Dearly beloved, we're gathered here this Sunday to remember the life of a departed saint. One who lived in faith and has now received every inheritance in Christ. This believer had an imperfect life and yet an inspiring life impacting so many today across the world today. There would be few in the world today who would have the notoriety of faith than what this saint had. The memory of this example will live on and strengthen the faith of others for generations to come. And we will see reminders of this saint's name for years to come because this saint actually had a very, very common name. As we think of a departed saint today, we think of death. And even in cemeteries, we see this saint's very, very common name in many Christian graves. I myself have walked through one of the most famous Christian cemeteries in the world. It's in the middle of London. It's called Bunhill Fields. It's where the Puritans are actually buried, many of the Puritans. And you can walk through and see names on graves like John Bunyan, John Gill, John Owen. But actually the most common name is found on the graves of women. It's the name of the one we are remembering today. And we're remembering it as if it was a funeral. Her name, Sarah. Sarah. The most common name given to little girls, actually, in the Puritan era. Sarah everywhere, all over Bunhill Fields, and it's still common even today. My own daughter being named after this saint, Sarah. Sarah died at the age of 127. And after following her Lord in faith for maybe more than 62 years. And she is with her Lord today. She's been with him for centuries. When God initially called Abraham her husband out of his pagan idolatry, Sarah followed him in faith. She followed him. They trusted together. They failed together, they trusted some more together, and then they failed some more together. But ultimately we know that Sarah followed along with Abraham, her husband, she herself was individually following and trusting her God. Sarah's example is an example of faith in God that has been an example to us for generations, especially to women, for 4,000 years. It's spoken about in this way, even in the New Testament, 1 Peter 3 5-6. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. She has this amazing example of being this faithful wife who followed her husband in that faith. And she is also simply an amazing example of her own faith in God. We read this also in the New Testament about Sarah, Hebrews 11.11, by faith, her faith. In God's promises, by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. In the imperfection of Sarah's life, her faith in God's promises stood strong, and now we come today, Genesis 23, in looking at her death, and it's a little bit like a funeral. I'm presenting it that way. A little bit like a eulogy, like a funeral. Genesis 23 reports the death of Sarah and Abraham mourning over hers, Abraham weeping over her, but if you and I, I think if we were writing about the death of Sarah and even the burial of Sarah, I'm pretty sure we would do it differently. I know I would if I wasn't thinking about it, I would. Most of this chapter is taken up with detail about Abraham haggling with Hittites to purchase a plot of land for the burial site of his wife. And so why the haggling? Why do we get all this information? We come from the amazing test. Last week, if you're here last week, Genesis 22, Abraham walking up Mount Moriah with Isaac. in obedience to God, believing in God's promises, received by faith, that Isaac would live. The promises that he was believing in were the promises of future multiplication, the promises of blessing to the nations that would come through a single offspring. And we found out last week, Isaac wasn't the one. He was a picture of the one, it was through Isaac that the one would come, but he wasn't the one in which these promises would come. In Sarah's death this week, I really just can't see it any other way that Abraham is facing another test of sorts about his trust in God's promises. And this time the test includes something that wasn't mentioned in Genesis 22. The test about the inheritance of land. Where will Abraham bury his wife? What land? Where is his home? Where is her home? And in the death of his wife, where is his hope? So when Abraham, we're going to see he buys a field, and when he does that to bury Sarah, we've got to ask what is so important about this plot of land that takes up so much time in the text, this plot of land for Abraham's life and hope? And I want to suggest to you as we look back at this today that this is what we will receive from this, Genesis 23, as the answer. In Christ, we face death in the expectations of God's greater promises. In Christ, we face death in the expectation of God's greater promises. Now let's start by facing the reality of the first two verses. They are very real verses. They just poke your head into a funeral right there. Genesis 23, verse one and two. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died at Kiriath Abad, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Now firstly, we have to somewhat, what Jeremy did even in his prayer, we have to consider this reality. It's right to mourn the death of a saint. It's right to mourn the death of a saint. Now, Sarah obviously lived a very long time, had a very full life, okay? When she was around about 65 years old, she left her homeland with her husband, Abraham, who's about 10 years older, came and sojourned with him in the land of Canaan. They sojourned. Now, we face Sarah's death. And that's a point that is now emphasized. If you look carefully at the text of Genesis 23, you're gonna find it's emphasized all throughout the chapter. We see in verse two, Sarah died. There's a use of Sarah's name and she died. In verse 19, there's the other use of Sarah's name. We read that Abraham buried Sarah. Bookends there. But everywhere in between, she is simply referred to as the dead. You'll see those words all through Genesis 23. The dead. My dead. Your dead. Bury my dead. Bury your dead. And that's referring to Sarah. And the word bury is actually repeated nine times in this text. You cannot read Genesis 23 without facing the repeated reality of death. Something that Jeremy obviously saw when he was praying. And in these first two verses, in the face of death, we find Abraham, look at what he's doing, he's mourning and he's weeping in the loss of his wife. It's passages like this that remind us that at some stage in our lives, in all of our lives, we all come to our own intimate personal experience of this. We all face the sad reality of death as we ourselves mourn and weep at the loss of a loved one. We all face our own mortality, don't we? We all do. You know, the leading cause of death in America is birth. In fact, that's the way it is around the entire world. It's a matter of life that we come to death. That's a fact. And we're reminded here that death is a really sad thing. It's the sober truth about the life that everyone's life in this world comes to an end. The Bible actually gives us a lot of information about death. It's the result of sin. That's probably the most important that we need to see. Death came into this world in Genesis 3. We read about it. Paul to the Romans refers back to that and talks about it this way. In Romans 5.12, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man. and death through sin. So death spread to all men because all sinned. And here we are in Genesis 23 seeing that Sarah is not immune to this. Sarah is a part of this. The Bible tells us that she inherited the consequences of sin, which is death. She even sinned herself. And death is a result of sin, and it's death that something that must be overcome. It's an enemy. The scriptures talk about it as an enemy. When the Lord comes to bring about the final consummation of all things, making all things new, we are told in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 26, that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. But you know what? We're also told this. The contemplation of death is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at how the author of Ecclesiastes puts it. You've already heard this this morning. But look at it again. Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse two to four. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. For this is the end of all mankind. And the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face, the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." See, what we see here is the author of Ecclesiastes is saying, listen, it's better to go to a funeral than a pub, right? It's better to go to the funeral than a pub. Because it's in contemplation of death that we think more seriously about life. We think more seriously about what comes after this life. It's in the reality of death we stop confining our thinking to what is under the sun and start to think about what is beyond it. We think about the seriousness and devastating consequence of our sin before God. We see our need to be right with God. It's important that sometimes we just sit and contemplate death. But in front of us, in front of our face, we see death as the ugly reality of our sin. It's a judgment, it's difficult, it's sad, it's sorrowful, it's an enemy that needs to be conquered. And when it is someone you love with all of your heart, it's overwhelming. Now, I don't think any of us in this room are probably gonna get here at all, but it's very, very likely Abraham and Sarah, by the time they had left Haran, were already married for quite a number of years. They're in their 60s. It's very, very likely that Abraham and Sarah were husband and wife for over a century. Consider that. Can you even imagine that loss? And Abraham is mourning and weeping. And if you read verse three in Genesis 23, it gives us an indication that he's down on the ground And he's crouching over the body of Sarah, because it says that he rises from that. He rises. So he's probably right down there on the ground, crouching over the body of his wife, mourning and weeping. Brothers and sisters, look, I know we want funerals to be times of celebration. I do too, to a degree. I think we should, Christians should be able to celebrate when someone dear to us is now with the Lord. I agree with that, but I also want to say it's okay to mourn and weep in the face of the reality of death that we all face. What Abraham was doing was a customary reality in the ancient world. Now it's not just a clinical, I don't think it's just a clinical custom here. I think Abraham just lost his wife for over a century. What is customary is real. And you know, there's one time in my life, I don't know if any of you can say that you've ever had a time that you've cried uncontrollably. Uncontrollably. There's one time, one time in my life where I would look back and I would say, I think I was crying then uncontrollably. It was at my brother Robert's funeral. And I just could not control myself that day. As I sat, I looked at his coffin. I saw the reality of death. It didn't mean that I had no hope. It meant that I vividly realized some reality of death in this Genesis 3 world. I just, I was weeping. But at the same time, that uncontrollable crying in that for me, I could even tell you, even in that, there was peace, there was joy. There was something I was grabbing through, it was coming through. And that's why we also have these other verses in the scriptures. 