You see, before God can bring you to himself, he has to deliver you from you. Abraham didn't see what he was doing as a sacrifice. He saw it as an upgrade. He was giving up something unstable for something solid. He was trading something he couldn't hold on to anyway for something he could never lose.
Welcome to the Summit Life podcast with pastor, author, and apologist J.D. Greer. I'm Molly Vitovich. Before we get started today, I want to remind you about a daily email devotional from Summit Life. I know the busyness of life can quickly choke out any joy that we feel in our walk with God.
So why not cut those weeds away each morning with a word from the Lord? Sign up for this free resource at jdgreer.com slash resources. Abraham is often called the father of the faith. I mean, after all, his story is filled with tests that pushed him to trust God in some pretty radical ways. And when God called him to leave everything familiar and step into the unknown, Abraham believed that what God promised was worth more than what he was leaving behind.
Let that sink in for a second. It's a pretty amazing level of faith right out of the gate. Today, Pastor JD shows us what it really means to follow God like that. taking steps of obedience even when we don't know exactly where we're going.
So let's join Pastor JD for this teaching from our brand new series titled Broken People and Famous Faith. Hebrews chapter 11, we are in a series where we are walking through one of the most powerful chapters in the Bible. Hebrews 11, often called the Great Hall of Faith. And this week we come to a man that is regarded almost universally as the father of faith. And that is Father Abraham.
Three major world religions claim Abraham as their father of faith: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them. And so are you.
So I can't remember where it was, but I remember it involved a lot of motions with my arms and legs. For those of you that grew up in Sunday school like I did, in Abraham's life, In Abraham's life, we're gonna see exemplified the faith of Hebrews 11, 6, the faith without which it is impossible to please God. That faith we saw has three primary convictions. Conviction number one is that God is real. God is real, even though he is unseen.
Spiritual realities are real. Number two, That God will keep his promises. And then, number three, that seeking him is worth the effort. Beginning in verse 8, the author of Hebrews is going to organize Abraham's life around three tests. That God puts Abraham through to see whether or not his faith is real.
Testing, as you know, is an essential part of growth.
Sometimes when you're cooking something, you have to test to see if it's done. Mom always used a little timer like this one right here when she was baking a cake, the old school kind that when it got to the end, it would, you know. Actually, I could not find the one that had the sound like she did. Remember the loud ding? Did they not make those anymore?
I couldn't find one. This is like an alarm clock, but that ding. And I love that sound because it meant cake is ready. But you bakers know that's not necessarily true. And so my mom would take a fork and stick it in the middle of the cake to see if it was really ready.
And if it came out with stuff on it, Then it wasn't ready, which I never understood. I was like, so it's a little gooey.
So what? We can eat it now. But to a real baker with a discerning palate, It's important. I am like that, by the way, with steaks, maybe not cakes, but I'm cooking one on the grill. I time it with my phone, of course, but before I pull a steak off the grill, I press on it with my finger because if it feels like this part of your hand with it closed right there, then that's medium to medium well, which is gross.
If you like it that way, you should just eat ground chuck and not waste the steak, okay? And if it feels like this with your hand open, it's medium rare, which is how God intended it to be, okay?
So here is the point. Here's the point. When the timer goes off, The cake or the steak should be ready, but The fork or the meat thermometer examines the inside to see if the job is really done. And that's because it is possible for things to look done on the outside. but still be unfinished on the inside.
Trials are God's fork. to see whether our faith is getting close to done. God puts Abraham through three tests, and over the next three weeks, we're going to cover each of them. Today we're going to focus only on the very first one, Hebrews 11, 8, by... Faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.
A little bit of context here. Abraham was one of the leading citizens of Ur. Urb was one of the most prosperous cities in Mesopotamia. It was right there on what they called the Fertile Crescent, basically like the Napa Valley of the ancient world.
Now, Ur was a city that was given over to idolatry, but Abraham knew the Lord. And one day God appeared to Abraham. By the way, technically at this point, his name was Abram, not Abraham. God would later change it to Abraham, add the little ha there in the middle, but I'm just going to call him Abraham right now to keep it simple, okay? God appeared to Abraham and told him to leave Ur, to go.
