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And if you'll take your Bibles,
please and open up to the book of Hebrews As we continue thinking about the
journey of the journeys of Abraham Hebrews and chapter 11 Hebrews
in chapter 11 I'm going to start at verse 8. It says, By faith Abraham, when
he was called to go out into a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing
whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the
land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for your love and grace and the privilege to be here tonight.
And we pray for the teens and be with them, be with Brother
Kirk and Savannah as they are with the teens, just guiding
and directing that time. May their hearts be tender to
the truth he shares. And we do think of the upcoming
trip to the youth rally there in Custer. And we pray for safety
and direction in that. Dr. Goetsch, as he preaches,
may there be a great impact in those that will be there.
Would you bless in those things, Father, please. We ask that you
might be with Carter as he heads back
to college. and just give safety in that
travel and bless his efforts and give him wisdom for his life
and father that those who are the instructors would have a
good influence in his life and just guide and direct in all
those details father please thank you that brother hoover is feeling
better and with us tonight and would you continue to touch him
and help him even as he moves forward now with Other opportunities
and we are so thankful for the new pastor in st. James and and
just be with that work continue to bless help it to grow and
and stabilize, please Would you work I pray father we we pray
for Brother and sister Yates just thank you for watching over
them in the midst of the great trial that they had and and even
now her recovery and continued therapy and And I just ask you
to give wisdom and direction in all of that, and just bless
those efforts, please. Would you guide and direct now
tonight, be with those in Anchor Club, be with Captain Joe and
the other workers, help the boys and girls to have tender hearts,
as the gospel and the truth of the Bible will be presented.
Bless now, please, in Jesus' name. Amen. We began last Wednesday at verse
8. thinking about the journeys of
Abraham, or maybe we could just say Abraham's journey, not his
various journeys, but we're looking at his journey of faith as God
began to work in his life, called him out of the Ur of the Chaldees,
a very pagan, wicked place, would have been quite a, if he was
in the city, you know, one of those particular cities, that
would have been a pretty metropolitan kind of setting but even if he
was in one of those other ones as I mentioned last Wednesday
that were primarily cities of Semitic people not necessarily
the ethnic group of that region but regardless the Lord called
him out of a place, an area that was not a godly area Not that
it was necessarily steeped in horrible wickedness everywhere,
but God had something he wanted to
do in his life, and called him, and he went out. And that in
itself was pretty amazing, because he didn't know where he was going.
And yet he obeyed. He went out, not even knowing
where he was going. He said, well, I can't go this way, this way,
this way. I guess I'm going to go this way. And so he did. And we talked about all those
things. And the application for us is, are we willing to answer
the call God puts upon our life? Whatever that may be. We don't
have to know all the details. We would like to know all the
details. all the good details. Because not all the details are
always good. Sometimes they're difficult.
But he went, and that's a great lesson. Well, I want to continue
on because now we're going to kind of focus in on verse 9.
It says, By faith he sojourned in the land of promise. as in
a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs with him of the same promise." And I've been thinking
about this all day, Abraham's sojourning. What does that mean
for him to sojourn? In Acts chapter 7, Stephen is recounting the history
of Israel, and he talks about Abraham. Acts chapter 7, let
me get over there. We'll start at verse 4. So then came he out of the land
of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Cairin. And from thence, when
his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein ye
now dwell. And he gave him none inheritance
in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised
that he would give it to him for a possession. and to his
seed after him, when as yet he had no child. And God spake on
this wise, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and
that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil
for hundred years." to sojourn in a strange land. It's interesting because the
idea of sojourning, or being a stranger, to sojourn literally
means to dwell beside. It's like the foreigner who lives
next door. He doesn't belong there. He's
out of place. Now that can happen to us here
in America. We can maybe move down to the deep south in the
bayous of Louisiana, and it would be... Riker's going, nah, not
near life. That would be a different kind
of setting, wouldn't it? It would be drastically different.