1 Thessalonians chapter four, verse 13 to 14. We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep. That's those who have died. That you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. In my uncontrollable crying at that stage, I can tell you that I know that it was not without hope. for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him, with him, when Jesus returns, with him, those who have fallen asleep. And it's because of a real and justified hope that we can see the significance of the rest of Genesis 23. I wanna put to you Abraham acts now for the rest of the chapter in faithful trust straight after weeping over the body of his wife, Abraham, we're going to see his faithful trust, his hope coming through in the way that he secures a burial plot in the promised land. That's what we're about to see. So now let's look at that. Let's look at his hope. Let's look at his faith in the face of death. Now, I want to put this to you. For the faithful, death is no barrier to God's promises. I believe Abraham believes that. For the faithful, death is no barrier to God's promises. The rest of this chapter that we see here is one big narrative, three to 20, all of those verses. And it's about Abraham securing this plot of land from the Hittites for Sarah's burial. It's the bit that you and I might not want to write. Some of us might expect Abraham, in fact, just to stick Sarah on a cart, go back to Haran where he came from, and bury her there. That's where all their family is. rather than somewhere where they've just been sojourning. And some of us might expect that to happen, but for them to say, let's bury her at home, but also we need to consider that God had told them that he would give the land of Canaan as an inheritance to his offspring, didn't he? I mean if you go back and you look again, go back this week, Genesis 12, Genesis 15 particularly, you see those explicit promises, the explicit promise of this inheritance. There's a dilemma in this passage actually if you consider it because Sarah has actually died in this land that they're only sojourning in and they don't yet have the land. So where does Abraham bury Sarah? Does Abraham see Sarah's home as the land she left to come here where their relatives still are, where they can go and easily just bury, or as the inheritance that God has promised? What's her home? The inheritance or where she's come from? That's a good question, isn't it? Now apart from, you might remember the Canaanite king Abimelech, he recognized that Abraham had built a well. He had to, Abraham made him. That's not really a plot of land. He's just saying you built a well, you can keep that well. You're gonna live in my land. That's what Abimelech was saying. But if you look carefully from verse four onwards, There's another very intentional statement that becomes kind of repetition in this passage. Verse four, Abraham is a sojourner and foreigner, a sojourner and foreigner in this land. He has no stake in the land and is not a Canaanite. Now in the ancient Near East, did a lot of reading of biblical backgrounds and manners and customs this week, believe me. In the ancient Near East, if you don't belong to the people of the land, it's not customary for you to be able to buy any piece of it. So if you don't belong to the people, you don't belong to the land. Abraham's not a Canaanite. And so repeatedly in this chapter, after we see it said that he's a sojourner and foreigner, we see Abraham trying to secure a burial plot in the hearing of the repeated phrase, the people of the land. Do you see that there? Over and over again, the people of the land, the people of the land. And let's see who those people are. Abraham's not a part of them. They're Hittites. At least it's in the ESV, it's translated as Hittites that you'll see in chapter 23. It's actually more formally translated directly from the Hebrew as sons of Heth. Wherever you see Hittites, you can just put in sons of Heth. That's the formal translation. that most people have seen to be Hittites. Now if you go back to Genesis chapter 10, you see all the table of nations in Genesis 10, you learn who they are. One of Noah's sons was Ham, from Ham came Canaan. And we learn about the genealogy of Ham and Canaan. Genesis 10, 15, Canaan fathered Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth. Heth. Hethites, Hittites, Hethites, are Canaanites. And so let's summarize what we have so far. Abraham and Sarah have been sojourning all the point up to this time in Genesis that we've been in, sojourning in the land of Canaan. It's currently occupied. The people of the land are Canaanites. And God has promised Abraham, Sarah, and their offspring, his offspring, the land of Canaan as an inheritance for him and his offspring. He currently has no land there. So where does he bury Sarah? He has an immediate and quite urgent problem in front of him. Something's gotta be done. And in this part of the land, later known as Hebron, he rises from weeping over Sarah and speaks to the sons of Heth. Now, look at Genesis 23, four. I am a sojourner and foreigner among you. Straight out, I'm not one of you. I'm not one of you. I'm a sojourner and foreigner among you. Give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight." Look at that term, out of my sight. It's right that he says he wants his wife's body out of my sight. Why would he want to see the decaying effects of his wife's