for just the truth of your word and the hope that it brings Lord to our lives. Very helpless to walk it out and walk in faith as we leave today. Thank you for all this in Jesus name.