I remember when I candidated here, that was a big question
from the deacons because this is Montana and I am not born
and raised in Montana. And it's a different culture
out here than it is in Atlanta, Georgia, wherever. Every place
has its own kind of setting. And sometimes we don't seem to
fit. You know, if you're in a foreign
country, it was interesting, so there I am in the Navy, we
pull into port, And even if I don't know everybody on my ship, which
on the cruisers I was on we had, I think ship's company was 500
and some guys. And I didn't know all those guys
because I was a snipe down the engine room. We didn't even get
to see the light of day most of the time. So we pulled into
port, and if I didn't have duty, so now I'm out and about. But
I could probably point out every single sailor that was walking
around that city. Not because they have a uniform
on, but Americans tend to behave like Americans when they're not
in America. There's just something about
us that's not necessarily bad, but it is quite indicative. Because we're Americans, we're
free and we do what we want. but not everybody's like that.
If you're in Germany or you're in Italy or you're in, you know,
wherever. And so people can, like, you
stand out. You might even wear their clothes
and try to, it's like, you ever notice, it seems like every missionary
who goes to a foreign field has to have a missions picture taken
with them wearing the national clothing. Have you noticed that? And how
that looks so out of place. In my opinion, I'm just like,
that's weird. I don't know how Hudson Taylor
got away with it. Living in China and getting one
of those goofy long ponytails on his head and trying to dress
like a Chinese, like they didn't know he was not Chinese? It didn't
matter if he wore the Chinese clothes and had the ponytail.
It was quite obvious he's Not Chinese, okay? It was obvious. That's what it means to sojourn.
Is you're in a place, you're dwelling beside, you're in that
place, you're dwelling there. But it's obvious, you're not
from there. You're different. And that's
how it was for Abraham. When he got to Canaan land, it
was different. He probably looked different,
talked with an accent. Everybody knew he wasn't from
there. Quite likely, he had to learn a language. If not a whole
language, he probably had to learn a particular dialect of
where he was. Most of all, the interactions
we read about Abraham in the book of Genesis It's either in
Egypt for a short time, or he's dealing with Philistines. So I can imagine they're not
speaking Hebrew. So if you have to learn a different
language, that can be a challenge. Every
now and then, I haven't got one lately, but we get the newsletter
from Baptist Bible translators down
in Bowie, Texas. And it's kind of a school for
missionaries before they go to a foreign field to help them
gain the skills to learn a language. It doesn't teach them a language,
it teaches them how to learn a language. So to pay attention
to the phonetics and all that kind of stuff. But always there's
a chunk in that newsletter that says, it's titled, Bilingual
Bloopers. And how in certain languages,
the tone changes the whole word. You know, maybe you're asking
for a hot dog, but you didn't say it with the right pitch. And so you didn't ask for a hot
dog, you said, please cut off my toe, or something like that. So I'm sure there's a couple
of bloopers Abraham had as he's learning a new language and like,
well that's not what I meant. Like, oh boy, I messed that up,
you know. But he had to, my point is it's obvious he doesn't fit
there. He doesn't fit. And so in order to stay there,
he has to do that independence upon the Lord. How long Do you
want to stay in a place where every day you know you don't
fit? You're different. When I traveled
with Brother McQuarrie on that one trip and he kind of took
me on this little tour in Turkey where he was and we met various
missionaries that were there and the one young couple, they're
not there anymore, But the wife was like, this is
so hard, I do not even want to leave the apartment. And they'd
been there for several years already. And she said, it doesn't
matter what I do when I go out to go shopping or maybe to the
park, because they were in a pretty major city. Everybody knows that
we don't belong here, and we are ridiculed, and we are ostracized,
and that's emotionally very draining. And so she had shared with Brother
and Sister McQuarrie in one of their visits, she said, I don't
even want to leave the apartment. I don't want to engage with these
people. Because every day it's an intense very acute feeling. We do not belong. That would
be hard would it not to overcome the only way you're going to
overcome that is by faith. Knowing for certain God's put
you there and you have to stay there. You have to take some
steps. intentionally so that you can
not pass through, but sojourn. Which is not the same as planting
roots. Sojourning is not planting roots. Sojourning is choosing
to dwell even though you will never fit in. But you stay. Adoniram Judson, when he was
in Burma, And he was trying to learn Burmese, which is a tonal
language. When I would be in Burma, and
Brother Simung, you know, I'd be preaching, he'd have me preach
like Sunday morning, and so I'd say a sentence and he would interpret.