body? Believe me, he loves his wife. Probably not many of you will get this reference, but unless you're Norman Bates, the dead do need to be buried, right? It would be yucky. Respectfully, carefully buried. And that requires a small plot of land. and the reply he gets from the Hittites actually starts off sounding like a reply or a greeting that he once got from Abimelech, the king of Gerar, back when he was trying to make a treaty with him in Genesis 21. Do you remember what was said to Abraham? God is with you in all that you do. I see that. That's what he got from that king. And now here in verse 6 in chapter 23, you are a prince of God among us. And I think the idea in the ancient world just as much as in the modern world is flattery will get you everywhere, right? That's how it happens. It's part of the politeness of the society. But I do think these people do see something about Abraham as king-like. They call him a prince. Even if his household is living in tents, okay, he's king-like. He has a wonderful household. But as is the custom. They don't really want to give him land in their territory who is not – a guy who is not part of the people of the land. And you can see that in this there's an attempt to keep him from acquiring land, to keep with their customs at least. They're willing to let him bury Sarah, bury his dead in the best of their own tombs. Do you see that? They'd never stop someone from burying their dead. That's an ancient world hospitality. I think it's also a necessity. But the only problem is that if Abraham were to agree with that, yes, I'll just use your terms, he would be beholden to them. He would have ongoing commitment to them in some way. It would be saying maybe even that he's becoming a part of them, burying his own wife and family with them. No, God has definitely caused him to live in the world, but he is constantly living in a way as to be separate from the world to God. Not to be beholden by the world, and not to allow the future desecration of Sarah's body by the world. So Abraham politely pushes the point here in verse seven and nine. Look at him politely doing it. He bows to the people of the land. and he asks specifically to speak to one of them who is called Ephron. Abram. seems even to know the exact plot of ground that he's looking for, that he wants, because he describes it as this man's field. It's this man's field in which is the cave of Machpelah. And Abraham stipulates he will pay full price for that. Now, if my reading of manners and customs of the ancient Near East this week is right, what Abraham is doing by offering full price is he's doing his best to buy and keep a permanent hold on that plot of land. If he doesn't pay the full price, it's not a permanent purchase. And so if the people of the land are not witness in agreement to this as well, then it simply can't happen because it's beyond the customs of that. They have to agree. And so I think what we are seeing here is something like the ancient equivalent of Abraham dealing with a city council or a chamber of commerce. He's, look at verse 10 to 16, if you're still with me, look at verse 10 to 16, and there's a negotiation that starts. Now, at first, you might read this, and you're looking at this, and you think, this Ephron, what a really generous, nice man he is. We're gonna find that he's a scoundrel in the way that they negotiate, okay, but let me just remind you, it's also how Abimelech sounded when he came across Abraham. He was really slippery. And Ephron starts by answering in front of the Hittites, and notice in verse 10 that it's also at the city gates, at the city gates. That's where formal negotiation, public meetings are held in the ancient world. And so this Ephron now starts talking to Abraham, verse 11. No, my lord, I give you the land. It's yours, and notice it's not just the cave. Abraham wants the cave, but he's saying, I give you the land, the whole land, the whole field, too. I give it to you. Every now and again, I go out for breakfast with Joe, my good friend Joe Foltz, right? And we sit down and have breakfast and talk about every theological thing under the sun that we disagree about and have fun doing it. But, you know, then the cheque will come, you know, the cheque comes, and I'll say, I'll take it, really, really hoping that Joe says, oh, no, I got it, you know, he's the one that puts up his hand and picks it up, you know, and I'm just thinking, well, he works at Fidelity, he's got to be made of money, it's okay, all right? I think that there's a lack of sincerity here, like this from Efron. I think that's what we're finding. Abraham says, though, he looks at it and he says yes to taking the land. But if he says yes in the way that Ephraim is offering it, so he doesn't say yes to, you can just give it to me, I want it, yes. But if he says yes to Ephraim giving it to him, he's just putting himself into a life of obligation to this man. It can't be that way. Abraham sees and knows the customs of his day. He knows the slippery nature of who he's dealing with. We're gonna see that come through. And so, again, in verse 12 to 13, in full hearing of the people, bowing in respectfulness, Abraham says, I'll pay full price. I'll pay full price. I'm not just taking this, putting myself in obligation to you. I'm going to pay for this land. We're going to be kept separate. I'm going to pay full price for, by the way, the whole field, nothing less. And what's the price? Oh, so quickly Ephraim claims his price in verse 14 to 15. And look at the way he says it. My Lord, listen to me, a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? Can you hear the slipperiness? Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's 400 shekels of silver. And let me just give you a glimpse of who this man, Ephron, is. We're not talking about a good price for this land. About 1,000 years later, King David is going to buy the land for the Temple Mount for Israel. He's going to pay 50 shekels of silver for that. Now, yes, 1,000 years later, you know, the measurements of shekels of silver are probably different, no doubt about that. Any scholar you read about this says that this still seems like an extremely exorbitant cost. And in Silenus, Ephraim seeks to grab hold of 400 shekels of silver. Yeah, go bury your dead. And look at what Abraham does in verse 16. No negotiation, no argument. He just gave the man what he wanted in the hearing of the sons of Heth. Weighed out, counted, confirmed in the public square of the ancient cultural authority of the people of the land gathered at the gate, the whole thing then is summarized in verse 17 to 18. But what I think we should see here at the end of this summary is something that I think would be incredibly significant to the original recipients of the book of Genesis. Who were the original recipients? They were the people of Israel. who after 400 years of captivity had been delivered from Egypt. Moses wrote Genesis in the wilderness, they're about to go into the land of Canaan, that God is giving them as Abraham's offspring, as their inheritance, and they're receiving this. And look at what they receive, the original recipients, look at what they have in Genesis 23, 19 to 20. Imagine yourself as one of them, looking into the border of the land of Canaan in front of you. After this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpelah, east of Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites. The land of Canaan. is God's promised inheritance for him. It's what he took him to for Abraham, Sarah, and their children. And here are their children. Here are their children at the border of that land reading or hearing that their father Abraham believed God's promise for this inheritance and bought a plot of dirt in acknowledgement that God indeed would bring his children home. Home where the Canaanite ungodliness was to be judged. We already know that God had told him that Canaanites got to be judged out of that land for them to come in and properly occupy this. The wickedness has got to be judged out so that my people can dwell with me in the land, in a place where they can dwell with me in peculiar holiness to shine out my holiness to all the nations. So where does Abraham bury Sarah? Well, the start and finish of this chapter explicitly describes. in these words, the land of Canaan, at the very beginning and at the end, bookends, the land of Canaan, the land of Canaan, the land of Canaan. What is the land of Canaan? Kiriath Abba, Hebron in the land of Canaan, Machpelah in the land of Canaan. We just know it simply as The promised land, the promised land is what we know from the previous texts and what we're looking at in this expectation for these people. Abraham could have taken Sarah back to Haran, but no, that's not her home. Her home is in God's promise. He acted by faith on God's promise, just like he did last week with Isaac. He acted in obedience to God, in believing God, knowing that God would give them a land which they could dwell with him in. He acted knowing that Sarah had faith in God's promise. He overpaid with earthly wealth for a little stake that simply said, I believe you, Lord, This stake in this land, it's not as much about the land as it is about his faith in God's promise. He placed Sarah carefully in a tomb, knowing that she was going to rise to inherit the full benefit of God's promise. Remember last week, we saw clearly that Abraham believed in resurrection, didn't he? He did. He was believing in the everlasting quality of the promises of God. He believed that Sarah will realize them too. Now it's at this point, I know throughout the weeks in Genesis, as we've been looking at the life of Abraham, we've looked at little snippets from Hebrews 11. Look at this snippet, look at this snippet, look at this snippet in relation to this. But now that you've seen all of this, all I wanna do is I wanna read to you just the whole segment from Hebrews chapter 11. And just see it all now, just see it all. As you think about Abraham, Hebrews chapter 11 verses 8 to 16. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise. as in a foreign land living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they'd gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. The author of Hebrews is now talking about all of them, so he's now talking about that land of Canaan. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. For the faithful, please hear me, death is no barrier to God's promises. Abraham and Sarah were always looking at this land as being an inheritance that would be fulfilled in a much greater inheritance, an inheritance that would come through the one singular offspring. So we must think about this lastly in the context of all of the whole revelation of God in biblical history. Like every promise of God, the fulfilment is found in Christ. Like every promise of God, the fulfillment is found in Christ. Now, you might think, what an amazing faith for Abraham to buy a plot for the sole purpose of burial, to do it in belief of God's faithfulness to his promise. In fact, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their wives were all buried there, all believing in God's promise, all believing it would be even greater than the borders of