Well, turn, if you would, to Hebrews 11 again, and we'll be reading verses 8 through 10. Hebrews 11, verses 8 through 10. By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, following, excuse me, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And let us pray. Father, again, we come into thy presence and thank you for the privilege we've had to worship you and lift our voices in praise and adoration. And as we would direct our attention toward this section of your holy revelation, I would pray for the help of your blessed Holy Spirit just to convey your word in a way that's pleasing and honoring to thyself. And I, in a way that is, instructive and helpful to our hearts and our minds. It would be of help to us in our own walk with Christ. So I would pray that you would be exalted, you would be honored, you would be glorified. And I pray the effect of being in your holy revelation would be a greater delight in our love for Christ, a greater hungering and thirsting for righteousness, a deeper desire to be pleasing to him. We just commit our time to you, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we've been moving through Hebrews chapter 11, and it's a chapter that showcases the triumphs of faith of our spiritual ancestors that we read about in the Old Testament. It's very instructive to our souls because we have not only this description or definition of faith in verse one of chapter 11, but then we have these examples throughout chapter 11 that kind of flesh out what this really looks like in experience. In verses one through seven of chapter 11, the emphasis is on three different examples, and what they have in common is they existed historically prior to the flood, with the exception of Noah. He was prior to the flood and a part of that as well. Abel's a great example of faith because he offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Enoch, because he walked with God for at least 300 years. And Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and he was faithful in the constructing of the ark. Well, then when you come to verses 8 down to verse 22, there's another section. It's a forward movement in biblical history, and it focuses on Abraham and his descendants. And as you're aware, just from reading the Bible, Abraham's a towering figure in Holy Scripture. He's noted numbers of times in the Old Testament as well as the New. We've already seen an example of his faith, if you notice, back in chapter 6 and verse 13, Hebrews 6, verse 13. It says, For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. And so having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. One commentator went so far as to say, His faith in God is the outstanding example for believers in all generations. The Apostle Paul quotes Genesis 15.6, which says that Abraham believed in the Lord and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. He quotes that text in the book of Romans in chapter 4 in an area that helps us to understand justification by faith as a true mark of a person of God. He quotes it again in the book of Galatians, where it also helps us to understand the character of the gospel and that a true person of God is one that's not necessarily descended from Abraham, but has the same faith as Abraham, has the same faith in the same Messiah that Abraham did. Well, in verses 8 through 10, we see that his faith is manifested in three different ways. And it's a consideration of these that I think will be useful to our souls as well in our own faith and our own walk with Christ. So in the first place, His faith is manifested by obedience, obedience to the will of God. And I'm thinking here of the words, by faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed. He's like Noah in this respect, Noah being worn by God in reverence, prepared an ark, he did what God told him to do. Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive." The term called here, it's more than just an invitation. It's the idea of being summoned to be or become subject to an authoritative demand for one's presence or participation. So it's stronger than the idea of an invitation that one might receive to a wedding or a birthday or a social event. It's more like a summons one might receive to jury duty. By law, you have to respond. There's civil authority behind it. If you neglect it, there will be serious consequences. And what we notice here is that when he was called, his response was he obeyed. He complied with the command. And this, excuse me, this obedience about Abraham is really what stands out here. And not just his obedience, but the immediacy of it. When he was called, he obeyed. The sense is that his obedience was almost simultaneous with the call. There's no hesitation. It's not like Jonah, where he received the call of God to go to Nineveh and cry against it. Remember, what he did, he went the opposite direction. He disobeyed. And Abraham did not do that. So he's a laudable example. for us because there's this instantaneous positive compliance with the call, the summons that came from God. So what I want to do under this first heading that has Abraham as an example is indicate to you that his obedience is helpful to us, I think, in in four different ways. His obedience is helpful to you and I in thinking about the Christian life in four different ways. First of all, most simply, just his demonstration of obedience, going out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. The sense of this term going out, it's to get out or exit, to move out or to depart. You may have heard of some people that attend a social event and the person that was In charge didn't want them there, and they may have said something like, there's the door and there's the exit sign, I want you to depart. That's the idea of this term. It's to leave, it's to depart, go away from a region or a house, get out or disembark. The Old Testament background to this is Genesis 12, 1. Now, the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land, which I will show you. So we see this demonstration of his obedience. Secondly, we can say it was a pattern of his life. So a bit of help here from Genesis 26, 1. There was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him, that is to Isaac. And he says to