And I'd have to like, is that what I said? It's like, man,
he's like. And he's got all this confliction,
and I'm like, Really? Was I doing that? I mean, that
was a little strange, you know? But it's a tonal language, so
all of that was very important. I'm sure he probably, maybe he
thought I was a heretic and he just preached his own sermon,
I don't know. But that would be hard. But anyways, so Judson, he's
in Burma and he wants to, he has to learn the Burmese language
But he came to the realization that if I'm going to really learn
Burmese so that I can speak, read, write, preach in this language,
I have to stop thinking in English. He had to change the way that
he thought. So that when he came home for
the one furlough that he came home on, And by then, he's like
the hero. Completely different era of living,
because now when missionaries come home, our country's not
welcoming them as heroes. It's a whole different kind of
thing. But in those days, he came home, and boy, every church
wanted him to come. And he struggled. I mean, he
was trying to regain his health. His health was about totally
broken. So he could barely even speak in a whisper. But as you
read, you know, depending on which biography you read about
Ed and M. Judson, the real problem was that he couldn't hardly speak
English anymore. Not that he didn't know English.
He could read it. He could write it. But because he had so intentionally
trained his mind to think in Burmese, he couldn't hardly communicate
in English anymore. But Adam Judson never looked
like a Burmese man. In all my reading about him,
he never adopted Burmese dress. How's he gonna hide that? He's
this tall, fair-haired American, and they're typically much shorter,
kind of even a more darker complexion than, say, Japanese or Chinese. They're Asians, but an even more
darker complexion, black hair. He's not gonna hide that. But he stayed. See, that's what
sojourning is. sojourning is once you've arrived
where God wants you to be here's an important point more
than likely you're not gonna belong there because that's why
God sent you there whether that's a location or a vocation whatever
it may be you're like you know all right the Lord's put me here
I don't really fit here but if he's put me here then I need
to I need to trust Him. That's important. Stranger. Notice here in Acts, as we read what Stephen says,
he makes some very important points. And he gave him none
inheritance. hmm he didn't give him anything
no not so much as to set his foot on but the land is all promised
isn't it because back in Hebrews 11 and verse 5 called to go into
a place which he should after receive foreign inheritance verse
9 which is where we're I'm supposed to be focusing on, by faith he
sojourned in the land of promise. That's the land that's promised
to him. It's actually his land. See, now the Jews belong there. It's their land. But in Abraham's
day it wasn't their land. It never belonged to Abraham,
at least in the sense of actually owning it, like having the deed. It was all promised to him, but
he never possessed any of it. other than a grave. That's the
only thing he owned was where he buried Sarah in the cave of Machpelah. I mean,
that's it. That's all he owned was a grave.
He spent his whole life there. He sojourned, never belonging,
never owning what was promised to him, but he stayed there. That's going to take faith. which he should after receive
foreign inheritance. It says here in verse nine, dwelling
in tabernacles. Tabernacles are not permanent
dwellings. They're temporary dwellings.
They're portable dwellings. They're tents. Now, nice tents. They're not like, you know, a
pup tent that some army guy pops up in the middle of the forest.