To leave his homeland, his friends, his prosperity. And travel to another place, God would direct him. God did not even tell him where that was going to be. He just said, go. In fact, I love how the King James Version renders it.
The way I grew up, the first time I heard this story, King James Version, it just says, get out. Get out, Abraham. I'll tell you later where. But he promised to bless Abraham, promised to make his offspring as numerous. There's the sand of the seashore and that He would use Abraham's offspring as his channel of blessing.
to the nations. The problem was that Abraham was at this point about 75. His wife was around 65 and they had no children. not an auspicious beginning to the start of a nation. At 75, you're usually thinking about retirement, not starting a family.
Christian counselor Pete Scizzero, who wrote the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. I listened to an interview the other day, and he said that after years of observation, He's convinced. after years of counseling that your 70s are your greatest decade. and that your 80s are your second greatest decade. and your 60s are your third greatest decade.
I don't know exactly what he means by that, but I look forward to finding out, Lord Willie. That said, most people don't start new careers or new families in their 80s. And that's the very thing Abraham's being asked to do. We all love rags to riches story. This is a riches to rags and diapers story.
But I want you to hear me. Whenever God wants to bless you. He calls you away from what is familiar and secure. to somewhere that you have to depend on him. And so Abraham, verse 8, went out.
Not even knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living with tents with Isaac and Jacob. Abraham had been a rich man before this, living in a nice, big, permanent house.
Now he's living in a tent. He's going. backwards in life. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations. whose designer and builder is God.
Now, verse 11, the author shifts the focus of the story to Sarah. Who's going to get her own? you know, her own her own message in a couple weeks here. But here's what it says, 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 in him is Good as dead. That's the author's summation of Abraham's sexual virility. From that man and that woman were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven, and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore, on the seashore. It's going to be test number two. We're going to come back to that in the coming weeks.
But verse 13. The author summarizes both Abraham and Sarah's faith. These all died in faith, he said, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. In other words, he never saw the fulfillment of his faith. He and Sarah could only see it way off in the distance, and they could wave at it, but they never actually got to experience the fullness.
Having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Verse 14: For people who speak thus, make it clear that they are seeking. homeland If they'd been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 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. God told Abraham to leave everything familiar, everything comfortable, and simply to get out. Here's the question. Why did Abraham Say yes.
Verse 16 gives you the answer. Because as it is, Abraham and Sarah, it says, desired a better country. That is a heavenly one. Abraham saw something better being offered to him. better than anything he had in Ur.
Verse 10, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, a city with foundations whose designer and builder is God. He was looking for a city with better foundations than the one he came from, which. which first meant realizing The cities of this world. have no foundations. The cities of this world have no foundations.
That was kind of his first realization. Ur was a prosperous city. But impressive as it was, it had no lasting foundation. It was temporary. The late Tim Keller said that one of the things that moves a lot of people to seek the Lord.
is the realization that their cities have no foundations. You start to realize the impermanence of everything. De Martin Lloyd-Jones became one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century. Before that, however, he'd been a promising young medical doctor on track to become one of England's finest. He'd been trained at the best British medical schools and was now the protégé of the most well-known surgeon in England at St.
Bart's Hospital in London, which was basically England's version of Duke Hospital. Be the chief of medicine in a hospital like that in Great Britain according to the highest possible status and privilege. But just as Dr. Lloyd Jones was getting to the apex of his career, one of his colleagues, another rising young star, was dating this. Young woman who unexpectedly got sick and died.
A few days later, Dr. Lloyd Jones said, This man showed up at my door and asked if he could. Come in and sit with me by the fire. Dr. Lloyd Jennings said that we sat together by the fire for two hours.
He said, during this two hours, the man never even said a word to me and never took his eyes off that fire. Dr. Lloyd Jones said that as he watched this, it had a profound effect on me. I saw the vanity of all human greatness. In fact, it so messed with him that he left medicine to become a preacher.
Because he realized that even the very best medicine, valuable as it is, cannot stop death. And by the way, that is not at all to say that my career is better than you men and women who have gone into medicine. Just that if you did that to chase success or fame or worldly acclaim, or even because you want to solve all the world's problems, that's a fool's errand. because that city has no foundation. The cities of this world provide no relational foundations.
Have you noticed how hard it is to keep groups of friends together?
