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Andy Stanley - Under the Circumstances Part 2 Better Promises · Andy Stanley Sermons

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I would like to begin with public confession of an adolescent sin. And I'm
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gonna ask you to raise your hand in just a minute and confess. So
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get ready. And some of you are so nervous because it's like, oh
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no, no, no, not that one, No, not that one.
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If you ever forged your parents signature, if you ever forge your parents
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signature to anything, a permission to leave class, to get out of check
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out early, to leave campus, to go to launch, or to not
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dress out for p if you ever forged your parent's signature as a teenager,
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would you just raise your hand please? Oh, keep them up. Look
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at that. I'm telling you so okay, See if this is your first
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time, it's like, now you know the kind of people that are here
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at our church, okay, And you're thinking I fit in maybe better than
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I thought I did. And isn't it true you feel better now? You
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have been carrying that anger, you've been carrying the weight of that guilt all
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these years, and you were just able to confess in front of me at
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church. Anyway, So that kind of sets us up because I would like
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to confess something as well. I just wanted to make sure I was I
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was surrounded by sinners like me. Anyway, preachers, and I try not
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to do this, and maybe I've been guilty of this in the past,
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but I really try not to do this. But I'm gonna kind of confess
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on behalf of my whole industry, you know, my whole group of people.
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Preachers. We have a habit. We have a habit of forging God's
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signature. Preachers have a habit sometimes of forging God's signature to promises that God
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never made. And I understand why we do this, and I understand why
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we're tempted to do this. We're tempted to do this because there's pressure on
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us to put a bow or to put a happy ending onto everything associated with
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faith, anything that happens that is associated with faith. We want to say,
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and if you do, then here's what God will do for you,
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and things will be great and your life will be great and everybody will be
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fine. You know. So there's just pressure to do that. Part of
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the pressure to do that. The reason we do that. If you said,
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why would you do such a thing is because, to be honest,
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I'm not blaming you, but I will say this, church people like that
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kind of stuff. I mean, they just do that. We want to
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believe. We all want to believe that faith comes with real world guarantees,
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right, I mean, if I then God or here's kind of how it
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really goes. If I do, then God must. Now you just need
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to know that sells, that sells books, and that fills up churches,
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because this is what we want to believe. But the problem is just kind
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of burst our bubble to get us started today. The problem is it overlooks
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the fact that from the very beginning, from the very launch of Christianity,
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from the very launch of the church. It overlooks the fact that from the
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very beginning, Christians have always believed that the worst possible thing happened to the
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best possible person, That a man who would and absolutely nothing wrong, was
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falsely accused and then executed for in the most shameful and painful way imaginable in
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his day by jealous religious leaders. So this is the tension we're going to
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wrestle with today. If God didn't spare his own son to get the job
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done, what can we expect from God today? We're in part two of
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our series Under the Circumstances Holding on to God when it appears that God is
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no longer holding on to you, and you may be in those circumstances right
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now, you're trying to hold on to God. You're trying to maintain your
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faith, or you're trying to get your faith back when it appears that God
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is not responding and God doesn't even seem to know what's going on in your
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life. And the question that we're exploring is what do we do? What
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do we do when our circumstances seem to point to a God that's not there?
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Or how do we you know, how do we interpret circumstances when it
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seems like God, they're God doesn't care. The presence of God is you
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know, in question. The existence of God may be in question. And
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we're all tempted, I mean, me included. We are all tempted to
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jump to conclusions about God based on our circumstances or really our ability or inability
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to interpret circumstances and to kind of try to line up our circumstances with the
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existence or the presence or the faithfulness of God positive circumstances and negative our circumstances
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and other people's circumstances. I mean, your faith may have taken its biggest
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hit, not because of something that happened to you, but because of something
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that happened to someone you love, someone you were raising, someone you were
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married to, someone you grew up around, or maybe a group of people
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that went through extraordinary heartache and you began to doubt God based on what they
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were going through. And when things are up into too the right, you
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know, we all assume, isn't God good? Things are going great at
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work, things are going great at home, things are going great in our
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marriage, things are going great in the nation. You know, God is
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good. Look at God, Go go, God, go right. And
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then when things are down to the right, it's where is God? What
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did I do wrong? And then we start playing the formula game what can
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I do right so that things will go right? What can I do right
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in order to get God's attention in fact and no guilt, no shame.