Tabernacles that he dwelt in, they're nice places. You wouldn't
think so, but they are. When it was in Desert Storm,
we got up one morning, and kind of a ways out of our camp, there's
this, in the middle of the night, this whole Bedouin encampment
just kind of, boop, there it was! You know, with all their
stuff, and these big, sort of lavish, stretched out tent-looking
structured things. And they had flaps so that the
dust isn't blowing in and all of that. I mean, if this is where
the sheik lives, it's pretty nice. Once you get inside. It didn't look very nice on the
outside, but on the inside it'd be pretty nice. And then one
morning we got up and they were gone. Just that quick. They're
nomads. And that's kind of how Abraham
dwelt. He dwelt in tabernacles, moving from place to place. Now,
that brings me to three things I want to mention that are kind
of applicable for us to think about. Because I've just been
thinking about Abraham sojourning, and yet, well, there's a lot
of stuff happened in Abraham's life, isn't there? And yet here,
Paul tells us in Hebrews, by faith, he's sojourned. So as
we mentioned last Wednesday, he's the father of the faithful.
And so we have this grandiose kind of vision of Abraham, this
great man of faith and wow. But if we stop and read about
some things that happened in his life, we're like, wow. Kind of all changes, like really?
He did that? That's weird. Number one, to
sojourn is not a stagnant existence. He didn't go there, pitch a tent,
and sit the rest of his life. It was not a stagnant existence. There was constant motion. He was moving all the time. So,
go to Genesis chapter 12. That's where the call of Abraham
begins. Go out into the land that I'll
show you, etc. And he gets there. Verse 4, So Abram departed as
the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram
was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran. And
Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all
their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that
they had gotten in Haran. And they went forth to go into
the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.
Wow, they went forth to go and into the land of Canaan they
came. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 words. But in those 8 words covers 3
or 4 months? A bit of time passed from the
leaving of Haran and the arriving in Canaan land. and it says in
verse 6, and Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sycam. So if he's following the Fertile
Crescent, remember he's up here, he leaves Ur of the Chaldees,
comes up here to Haran, continues to follow the Fertile Crescent
over, comes into the northern part of Israel, he's in Canaan
land, but he goes to the southern portion. He goes down to about
down by Jerusalem, on the west side of what is now the Dead
Sea not so sure the Dead Sea was even there then because Sodom and Gomorrah are
still there and they get totally fried and it's thought that Sodom
and Gomorrah are at the bottom of the Dead Sea or the remains
are there. But anyways, that's the valley. Sycum is west of the valley.
So he passes through the land unto the plain of Morah, and
the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto
Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there
builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. But
he didn't build a house. It says, "...and he removed from
thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his
tent, having Bethel on the west and on the east. And there he
builded an altar." Okay, so he builds an altar in Shechem, he
builds an altar here by Bethel, "...and called on the name of
the Lord. And Abram journeyed." So he keeps going, going on still
toward the south. Now, sometimes commentators will,
you know, highlight Abram's nomadic movements as a negative, and
to some degree, maybe. So I thought about this. He's
not a stagnant existence. There's constant motion. Why
is there constant motion? Well, one could be curiosity.