Somebody's always moving on. Two's especially hard here in the triangle. I often say that forming deep relationships Here sometimes feels like you're trying to hug a parade. About the time you find a group, you gotta find a group, and you think, this is perfect. I love these people.
Somebody leaves. Or maybe you had a group that you really liked, but somebody got mad. and left the group. It's hard to Keep even your family together. Have you noticed that?
I mean, eventually children leave. Family scatter, people pass away. You say, not me, I'm keeping my family really close by. I'm telling you, you won't be able to do it. The more you say that, the more excited they are going to be about getting away.
Our beauty and our talents have No foundations. Saw an interview with a supermodel who said eventually. Even with all your working out. You can't keep your waistline together. I have never felt so seen in my life.
I think it's Brian Regan, man, who talks about how over time the little band on your underwear top just kind of flips downward for no reason at all, right? Over time, even models get heavier and many are devastated by it. I am no supermodel. But we all know the difficulty of trying to hold on to youth. A lot of philosophers come to understand that without God, there really aren't solid intellectual foundations.
Today's scientific breakthrough.
Sometimes turns out to be tomorrow's junk science. Few examples, 100 years ago. After Western intelligentsia got rid of the idea of God, they concluded that matter must be eternal. I mean, something had to be eternal, something had to be primal. But then in the 1960s, Penzias and Wilson's discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation proved that the universe couldn't be eternal.
And that everything had started from a fixed, finite point and would ultimately unravel, overturning the idea that matter is eternal. Or here's another one: 100 years ago, Christianity was attacked by Enlightenment thinkers for being too pessimistic about human nature. Progressive thinkers at the time said humanity is basically good. And thus, reason, education, and science, that's all we need to achieve a perfect society. World War I, the Great War, was going to be the war to end all wars.
Until World War II. Then communism, Cold War, institutionalized racism, the Me Too movement. All occurring in the most educated and scientifically progressive nations in the world. And now we're more convinced than ever of man's innate depravity. The irony, by the way, is that Christianity's attackers now repudiate the Enlightenment.
and try to associate Christianity with it. Saying we Christians are too positive about human nature. And I always want to say the Enlightenment, they didn't like us either.
So we can't win. In the new understanding, morality is all about power structures and critical theory and social dynamics. But already you're seeing the new woke movement collapse in on itself. And it's not even Christians doing the criticizing. Other secular academics are saying woke theory just doesn't work.
Here's another one 20 years ago: the new atheists. Remember those guys? Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. They all wrote best-selling books claiming that belief in God was not just unnecessary and wrong, it was poisonous. But now there's this huge societal reaction against that with people like Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland and Joe Rogan and even Richard Dawkins himself now.
none of whom are Christians yet. Saying things like, yeah, without the backdrop of Christianity, people can't seem to find meaning, and we lack a good basis for things like human rights. And so Jordan Peterson shows up in the triangle and his lecture immediately sells out. The point is, every generation attacks the previous generation's ideas because they don't work. You need a more permanent foundation than the latest intellectual trends.
Even on a more personal level, I told you this a few weeks ago. Have you noticed that when you look back at yourself, even just 10 years ago, Some of the ideas you had that seemed so wise and cool just seem silly now. I told you that every version of JD looks back at the JD from the previous decade and says, man, that guy was an idiot. Every generation looks back at the previous generation and thinks, how could they have been so wrong about that? I mean, think back right now to some of the things your grandparents believed.
Not to mention your great-grandparents. Do you guys really feel like a hundred years from now? Our great-great-grandchildren are gonna be looking back at us saying, man, my. My great-great-grandparents really had it together.
Now they're going to be embarrassed. about some of the stuff that you and I believed. The point is our perceptions And our best wisdom are always in flux.
So, you can't hawker down and say, This is my security. Everything is crumbling around us, no matter what it is. We need a city with better foundations. That's what Abraham realized. It's like Tim Keller said, for many people, this realization is a very important part of their journey to Christ.
A couple of summers ago, I read this book called A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Alken. He's a student at Oxford who'd been led to Christ by none other than C.S. Lewis himself. He was this really gifted intellectual student who bantered with Lewis about faith, but then. But then his fiancée died.
