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.