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Okay, maybe you're here, maybe you're attending one of our campuses, one
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of our churches. Maybe you're watching online because it's like, Okay, my
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life isn't going well. I need a little favor of God, so I'm
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going to show up at church, maybe give a little money, kind of
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pay attention, find my Bible. I used to have a where's my body?
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You know, it's like you know, we all do that. Okay,
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no shame, no blame. This is just it's the formula. It's
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the instant teller God. If I can just find the right combination, then
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God's going to respond. Then I can get things back on track. And
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then there's this question. Okay, this is what really drives us crazy as
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this one. It's hey, and why is God blessing everybody else? I
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mean, I don't want to be critical, but she is. She's not
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near as nice a person as I am, and her life is like perfect,
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and I'm like the best person. Okay, I'm one of the best
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people I know, and my life is not going so great. You know
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why the David and the Psalmist he asked the question this way. He was
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more blunt. You know, it was a prayer, so he could it
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was just a God. He wouldn't I don't know if he'd say it to
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a congregation, but he said, God, why do the wicked prosper?
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And you think about somebody at work or somebody in your neighborhood, and you
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wouldn't call him wicked? But in your prayer life you can use that language,
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and David use it. Why do the wicked? Why do the bad
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people get all the breaks? Now, if this is kind of where you're
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stuck, do not miss part three of this series. Next time we're together,
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We're gonna go way down the rabbit hole on this one. This is
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such a big, big deal. But anyway back to today. Part of
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the reason, part of the reason that this is so confusing for Christians and
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people really have all faith traditions, but for Christians in particular, is well,
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it's what you hear from people in my position, from pastors. This
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I said a few minutes ago. We have a tendency and I try hard
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not to do this. We're gonna talk about why in a minute. But
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pastors, preachers have a tendency to sign God's name to promise is that God
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never made. And part of the reason they do this, and the reason
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that they slip into this is the way that they use and the way that
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they approach, and the way that they understand the Bible. They pastors,
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preachers, priests because of their understanding of the Bible, they blend and I'll
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explain what I mean by this language in just a minute. They blend the
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covenants. They blend the covenants. Here's what I mean. Your Bible,
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your your English Bible. The Christian Bible, as you know, is divided
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into two parts, the Old Testament and the Yeah, that was that should
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have been an easy question. Old Testament and the New Testament. Okay,
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I know you don't want to answer to it out loud. I understand that
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Old and New Testament. And unfortunately the word testament should have never been used,
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but nobody asked me. Okay, it should say the Old Covenant and
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the New Covenant, because that's what the word testament means. It's referring to
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a covenant, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. So those are the
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two parts of the Bible. The Old Covenant, not the entire Old Testament
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literature, but the Old Covenant that is contained in what we would call the
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Old Testament. The first part of the Bible is a covenant relationship between God
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and ancient Israel and God this is so important, a little technical, but
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we're gonna get practical in a minute. God's arrangement or God's covenant with ancient
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Israel was in fact one hundred percent and if I do, God must arrangement.
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It is absolutely in there. Or more precisely, if we do,
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God will arrangement. The Old Covenant, the covenant between God and ancient Israel,
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was not an arrangement or a contract or a covenant between God and individuals.
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This is so important. It was a covenant or contract between God and
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an entire nation, the nation of Israel. And when Israel's leaders and who
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set the direction, When Israel's leaders got it right, when they were faithful
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to God, when they kept his commands, God blessed the entire nation.
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He blessed them financially, He blessed them in terms of their land, He
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blessed them in terms of their health. He blessed them in terms of children
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being born healthy. He blessed them in terms of being protected even from natural
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disasters. But and you can read this, I mean, this is all
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laid out for you, and you know what we would call the Old Testament.
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But when the leaders disobeyed God and worshiped other gods that were unfaithful to
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God, when they broke the terms of the contract, when they broke the
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terms of the covenant, then God judged and punished everybody not just the wicked,
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and not just the ones that broke the rules. Everybody suffered when the
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leaders disobeyed God and led the nation astray, and He judged and judged them
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militarily, economically, geographically, all kinds of ways. And this is so
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important because of this contractor this covenant between God and a nation. Ancient Israel.