God said, it's all your land. And so he's like, well, if it's
all mine, I'm gonna go check it out. I'm gonna go see what
it's like. And in fact, after the whole
problem with Lot, in the very next chapter, the Lord says,
anywhere you look, north, south, east, west, it's all yours, anywhere
you put your foot. Well, that's almost like, you
know, homesteaders from days gone by. If you can improve X
amount of chunk of land, then it's yours. All you gotta do
is stick it out. Well, all Abraham had to do was stick his foot
there. So it's like, I guess I'm going on a journey. I'm gonna
stick my foot everywhere I can stick it. Why the motion? Curiosity. Sometimes
his motion is circumstances. As we see in verse 10, And there was a famine in the
land. And Abram went down into Egypt
to sojourn there. For the famine was grievous in
the land. Well, sometimes circumstances
cause us to make a change. And where we are, and sometimes
the Lord uses circumstances to push us to change. I'm not saying
that everything was right. I mean it's not I don't read
in here a Condemnation that he went to Egypt the condemnation
comes when he doesn't He's dishonest About his family while he's in
Egypt. He lies about his wife Hmm that
could be lead to some of the other motions, which I thought
well some of this problem probably was contentment So not all his motion was. so
simplistically, you know, circumstantial or whatever, some of it probably
was he got his eyes on something else, or he got discontented,
or he got, when he goes to Egypt, he loses trust in the Lord, and
so he lies about Sarah. Later on, he loses trust in the
Lord, and he lies about Sarah to the Philistines, and then
that's when Sarah is kind of dragged off into Abimelech's
harem, and all of that mess all kind of goes on. My point is,
To sojourn by faith doesn't necessarily mean every step you take is gonna
be without its struggles. Maybe not without some sinful
choices. I'm not excusing it, it's not
like, oh well, you know, Popeye syndrome, I am what I am, you
know. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is, you know
what, you don't have to beat yourself up. You say, well I
guess I'm not very faithful because I made, there's not a, there's
not a person in this room who hasn't made a false step at one
point or another in their life. And so we don't have to beat
ourselves up with our failures. Instead we ought to, lift up
the praise of our God who's so gracious and forgiving and long-suffering
that He doesn't give up on us. Secondly, His sojourning, and
this is quite obvious, was not a spotless existence. He didn't just make some simple
stupid steps, and we've all done those. Some of His were like
Really dumb. Like really obvious, you shouldn't
have been doing that. And they kind of, in three categories
came to my mind. And that is, with his wife, both
lying about her, and then taking Hagar, and that whole mess, that
was not a good thing. In the broader sense of struggles
with his family, and that would have to be with Lot, and the
contention that took place with that. And so Lot leaves and where
does Lot go? He goes to Sodom. Now if he's
the one raising his brother's son, we could say he did a bad job. Maybe, maybe there wasn't as
much influence as there should have been. Maybe Lot was willing
to make some choices like his uncle did because he saw his
uncle do the same kind of stuff. made some choices based upon
what was more convenient or more comfortable. And that's kind
of what Lot does when he goes to Sodom. And it wasn't without
struggles with the Philistines, so is with his neighbors. So
with lying about her and about Sarah, and then there was contention
always between him and Abimelech, there was contention. They were
filling up his wells that he dug. That's why Isaac later on
has to re-dig those wells where the water was. Water is pretty
important in that climate and in our climate, we recognize
that. Well, I went so fast I didn't
give you some personal application. Not a stagnant existence. We're supposed to... Jesus told the disciples, wait
for the promise of the Father. Didn't he? That's right. But
the waiting for the Father doesn't mean that we're sitting still
twiddling our thumbs. because we're supposed to occupy
till he comes. We're not walking around with
our head up and looking like, when is Jesus coming? I hope
he comes because things are pretty bad down here and I wanna escape. That's the wrong attitude. It's
like, I'm busy for the Lord. I'm so busy for the Lord, When
He shows up, it'll be a shock because I'm so focused on being
busy for the Lord. I'm looking for Him, I'm anticipating
Him, but I'm busy doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Well, we could go to 1 John 1,
5 through 10. For sake of time, I'm not going
to go there. But, you know, there's a wonderful verse in there about,
if we confess our sins, he's faithful just to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous. The very next verse
says, if any man saith he hath not sinned, he's a liar. Okay? Our sojourning's not without
a spot here and there. And again, we're not excusing
it as if it's not a big deal or rationalizing it. Rather,
I ought to recognize there's a God who loves me and he'll
set me back on the right path. He won't let me wander without
some correction. And that's a good thing. David says it was good for him
that he was afflicted. That correction that God brings.
He said, I needed that. He didn't say he enjoyed it.