him, do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land. I will be with you and bless you. For to you and to your descendants, I will give all these lands. And I will establish the oath which I swore to your father, Abraham. And I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven. And I will give your descendants all these lands. And by your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And the reason for this blessing, verse five, because Abraham obeyed me, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. He had a pattern of obedience. Probably the most well-known example is his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. And just to remind you of part of that narrative, this is from Genesis Chapter 22, he said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac, his son. And he split wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built the altar there. and arranged the wood and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed, I will greatly bless you and I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, as the sand which is on the seashore. And your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. And in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." So we see there's a pattern of obedience in Abraham's life, even in very difficult situations. And here, as when he was initially called to leave home, there's no hesitation. There's an immediate compliance with the word of God. We could add, and probably should add, that his obedience here on this occasion was not only fueled by a desire to please God, but it's rooted in the persuasion that God had the power to raise his son from the dead. We see that in verse 17 of chapter 11. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son. It was to him that it was said, In Isaac your descendants shall be called. And verse 19, he considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which also he received him back as a type. So Abraham is a pattern of obedience to be emulated. We can add that we should aspire to be obedient for three other reasons. So just to kind of push this concept of obedience a little bit further, three other reasons why it is that you and I should make obedience a pattern in our lives. One is, and I'm just reminding you here, that the true Christian life begins as an act of obedience. Becoming a Christian is an act of obedience. In the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, After Paul impresses the character of God upon his hearers, he says in verse 30, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring or commanding to men that all everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. Now, the King James Version and the ASV and the ESV and the NIV, they all translate this Greek term that's translated declaring, New American Standard, by the English word command. That's what the word means. To order to, to command, to give instructions, or to direct somebody to do something with authority. So God's command as the moral governor of the universe to everyone who's accountable to Him, it's not try Jesus and see how this works out for you, but rather repent. It's a command to turn from darkness to light. So becoming a Christian is an act of obedience to God's command to repent. And that's what we should do as well. The second reason why the Christian life is marked by a pattern of obedience, it begins that way. But also the Apostle Paul, I'm struck by this term in this verse in Philippians chapter two, he commends them. He says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. So we see this in the New Testament as well, and the Apostle Paul speaking positively to them because of their pattern of obedience. And then a third reason, by the Spirit's help, why you and I should seek to live in obedience to God's revealed will, it reflects an appreciation for our Lord's redemptive work on the cross, which is the basis of our salvation. Our eternal salvation is a function of the complete, undeterred obedience of the will of God the Son to God the Father. And if Hebrews 5, 8, although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation. And in Philippians 2, Paul writes, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a bond slave and being made in the likeness of man. and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." So we should have this attitude as it relates to, excuse me, we should have the attitude of Christ as it relates to humility, and the fullest expression of his humility was obedience to the point of death. So obedience to God's will reveals an appreciation for the example of the person of Christ and his redemptive work on our behalf. So we see under this heading, there's a demonstration of obedience and leaving his home. And also there's a pattern of obedience. And then thirdly, there is a motive for obedience. And we read that he was going out to a place he was to receive for an inheritance. That's the motive. He was going out to a place that he was to receive for an inheritance. And the fact of inheritance was a driving force in his life. You'll notice the little words, was to, that's to be or to be about to, and the idea is something that's eminent or something that is impending, that will happen soon. And then he has to receive, that's to get something or come into possession of something, whether it's physical or abstract. It's to be given by God. And then we notice also it's associated with the possession of the land. That is, the inheritance is associated with the possession of the land of Canaan in the biblical tradition. says to Jacob in Genesis 28 4, may he also give you the blessing of Abraham to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham. And part of David's song in 1 Chronicles 16 says the covenant which he made with Abraham and his oath to Isaac, he also confirmed it to Jacob for a statute. Israel as an everlasting covenant saying to you, I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance. So God's call to Abraham directed him towards this inheritance. But as someone put it, Hebrews maintains, that is the book of Hebrews maintains, that Abraham receives his true inheritance In the heavenly city, it's significant that the author, I think, uses a little word, place, rather than