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Ancient Israel knew they were on good terms with God by looking at their
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circumstances. That's how they knew things are going great. Our leaders must be
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keeping God's contract. Things are not going so great. What are our leaders
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up to? Our things are going great that our leaders must be, you
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know, worshiping Yahweh. They're being faithful to Yahweh. You know they're doing
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everything right. Oh, no, things are going bad for us. What
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are our leaders up to? It was a national contract, It was a
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national covenant, and the leaders were responsible for obeying God and leading the nation
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in a specific way. If you want evidence of this, just start reading
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the Book of Exodus. You can read first the second Kings. When you
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read what the prophets say, you know that the angry prophets that we find
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in the first part of our Bible, they always seem angry. They were
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angry because in most parts they were going to the leader saying, you're doing
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it wrong. You've abandoned God. You've built these high places, you're worshiping
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foreign idols, you've made contracts, and you've made a great with foreign kings,
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and God has told you not to do that. So the prophets were
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always going to the leader saying, hey, if you don't turn around,
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if you don't repent nationally, then God is going to judge Israel nationally because
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this is a national contract or covenant between God and ancient Israel. But us
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new covenant people. Now, I'll explain what I mean in a minute.
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Those of us who aren't part of that national contract between God and ancient Israel,
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those of us who actually accepted God's invitation to participate in the covenant that
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Jesus established. We don't look to circumstances to determine where we stand with God.
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Let me say that again. We don't look to circumstances to determine where
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we stand with God. We don't look to circumstances to determine whether or not
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God loves us, whether or not God is with us, whether or not
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God cares for us. Do you know where we look. We look to
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a single event that took place on a hill outside the walls of Jerusalem.
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That's where we look where God sent his son to pay for all of your
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sin and all of my sin. And that was his way of saying,
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I have removed every obstacle between you and your heavenly Father so that you can
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have fellowship with God. And God can love you unconditionally, and God can
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hear your prayers regardless of your sin. And God can intervene if he chooses
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not to, and God can comfort if that's what he chooses to do.
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But you are in a right relationship with God, and you never, ever,
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ever, ever, ever have to wonder if God loves you, if
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God cares about you, or if God is with you. But when preachers
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mix and match the covenants, the Old Testament covenants made between Israel and God
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and the New Testament covenant between God and the entire human race. When preachers
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mix these up, Christians have a tendency to begin doing what Israel was supposed
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to do. We begin looking at our circumstances now in highlighting this okay,
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and highlighting this distinction between the Old Covenant promises and covenant promises. Oftentimes I'm
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criticized and you're not criticized. You're criticized for listening to me. Okay,
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I don't know if you know that. Okay, just stay off Twitter,
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Okay, anyway, but I'm often criticized and he doesn't believe the Old Testament,
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and he doesn't teach the Old Testament. They doesn't all these crazy things
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that aren't true. Because if you listen to not just me, but all
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of our communicators, goodness, we dip into the Old Testament all the time,
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we tell the stories. I mean, of course we believe that God
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was at work in the Old Testament. But what we don't do is we
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don't extract promises to Israel and say those are promises to you, and you
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shouldn't either. But what's interesting, and if you read the New Testament,
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this is so clear. This isn't buried somewhere, Okay. Jesus and the
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Apostle Paul in particular. Jesus and the Apostle Paul in particular are very clear
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about the relationship between God's covenant with Israel and God's covenant with the human race.
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Through Jesus Jesus made this so clear during this final passover. We've looked
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at this passage many times, and if you grew up in church, this
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is These are the verses that the preacher often used when they were serving communion,
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and he focused on the communion part, not on the part I'm about
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to focus on. You've heard this before. There, he's gathered with his
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apostles. This is his last passover meal. He's going to be arrested in
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a few hours. He's going to be crucified the next day. He says
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this in the same way. After the Passover supper, Jesus took the cup,
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saying here it is this cup in my hand, no other words.
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This is an event that's being established right now in front of you, guys.