I mean, we don't enjoy being punished or corrected, but we
do need it. And we have a God who's loving
enough that he won't just spoil us. He'll correct us when necessary,
that's good. Thirdly, a simple recognition
as we think about sojourning by faith. So it's not stagnant, it wasn't
spotless, but neither was it strained. What do I mean by that? Well, in Abraham's life specifically,
we could look at his wealth. 13 and verse 2 and Abraham was
very rich in cattle in silver and in gold Now that's and and
it doesn't nothing but increase now that doesn't mean we're all
supposed to you know, this is not a health and wealth gospel,
but Abraham was a very wealthy man He wasn't he wasn't wondering
he wasn't in poverty he you know, thinking that poverty was spirituality. That's not true. But neither
is affluency spirituality. Neither one of those are spiritual.
It's just the condition that he's in, okay? We could look
at his ability to wage war. His warfare in chapter 14 in
verse four. It says, 12 years they served
Cheddar Loma and the 13th year they rebelled. Mmm, and what's
gonna happen you just keep reading you find they came and they take
a lot they take a lot They capture him Now that's Lot's fault, he
shouldn't have been living down there in the valley in the first
place. But he's taken, but look at verse 14, And when Abram heard
that his brother, meaning Lot, was taken captive, he armed his
trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and
eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. He had his own private army! Wow! I don't think he was worried
about robbers in the night, so to speak. We could look at his
way, and by that I mean his life, and we could look at various
things about his life, his children, his inheritance, his preparation
for Isaac, the testing on Mount Moriah, and later on, When we look at that, we find
overall Abraham is a man of faith. He has trust in God. He exercises
wisdom. He's not perfect. But God blesses him. How does
that apply for us? Well, you know what, if you're
gonna live a life of faith, that's not a strained existence. We're
not sitting in a corner, worried like, oh, poor me, I can't enjoy
any of the pleasures of life, and I have to be poor, and you
know, whatever. No, we're supposed to be content. Didn't Paul say, I can do all
things through Christ which Strengthens me, I can do it. Godliness with
contentment is great gain. Again, we focus on maybe the
tangible things of this world, and I'm not saying that God's
gonna make us all financially rich and wealthy, because we
know that's not true, right? It would be silly for me to say
that. But if you listen to guys like
Joel Osteen, oh yeah, you're supposed to be rich, or T.D.
Jakes, or any of those guys, and somebody watching us on the
stream might have a fit at me, but that's okay, because that's
not truth. There are some people, and your
life will be a life of, you will not have affluency, but you can
have everything you need. He's given us all things that
pertain to life and godliness. Wow. 2 Peter 1 and verse 2. Sojourning. Sojourning means, all right,
if God's called me to this place, there's the call to go out. I
don't know where that's going to end. When the Lord called
me to preach, I didn't know it would end up in Laurel, Montana. I didn't know that. At that point in my life, I probably
would have picked a different place. But we let the Lord lead us where
we're going. And when He puts us in a place,
we stay until He says it's time to go. It's time to move, it's
time to change, whatever. But sojourning can only be done
by faith. Otherwise, we're gritting our
teeth, we're wringing our hands, we're worrying about this, that,
or the other, and we're not dependent upon the Lord. If we're gonna
sojourn like Abraham, we're like, you know what, I'm trusting God
to help me. I'm not perfect, not going to be perfect, I'm
going to make mistakes, but God's big enough to help me, correct
me, keep me on the right path. I'm going to trust him. And we
can do that. We can sojourn in this place
because we don't belong here. Our citizenship is in heaven.
And if we get too comfortable, then we're going to have a problem. So better keep our eyes on the
Lord All right, we're the we're the foreigner living next door
Let's pray follow me. Thank you for your love and grace
and as you might help us keep our eyes upon you Now you could
use us in this place in the here and now To share the gospel with
those who need to hear it Bless, please, I pray. Father, we pray
for Lorraine right now as she has to go to a sleep study. Guide
and direct in that. Wisdom to the doctors. No doubt
there are many other needs amongst our church family. And so we
ask for your grace in those details, please. Bless now in Jesus' name. Amen.
Abraham's Sojourning
Series Abraham's Journey
| Sermon ID | 1162530557504 |
| Duration | 43:03 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Hebrews 11:8-10 |
| Language | English |
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