And he started to see the emptiness of all his intellectual philosophy. He and Lewis exchanged these letters that that are just fascinating. And one day he told Lewis, he said, it's like I'm standing on a cliff. And over there's Jesus. But to get to him, I've got a leap Take a leap of faith, which I don't want to do.
But and here's the key y'all He said, when I look down, I realize that the cliff I'm standing on is also crumbling.
So I got a choice. I can jump out to something that seems uncertain, or I can stay standing on something even more uncertain. I'm not sure if Jesus can hold me, but I'm sure that this cliff I'm on right now can't. Either way, I know I got a choice. I've heard several people in their process of coming to Christ talk about something.
Similar. Physically, relationally, intellectually, you realize you have unstable foundations. And so Abraham, verse 10, went looking for a city. A city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Maybe that's where you are this weekend.
By the way, might I just ask you, what if that's what God right now in his mercy is doing with you? What if he's shaking you? You're in here this weekend wondering what God's doing in your life because things in your life just feel like they're crumpling your family, your health, your job, your intellectual foundations. What if God is shaking you? In mercy, to wake you up, saying you need a better city.
I love the story of the lumberjack who is preparing to cut down every tree in a certain section of a mountain forest. Just before he begins, he notices a bird building its nest atop one of the trees. Not wanting to harm the bird or its young, the lumberjack. Takes a mallet. And pounds on the base of the tree until the bird, quite annoyed, flies to another tree and begins to build its nest there.
But since the lumberjack knows that that tree is also coming down He repeats the process with that tree. And so the bird moves to a third tree, which the lumberjack knows is also coming down.
So he does it again. See, he knows that every tree in this part of the forest is going to come down.
So the bird and the lumberjack repeat this dance a half dozen times until the bird, highly annoyed, flies away and builds its nest on the side of a rock face. That bird probably never understood why the lumberjack attacked each tree he attempted to build. It's nest in. Or, whatever, I don't know what gender birds are, but whatever, whatever, you know, whatever the bird does, he's building the nest. She's building the nest.
It's building the nest. Lumberjack's motive. It's not cruelty, it's compassion. The lumberjack knows that every tree in the forest is about to come down and. He wants the bird to build its nest in a place that axes can't touch.
What if that's what God was doing with you? You see, before God can bring you to himself, he has to deliver you from youth. Abraham didn't see what He was doing as a sacrifice, he saw it as an upgrade. He was giving out something unstable for something solid. He was trading something he couldn't hold on to anyway for something he could never lose.
Abraham sought a city with foundations whose designer and builder is God. Matthew 13:44, Jesus said the same thing. It's one of my favorite of his parables. The kingdom of heaven, he said, is like a treasure hidden in a field. But your man found and covered up.
Then with joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys them fields. That's it, y'all. That's the whole parable. Jesus compares discovering his kingdom to a man who unexpectedly finds great treasure hidden in a random field. I love this story.
Basically, you got an ordinary dude. Out walking across a random field. When he stumbles onto a treasure he stubs his toe on it or whatever By the way, what Jesus is describing here is not that uncommon or was not that uncommon. Seems kind of random to us, but in ancient times people didn't use banks.
So, they kept their savings in the form of possessions that they would just lock up in their houses.
Well, if your town was being attacked, as happened quite often back then, you did not want the invaders to take your life savings.
So, people would bury in a rush all their life savings somewhere before they fled the city, hoping to come back to it later after the invaders had left. One of the ancient archaeological digs at Qumran, for example, from an Israelite town from this time period revealed a map with 64 places that people in that community had buried treasure to hide it from invading armies.
So the point is, people would hide these treasures and sometimes they die before they could come back and recover them.
So first century Jewish people live with the excitement of finding old buried treasures in random places. It's like finding an old hard drive in a storage closet and discovering there's a thousand Bitcoin hidden on it. A quick break here for an exciting announcement. If you follow Pastor JD on Facebook or Instagram to get our weekly newsletters, this may not be news to you, but today is a big day. We finally get to release Pastor JD's latest book to you.
You don't have to fit into a political box to be faithful to Jesus. In fact, you're not supposed to. Pastor JD's new book called Everyday Revolutionary is a wake-up call for Christians who feel stuck between extremes. With cultural insight and biblical depth, he shows us how to avoid the ditches of compromise and combativeness and instead live a life of gospel-centered courage. If you go to jdgreer.com, you can request your copy today and learn how to stand strong, love well, and influence the world for Christ.