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This cup is the new covenant, the new contract, the new arrangement
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in my blood, all that other contract, that other covenant that God established
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with the nation of Israel. It was inaugurated and remembered with the blood of
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animals. He's like, this is brand new. This is a brand new
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covenant with a brand new command, with a brand new operating system, with
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a brand new value system, and it is being established right now and tomorrow
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when I'm arrested, and tomorrow when I'm crucified, and a couple of days
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later when I'm raised from the dead. It is being established right now,
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the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you, or
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poured out for all of you. In other words, the old covenant between
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God and ancient Israel had an expiration date. It was perfect for what it
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was designed for. In fact, I've said this before, it was way
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ahead of its time. I mean, women were treated better than how they
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were treated in the surrounding nations. Foreigners were treated better. It was way
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ahead of its time. But it had an expiration date. It was coming
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to an end. It was a means to an end. And the Apostle
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Paul constantly, like throughout all of his letters, constantly reminded gentiles us non
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Jewish people that we weren't included in God's covenant with Israel. It's not our
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covenant. Or to be specific, those old covenant promises are not your promises.
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You weren't included. Your promises are better promises. That's what we're gonna
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talk about in a minute. But on the surface, our promises don't seem
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as promising. In terms of this life. But they are better promises because
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Jesus promised something that Tora didn't promise. In fact, Tora didn't even explore.
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Jesus promised eternal life and eternal fellowship with God your Father. Here's what
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the author of Hebrews says. Now, Hebrews is an interesting part of the
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New Testament. Hebrews is like a sermon. We call it a book of
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the Bible, and it is, you know, one of the parts of
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the New Testament. But it's like a sermon. And we don't know who
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wrote it. But the first century Apostles and the first century Christians believed it
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was so valuable and so true, specifically because of what it addressed. They
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valued it, read it in the early Church, and it made it into
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the canon, made it into the New Testament. But here's what the author
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of Hebrews rights. We're going to come back to this a minute. He
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says, for this reason, Christ is the here hit is again, I
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mean, this is buried in plain sight here. For this reason, Christ
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is the mediator of a new covenant that those who are called may receive the
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promised eternal inheritance that your promises and my promises are better promises because they are
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eternal promises. And here's the shacker. And if you don't believe me,
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you get to check this out for yourself. And anything I can say to
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get you to open your Bible. Hey, you know, even if it's
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a taunt, God's covenant with Israel did not promise eternal life. In fact,
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baby shop to know that most ancient Jews did not believe in an after
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life at all, because their scriptures never mentioned it in any significant way and
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didn't teach that there was such a thing. There were all kinds of theories,
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and by the time Jesus came along in the first century, there were
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multiple theories about what happens to the righteous when they die. But even the
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experts, even the experts in the synagogues and at the temple, they did
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not agree because they didn't have anything to refer back to in the Old Covenant
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teaching that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. In fact, you may
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remember this, a very educated man, a teacher of the law, a
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sort of a lawyer, we would call him, probably a lawyer attorney,
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came to Jesus in front of a crowd of people and he shouts out this
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question, Hey, Jesus, have a question, what must I do to
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inherit eternal life? And to what Jesus could have said, well, I
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mean, you're like one of the most educated people in the crowd. Have
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you not been to synagogue? And he would have said, oh, yeah,
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I've been a multiple Senate, I've talked to multiple religious leaders. They
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don't agree. We don't know answer this question for us. The Sadducees,
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that group, they say, there's no there's no spirituality, there's no angels,
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there's no demons, there's no afterlife, there's no nothing. All you
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get is what you see that we're here for God's purposes, in God's pleasure.
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When you die, it's over. The Pharisees have some kind of vague
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idea that there's some sort of a resurrection for the righteous, but we're not
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sure exactly who gets resurrected and who does it and what happens to the people
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who aren't righteous. So we just we don't know because their texts never talked
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about it. And then Jesus comes along, and what does he talk about
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almost all the time, eternal life with the Father in heaven, who's paved
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the way, and who would pave the way through sending his son to remove
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every obstacle to you having eternal fellowship and fellowship now with God your Father.