Canaan, all looking for a greater home. Now, did you know that The prophet Jeremiah did the same thing. These people who were the original recipients of Genesis coming into the land of Canaan, they did go into the land of Canaan, didn't they? God did remove their enemies and he brought them in, into the land of promise. They did live in the promised inheritance with God. They did build a temple, they worshiped God on Mount Moriah, they did. God did judge the Canaanites and give it to them so that they could worship him in a peculiar holiness. But they were also warned before they would go in. When you disobey, you will be kicked out. When you disobey, you will lose this. You'll be taken into exile. And we see that so explicitly in the time of Jeremiah in the disobedience of Israel. They were taken over by the Babylonians. But just before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, do you know what Jeremiah did at the worst time possible? He bought a piece of land just outside Jerusalem. Go home, read it this week in the first half of Jeremiah 32. Go home and read it. Just before they were taken into captivity, Jeremiah bought a stake in the land just like Abraham. Why? Why would you do that knowing that the Babylonians were coming in to just demolish everything? Because Jeremiah knew that God dwells with his people and God's promised inheritance was yet to be fulfilled in its expanded glory like all of God's other promises. He was looking forward to the fulfillment that comes only in the coming offspring of promise. Both he and Abraham knew that all the promises would be complete in the coming offspring. I'm saying the land just like every other promise. Why am I saying that? Because we saw last week particularly that Abraham realized that all of the other promises They would come through Isaac, but it would not be Isaac. They would be greater and more magnificent in the coming offspring. The blessing would be greater in the coming offspring Christ. The blessing to the nations was found in Christ. The multiplication of offspring, true offspring. from both Old and New Testament, like the stars in the sky and the sand of the sea, would ultimately only be fulfilled and found in Christ, the coming offspring. Why would the land be different to that? Why would the land be different to that? And I put to you that the greater fulfillment of land was also what Abraham was looking to as fulfilled in Christ. Now here's what we don't have time for today, brothers and sisters. I don't have time to go through all of the myriad of Old Testament verses that have the expectation of the expansion of the land and inheritance promise. It's beautiful. Let me give you just one. Look at Psalm chapter two, verse seven and eight. This is looking forward to the son of promise who is coming, the Messiah, the king. "'I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me. "'You are my son, today I have begotten you. "'Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage "'or inheritance. "'The ends of the earth your possession.'" That's who receives the promises given to Abraham and that's what the promises eventually are. They're so much better. In Christ, brothers and sisters, the promise is expanded to the entire world and you don't hear it in the New Testament in any other way. He has won it on the cross and let me suggest this is ultimately in the offspring that Abraham was looking for. See, in Romans 4, in in Paul's section about Abraham's faith in God's promises, he ends up also talking about the land inheritance. And look at what Paul says about that. Romans chapter four, verse 13, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring would be that he would be heir of, what will he inherit as an heir? The world. The world. It did not come through the law, but through righteousness of faith. Faith in who? Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here is what I want to suggest to you as we finish today. Why is this important? Because even though Christ has already won this inheritance for all of his church now, even for us today, even though it's already won and paid for and done on the cross, we are still waiting for consummation, aren't we? Aren't we waiting for the final consummation of all of this? You and I today, right now, just like Sarah, we're going to die and we're going to be buried and we still await in this world when Christ will return, the judge of the living and the dead, when the last enemy of death will be defeated. And this inheritance of the entire world, already won by Christ on the cross, will be made new, a new heavens, a new earth, no suffering, no sin, no death. the eternal dwelling presence of God in all the perfection with his people, with all the wicked in the world finally judged out of it, and only remaining those who will worship God in a peculiar holiness for all of eternity. Isn't that glorious? What does it say to you? Well, it says, please stop trying to grab your own little piece of land as if it's your eternal inheritance here in this world. The American dream is not the dream. But it says this, death is no barrier to you in Christ receiving God's promises for you. Death is no barrier to you in Christ receiving God's promises for you. So what does Genesis 23 say? To me it says this, in Christ, only in Christ who paid for it all, Would you join me in saying this this morning? I'll say it and then you say it with me, okay? Death has no sting. Ready? Death has no sting. Death has no sting. What's the message of Sarah's funeral? In Christ, we face death. the expectation of God's amazing glorious greater promises. Let's pray.