It's our featured resource for all donors during the month of October.
Now let's return to our teaching today. Once again, here's Pastor JD.
Well this guy after discovering this treasure in this field Vintage Nicholas Cage memorabilia or whatever. He j he he can't just take it. That would be stealing. Because Jewish law said that any treasure discovered in a field belonged to whomever owned that field.
So this man does something shrewd, a bit shady actually. He covers it back up. And he goes and finds the landowner, who doesn't know about the treasure, of course. And then ask the landowner if he can buy the field that the treasure is in without telling the landowner about the treasure. Landowner's like, why do you want that field?
And the guy's like, I don't know. I was hoping to build a sheep pen or a Fish camp or whatever. Landowner shrugs his shoulders and because he doesn't need to sell it. He quotes some astronomical price. And before he can even get the price out of his mouth, the guy yells, so Runs off to get the money.
But because the price is so large, he's got to sell everything else he owns to get it.
Now he's giving up everything he owns. Is that a sad experience? I gave up everything I own to be sad, right? Hardly for this man. Jesus summarizes this man's emotional disposition with two revolutionary words.
Joy. With joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. Yeah, he's given up everything he owns, but in his view, what he is gaining. is far superior to, better than what he's giving up. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up.
And with joy, with joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Yeah, you gotta give up a lot to come to follow Jesus. Have I made that clear? You got to give up everything. Like Abraham, you got to walk away from all of it.
At least you got to walk away from control of all of it. You got to let him be Lord of your life. And Lord means he gets to make the decisions on everything. Everything, nothing held back. But what you gain is so infinitely better than what you lose that you scarcely even notice it.
Abraham sought a city that has foundations whose designer and builder was God.
So let's ask, how is the eternal city Abraham saw it better than the earthly one he left?
Well, it's infinitely better. And it's satisfaction, right? God's not just the most valuable thing in the universe. He's what we're missing deepest in our souls.
So, that no matter what you try to be happy without him, you're not really going to achieve it. The human heart, I've often told you, has a gigantic hole in it. And we spend all of our lives trying to figure out what goes in that hole, but nothing on earth ever works because that hole is in the shape of God's love. We find some things that temporarily work. But they always, always, ultimately leave us empty, alone, and worse off.
Our hearts remain restless, St. Augustine famously said. Until we find our rest in thee. Often tell high school students. Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
And everything minus Jesus equals nothing. If I had 10,000 lives to live, I would live every single one of them for Jesus Christ. I wouldn't hold back one the joy that he gives, the security, the purpose. If I had 10,000 lives to live, I'd live every single one for Jesus. By the way, that statement's not original to me.
I first heard that line, that statement from the original drummer of Hootie and the Bluefish. Who left the band? to go into student ministry.
Some magazine. I'm pretty sure it was Rolling Stone. I couldn't remember. They couldn't find it. asked him if he had any regrets about doing that.
Considering how big the band had gotten. And he responded with. If I had 10,000 lives to live, I'd live every single one of them for Jesus Christ. Listen, I've never known anybody who got to their deathbed and said, I regret. giving my life to Jesus.
I've known a lot of people who regretted not doing it. Abraham left for a better city, a city with foundations, a city whose builder and maker is God. The eternal city is better in. It's certainty. The eternal city is not subject to the changing winds of culture or.
the capricious vicissitudes of public opinion. As I said earlier, today's scientific breakthrough sometimes turns out to be tomorrow's junk science. And again, I want to be clear: I'm not anti-science in any shape, form, or fashion. Far from it. I'm just saying that even the best science is unequipped by itself to give us a solid foundation upon which to build our lives.
In the same way, today's moral progress might be tomorrow's embarrassment. On a personal level, the slightest bit of humility will teach you that the decisions you feel so confident about today, a mere decade from now, might leave you scratching your heads at how you could have been so naive. But in the midst of all that, we have a more certain word.
Something unchanging, something verified not by the latest insights, but verified by an empty tomb. The word left by the resurrected Jesus is a rock on which you can build your life that stands the test of time. I remember seeing this picture of a church bell tower. This is all that was left. standing after A tornado tore through a small town in Nebraska.