the term land. He talks about going out to a place, not the land, as we read in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 1. One commentator put it, the change from the expression, the land, in Genesis 12, 1, to the term place in Hebrews is intentional. It shows that the destination, it's not clearly defined. And it anticipates the reference to the city God has prepared as the ultimate goal of Abraham's migration. The subsequent development, however, shows that the content of the inheritance in Hebrews, it's not the land of Canaan, but the city that God has prepared for his people. So the motive for obedience is the inheritance, but the ambiguity of language here, especially in the context of Hebrews 11, suggests it's not the earthly and the temporal, but the heavenly and the eternal that is on his mind. Then in the fourth place, Notice the character of this obedience. He obeyed not knowing where he was going. So there's a sense of uncertainty here at the beginning. One commentator says, Abraham went out courageously into the unknown to a strange land on an uncertain future. So, this is really a good illustration of the description of faith in chapter 11 and verse 1, the conviction of things not seen. And what stands out here is obedience on Abraham's part. It's an expression of complete trust and reliance in the Word of God in calling him to go out from his home. So in the first place here, the expression of his faith is marked by obedience, obedience to the will of God. Then secondly, his faith is manifested by patience, especially patience in his sojourning in the promised land. Verse 9 says, by faith, he lived or sojourned as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. So verse 9 tells where God led him. to the land of Canaan, to the land of promise. And it vividly depicts the character of his, excuse me, his existence in the land of promise. And the great emphasis here is it was a life of impermanence. He's not settling down. He's always on the move. And this point is really brought out in just kind of the accumulation of language from the text. First of all, the verb lived, that's the idea of to dwell or reside as a foreigner. The lexicon that I employ says mostly of strangers who live in a place without holding citizenship. It's to sojourn, it's to spend a certain length of time or reside in a place or community, to reside temporarily. The King James Version, maybe the version that you have, the ASV, has the term sojourn. And then it's to sojourn as an alien, that's belonging to another, not one's own. And this takes place in the land of promise. And as Peter O'Brien says, Abraham was a nomadic wanderer sojourning in Egypt and in various districts in Canaan. You might just listen to these words from Genesis chapter 23. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And then Abraham rose from before his dead, and he spoke to the sons of Heth. And this is what he said, I am a stranger and a sojourner among you. Give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight. So this is very instructive because Abraham describes his existence in the land of promise. I'm a stranger and I'm a sojourner here. And then fourthly, the text says the land of promise, and he says, as in a foreign land. So it depicts his sojourning in the land of promise also as in a foreign land. One commentator says, the sharp contrast between the promised land and a foreign land serves to throw into bold relief the writer's portrayal of the unsettled life of Abraham. Entrance into the promised land had brought no settlement. On the contrary, the new situation required renewed faith and a fresh commitment to obedience. And then in the fifth place, this impermanence is brought out by the fact that he was living in tents. And this underscores the nomadic character of his life in the promised land. B.F. Westcott wrote, Abraham dwelt throughout the time of his sojourn in tents. So declaring that that which was to be permanent was not yet attained. And Isaac and Jacob, who shared his hope, showed the same patience of faith. The expression living in tents corresponds to the picture that Genesis offers of Abraham constantly pitching his tents for a shorter or longer period as a migrant nomad residing in the foreign land. William Lane pointed out that tent encampments were normative for both nomadic and semi-nomadic people throughout the patriarchal period, but the detail that Abraham lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob bears vivid witness to their status as aliens. Now, from a spiritual perspective, and someone else brought this out, it suggests that he refused a permanent settlement in a culture devoid of the presence of God. So he kept moving from one location to other within the confines of the promised land. So we see that Abraham manifested his faith by obedience and by patience. And then if we ask, why was he unwilling to settle down in the land of promise? Well, the next verse tells us he was looking for the city, which has foundations. who's architect and builder is God. So we see in the third place here that his faith is marked by struggling here with transcendence and or expectation. His faith is marked by expectation of the future. And it's really a function of transcendence. William Lane wrote that according to the writer of Hebrews, Abraham's status as an immigrant and alien in the land had the positive effect of indicating that Canaan was not in the final sense, the promised inheritance. It served to direct his attention beyond Canaan to the established city of God as the ultimate goal of his pilgrimage. So under this heading, this hope, I want to make two comments with respect to the idea of hope. Number one, its inherent nature is expectation. The basic idea or intrinsic nature of hope is expectation. He was looking for the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. William Lane comments on the little the little conjunction for that begins the text. He said, explains the fact that at the end of his migration, Abraham continued to accept an unsettled mode of existence in the promised land, living in tents, for he was looking forward with certainty to the city which has foundations. So the promised land served to direct his attention to the established city of God, to the new Jerusalem that's commensurate with the return. of the person of Christ. So he saw his existence in Canaan not as some unique place where the deepest needs of his soul could be met, but rather it was a place where he went from place to place and he was looking for the heavenly city. Let me just kind of as kind of an aside here, Indicate that we live in a time when we can be like Abraham in that we can expect the coming of the Lord. We can be looking to the holy city in the same way that he was. You might recall this is a little bit from last week. You might recall the words of our Lord with regard to the significance of the flood as it relates to his return. So this is, I'm just going to reread to you three verses. This is Jesus on the circumstances that will be surrounding his own return. This is what Jesus said. I know this is true because in one of the Bibles I have, this is in red letters. So I know this is what Jesus had to say. But the day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone. Then he says this, the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days, which were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." So Jesus makes the point that the dynamics that were operative during the time of the flood will also be operative prior to his own return. And when we ask what were the times like, it was massive rejection of the message of of Noah. There was not a worldwide positive response. J.C. Ryle comments on this. Let us mark this text and store it in our minds. There are many strange opinions current on this subject, even among good men. Let us not flatter ourselves that the heathen will all be converted and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God before the Lord comes. Let us not dream that the end of all things cannot be at hand, because there is as yet much wickedness both in the church and in the world. Such views receive a flat contradiction in the passage now before us. The days of Noah are the true type of the days when Christ shall return. Millions of professing Christians will be found thoughtless, unbelieving, godless, Christless, worldly, and unfit to meet their judge. Let us take heed that we are not found amongst them." Well, then just moving on here, looking is to wait for or expect. It's looking forward to. William Lane comments on the significance of the grammar. He says, the nuance and the tense of the main verb, to wait for, to look forward to, are significant. The verb is intensive to force, in connoting, to expect with absolute confidence, while the imperfect tense expresses continuous expectation. So this looking is with absolute confidence, and it's this continuous, ongoing expectation. The waiting is marked by confidence. And the city we notice here, it has foundations, which is in contrast to living in tents. It's in contrast to the kind of existence that he had in Canaan. He's looking for a city that has foundations. William Lane wrote, the focus of Abraham's expectation was a city which has foundations. This description is occasioned by the reference to Abraham's tents. A tent encampment was a city without foundations. In contrast to the impermanent existence or a tent encampment moved from place to place in response to the demands of the situation of a city with foundations offered a fixed, settled home. So we see the nature of this hope, it's a confident expectation to the future. And then secondly, notice the object of this hope, and we've already touched on this, a little bit of overlap here. But the object of the hope is the city that has foundations whose architect and builder is God. That puts it in a radically different category than any other city in terms of its glory and in terms of its duration. We read in Revelation 21 10, he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city. That's the same city. Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God having the glory of God, her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal clear jasper. One wrote in verse 10, the city with foundations is the transcendent heavenly city, which possesses an unshakable and abiding quality. The reason the city has eternal foundations is supplied in verse 10, because its designer and creator is God. The description of God serves as a guarantee of the hope of the heavenly city. I try to think in terms of just some application of Abraham's example for you and I, and one application that I would leave you with, or a lesson if you will, is I believe the example of Abraham helps us to understand the vanity of the things of this world. My mind has been on that a little bit because I've been reading a work by Ezekiel Hopkins. He talks about the vanity of this world. What I'm affirming here is Abraham's example of going from one place to the other and looking forward to the heavenly city helps us to understand the vanity of this world. Here's what Ezekiel Hopkins says, the necessity of the soul are altogether of another kind than those which worldly things are able to supply. and therefore are wholly unsuitable." So he's saying the things of the world are unsuitable to meet the deepest needs of the soul. If somebody is really hungry and a person offers you new shoes, that doesn't help at all. If you're really thirsty and somebody offers you a chocolate chip cookie, that doesn't help at all. And so if the great desire is for communion with God in this world, it will never be fully satisfied. It will only be fully satisfied in the world to come and when the new Jerusalem takes full effect. Well, let's pray, shall we? Father, we do thank you for your goodness and your mercy and your grace. We do thank you for the assurance we have of eternity, the certainty of the return of your pure and blessed and glorious son. We do thank you of the assurance we have of eternity in the holy city. The new Jerusalem will be a place where there is no more sin and there is no more death. and there is no more sickness, and there is no more dying, and there will be the eternal, pure enjoyment of the glory of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and the fellowship of the saints. So we thank you for the assurance that you give us even in this world. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.