The tornado literally destroyed every building in its path except for that. Church tower, because that church tower is made of brick and anchored firmly into the ground. I thought that was a pretty good metaphor. The winds of time eventually blow everything away. Everything.
But God's word remains forever. This morning, this morning. Many of our campuses read the Apostle Creed together, Apostles' Creed together. What I love about the creed is this. It's what Christians have believed in every generation for 2,000 years.
It's what we believed before the industrial age. It's what we believed before our nation existed, before there were Republicans and Democrats. It's what we held on to in the so-called dark ages. It's what we believed when Rome was in charge and Christianity was a tiny persecuted minority. It is what the Bible writer Jude called the faith handed down once for all to the saints.
Once for all, meaning it is unchanging. It's been unpopular in its own ways in every generation, but followers of Jesus have held on to it throughout time. Our faith rests not in the ebb and flow of popular wisdom. It's anchored in an empty tomb beyond the changing winds of culture. This heavenly city is infinitely better in its satisfaction, its certainty.
It's security. One of the things about other foundations is that they're conditional. Meaning They say to you, hey, if you... Obtain me. Work hard.
I'll take care of you. But if you fail me, I will curse you. I just finished up the fascinating biography. of Andre Agassi, the most famous tennis player of my generation. It's called open.
Agassiz constantly lived, he reveals in this biography, with the worry of losing his edge. He got up every day balanced, as it were, on a razor's edge, trying to hold it all together. That's because success told him a and I will bless you. But if you fail me, I'll curse you. Riches, marriage, family, reputation, they all work the same way.
The foundation of the city Abraham saw was different. Acceptance by it was guaranteed. It was given to Abraham as a gift, and God communicated that to Abraham in the most amazing way. Y'all, this is so amazing. Genesis 15.
God repeats his covenant to Abraham, the same one he gave them in Genesis 12. But there he directed Abraham to seal it. between them with a ceremony, but it was a really weird and bizarre ceremony. Genesis 15, 9, God said to Abraham, bring me. Five animals.
Three-year-old cow. Three-year-old goat. Three-year-old ram. a turtle dove, and a pigeon. Then cut them each in half.
and put either half on either side of a little makeshift walkway.
so that their bleeding bodies make a little river of blood down the middle. You're like, what? Yeah, go read it. Genesis 15, 9.
Now to be fair This was not altogether uncommon in those days. It's how you made a covenant. We live in a written age.
So, when we want to get a guarantee, we want a written contract. A contractor quotes me a price to work on something in my house, and I ask for it in writing.
So, if he comes back and says, actually, I've decided to charge this instead. Then you say, ah, ahab and here's your name on the contract guaranteeing the price. On Abraham's Day, instead of signing a contract, they cut a few animals open. And walked through the river of blood so that it splashed up on their robes. And what that meant was: if I don't keep up my end of the covenant, may this happen to me.
The Hebrew word for covenant literally means to cut. You cut covenant. Honestly, I just feel like that would be more effective with my contractor. How much you charge me for painting that room? I don't think so, my friend.
I've got the bloody robe right here to prove it.
So, God and Abraham agree to make this covenant at sundown, which means they're going to walk down this river of blood together. Both promising on their lives by their blood. To keep up their end of the covenant. Genesis 15:12, as the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham, a dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. And a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.
Those are the same things used in Exodus when. God came down on Mount Sinai, passed between those pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with... Abraham, all right?
So God went through the pieces. Who didn't pass through those pieces? Abraham. God had made a deep sleep fall on him. That means God.
Made the covenant all by himself. Meaning? Listen. God made himself responsible for both sides of the covenant. He walked down the river of blood.
Alone. If God failed to keep up his side of the bargain, he would pay with his blood, but If Abraham failed to keep up his side of the bargain, God would also pay with his blood. God said, I'll pay the price if I fail to keep up my end. And I'll pay the price if you don't keep up yours either. Isn't that beautiful?
It's all about Jesus. You see, just like Abraham fell into a deep sleep, you and I are in the deep, dreadful sleep of sin. The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Christ died, a dreadful darkness descended upon the whole earth, and Jesus' blood flowed out of his side like a river. Was God dying because he hadn't kept up his end of the bargain? No, he was dying because we hadn't kept up ours.
He took my sins and my sorrows. And he made them his very own. He bore my burden to Calvary, and he suffered and died alone. I should have been the one dying. He walked down the river of blood in my place.
How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. The foundations of this city are more secure than any other because God promised to not just keep up his part of the covenant, he promised to carry me when I failed at my part. Whereas other foundations say, if you obtain me, I'll bless you. And if you fail me, I'll curse you.
He says, When you obtain me, I'll satisfy you. And when you fail me, I'll forgive you and I'll carry you. I'll put your sins as far as the east is from the west, and I will remember them no more. The heavenly city is better in its satisfaction, its certainty, its security, and finally, its permanence. One day, everything in this earth is going to pass away.
We already see it happening, don't we? Our bodies, our communities, our families, everything we've built. Washes away like a message written into the sand of the seashore. But God is taking us to a city with eternal foundations, with relationships and joys. That'll literally never end.
Let's be honest, okay? Safe place.
Some of us secretly are worried about heaven. We're afraid it's going to be boring. Endless days of Purposeless leisure where we sit around in diapers on colorless clouds, strumming our harps and sipping non-alcoholic pina coladas. Our only real activity up there is gathering twice a day for choir practice. And you think, I just didn't sound that fun to me.
But the Bible describes heavens, you see. As a renewed heavens and earth, meaning that heaven is not so much a replacement of the old as it is a renewed version of the old. Just with all the curse removed and Now supercharged with the glory of God. That means everything that you love down here. The mountains, the rivers, the oceans, the animals, the solar systems, even extreme sports that I never got to experience here are waiting for you there in glorified form.
In fact, the Apostle John goes so far as to say, Revelation 21:26, that God will bring into heaven the glory and honor of the nations. Which means that he's going to bring into the new heavens and new earth the best of the old cultures. The best Italian food, the best architecture, the best art, Mardi Gras without the debauchery. Disney World without the heat and the lines. The jersey shore without the jersey, okay?
And that means everything we miss out on here. You get to experience an abundance there. You never got to go to Hawaii? No big deal. The heavenly version of it is going to be way better.
Never got to fly to the moon. No big deal. you'll probably be able to fly up there in your own. Maybe you missed out on marriage here. Or you missed out on a good one.
Don't worry.
Something better is just around the corner. There's no marriage in heaven. But scripture says, whatever state we're in up there is better than marriage.
So, anything you miss out on here, friends, good health, anything, you get an abundance there. By the way, I can't prove this, but I am pretty sure. That in heaven all the foods that are bad for you here are good for you there. And vice versa. Their ice cream is good for the waistline.
while kale salad makes you gain weight. Like I said, I can't prove that. I know. But these things are spiritually discerned, okay? We don't know all that we're going to be capable of physically in the resurrection.
We don't. But Jesus' resurrection, his resurrection, is supposed to give us some hints. And with Jesus' resurrected body, he could. Eat meat, fly, and walk through walls. That's a pretty good afternoon, I think.
I've always wanted to climb Mount Everest. My wife tells me it's off the table. until my kids at least graduate college. And by that time, I may not be physically able to do it.
So, I may never get the chance, but that's okay because in heaven, I'm confident I'm going to get the climb to renewed one. Which is gonna be a lot better anyway. And when I get to the top, I'll just fly over to the heavenly Tuscany for dinner. Paul tells us what no eye has seen or ear has heard. What no human heart has conceived, God has prepared.
These things for those who love him. In plain speak, that just means if you think it, it's not awesome enough. That's pretty fantastic because I can think of some pretty cool things. Heaven likely will have all of them, plus a bunch of other stuff I can't even conceive of yet. By the way, remind me why I need a bucket list.
Whatever I miss out on here, I got eternity to enjoy up there. I seek a city with actual foundations whose designer and builder is God. And of course, the greatest thing about heaven is that God Himself, the source of all these beautiful things, is there. And we get to be with him forever. That's the essence of heaven, being with God, the God who walked to the valley of blood alone for me, who loved me enough to make himself responsible for both sides of this covenant, who said that nothing, not height or depth, or anything in all creation, could ever separate me from his love.
And I get to be with him forever. This is the eternal city you're being invited to, but to get it, like Abraham, you got to leave behind your earthly one. You got to leave it behind and make no mistake. That's not easy. It requires faith, faith in things still unseen.
And like I told you, showing that kind of faith is difficult. They may preach easily in here, but showing that faith is hard. It was for Abraham. Again, verse 8, Abraham had to leave not knowing where he was going. Just to dwell in a foreign land, living in tents.
He went backwards financially in life. Verse 13, he died without actually possessing it, which means he never got to see fulfillment this side of eternity. He died without ever being fully vindicated in his choice. He had to be willing to step out into the unknown with his life like a blank check, trusting in nobody but God. Are you willing to do that?
I love how John Calvin summarized God's call to Abraham. John Calvin said, God said to him, just close your eyes and take my hand.
Some of you can't get the image of Aladdin out of your head when I do that, but just Abraham, not Aladdin. Just close your eyes and take my hand. I love that. Just close your eyes and take my hand. But, God, what about?
How well? Come what if Just close your eyes, take my hand. I see so many people. Who want heaven? But they're unwilling to do that.
When they're considering following God, they just pepper me with questions like, well, God, if I surrender everything to you. Ooh, where are you gonna make me go? God's become a missionary. Do I have to change careers? Am I going to have to break up with my boyfriend?
What if you tell me to change some part of my life that I just don't want to change yet? I used to try to answer all those questions for people, but then I realized. That this was just people wanting to know exactly where God was going to take them before they'd follow him, but you can't do that. Following God is not about a what, it's about a who. What should concern you is not what he asked you to do, but the who behind the asking.
Just close your eyes and take my hand. You want to do that? To get this eternal city, you got to. Be willing to leave everything and to do that. You got to be convinced that what you're gaining is infinitely greater than what you're leaving behind.
And to do that. Pay attention here. You got to be convinced of God's favor towards you. Honestly, this is something I feel like I don't talk about enough, but in order to leave everything to seek God, you've got to be convinced that the God you're going after will receive you, that He already has received you. Remember Hebrews 11, 6, it's impossible without faith to please God?
Because the one that comes to him must believe that not only he exists, but that he's a rewarder, that it's worth it. You got to be convinced he's worth it. You got to be convinced that you possess him. Many of us. Live with an unspoken, silent assumption.
And that assumption is I'm not sure God will have me. I'm not sure he's received me. I'm not surrendered enough. I can never live this Christian life right. I can't.
I can't live this out well enough. I'm too dirty. Martin Luther in his commentary on Romans. Said this of faith. I love this.
Faith is a living bold trust in God's grace.
So certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
So certain of God's favor. That's the idea, by the way, that launched the Protestant Reformation. Are you sure of that favor directed to you? Honestly, I haven't always been. But that's the assurance offered in the gospel.
In fact, recently the Holy Spirit really brought me assurance of the story of Jacob. I won't go into the story of Jacob, but Jacob was a swindler, manipulator, a rationalizer. He's always seen what he could get by with. It's kind of a dirtback. And please don't think the worst about me, but in some ways he kind of reminds me of me.
Always trying to figure out how to get what I want in a situation, rationalizing, not trusting God, manipulating stuff. And because I know this about my heart, I've had this quiet assumption: I don't know if God really receives me since He sees the real me. But then I was reading the story of Jacob and noticed that in the midst of his dirt baggery, God appeared to him at Bethel and said, I'm your God. I receive you. And Jacob just had to believe that.
And live in light of it. Ironically, that's what cured him of his dirtbagginess. That's me, that's you. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, You're Jacob. God has appeared to you and said, if you're willing to follow me, I'll be your God and Savior, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you are.
He's the father in the prodigal son story who stands with his arms open wide to receive you. Are you ready to come with full abandon to him? That's the invitation of. Abraham. You're not quite finished with Abraham, so don't miss the next message in our Broken People and Famous Faith series.
Just another quick reminder before we leave, Pastor JD's new book called Everyday Revolutionary helps everyday Christians stand firm in truth without losing grace. whether you're navigating difficult conversations, political pressures or fear of cancel culture. you'll find a better way forward. one that lives quietly, but testifies loudly. Request your copy today and step into your calling as a gospel witness in a fractured world.
Give right now online at jdgreer.com. See you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Yeah.