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Our promises are anchored to Jesus New Covenant, which means, if you can't
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find it in there, be careful looking xwhere elsewhere. If you can't find
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it there, If you can't find it in the New Testament, in terms
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of our promise, be careful looking elsewhere. Otherwise you run the risk of
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being disappointed by God's unwillingness to keep a promise he never made to you.
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You will be tempted to do what ancient Israel was supposed to do. You
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will be tempted to judge God's presence by your circumstances, which is what they
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were supposed to do, but you're not supposed to do because of the Cross.
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You will be tempted to judge God's faithfulness by your circumstances, which you
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aren't supposed to do, which is what Israel had to do because it's all
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they had to go on. Because again, we don't look to circumstances to
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determine where we stand with God. We look to a single event to place
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outside the walls of Jerusalem, when God allowed his son to die to pay
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for your sin, to assure you you are and can be in right standing
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with God. Any questions so far good? Okay, now switching gears a
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little bit. But but but, but but there is one Old Testament promise,
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a promise that shows up in our Old Testament, but not in the
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New Covenant. It's two different things. I know it's kind of confusing,
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but you get the point. The whole Old Testament within that is this covenant
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or contract God made with Israel. There is a promise in our Old Testament
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that does apply to you. It's not a promise that was made to you,
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but it applies to you. And it preceded God's covenant with Israel by
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hundreds and hundreds of years. And I'm talking about God's promise to Abraham.
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Little a quick, little timeline might help. I like timelines. Right,
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two thousand BC, God calls Abraham and says, I want you to go
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somewhere you've never been before. I'm gonna do something I've never done before.
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Fourteen hundred BC. Hundreds of years later, God establishes his covenant with Israel
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through Moses. But God made Abraham a promise, a promise he did not
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fulfill here, a promise that he fulfilled two thousand years later, when a
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king was born, when Messiah was born, when Jesus was born, And
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the author of Hebrews, this is so amazing. This is why we're going
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to look at this passage real quick. The author of Hebrews, going back
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to Hebrews. The author of Hebrews speaks directly to the issue of how new
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covenant people know that God is with us. He speaks directly to this issue
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because he knew he had many people in his Jewish audience. In fact,
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the reason it's called the Book of Hebrews is because it was written to Jewish
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Christians, and he knew he was talking to a group of people that were
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accustomed to looking at circumstances to determine if God was with him, and their
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circumstances were bad, and consequently they're like, I don't know if we've done
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the right thing. Don't you know how we kind of want to go back
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to Egypt. We want to go back to the old ways. We're wondering
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as God with us, And the author of Hebrews is saying, absolutely,
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God is with you, but you don't look to circumstances to determine that.
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You look to Jesus. And the way he does this in his long sermon
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is by attempting to review the circumstances of the key players between Abraham and Jesus.
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But there are so many players, there's so many key figures in this
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story between Abraham and Jesus. He starts off by listening and telling some of
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the stories, and then he realizes, okay, this is going to take
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forever, and he even says, I don't have time to do all of
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that, So then he begins summarizing, and that's where we're going to pick
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up this text. This is so important. This is important for those of
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you who are suffering and wondering. This is important for those of you that
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have suffered and maybe lost faith, and this is important for all of us
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because life happens, and life is life. Here's what the author says.
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He says, I don't I wish I did, but I do not have
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time to tell you about everybody in this long litany of stories and people.
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I don't have time to tell you about Gideon. That's a whole story about
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Barack, about Samson, about David and Samuel, and the prophets, who
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all of them, who through faith, He said, I could you know
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these Each of these are multi layered stories, but all of these through faith
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conquered kingdoms, administer justice and gained what was promised to them in that era.
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Who shut the mouths of lions. We know who he's talking about,
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quench the fury of the flames. We know who he's talking about, and
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escape the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength, and
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who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. And see when I read
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that, I'm like, yeah, yes, what I want to be.
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That's what I want to do something and God do something. I want to
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do something big, and God does something bigger, and it's like, hey,
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I was part of what God? Did you know? This is all
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up into the right you know, that's what we love. We love the
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up into the right days right. And then he turns a corner. He's
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like, yeah, but it was don't like that for everybody in fact,
25:00
throughout this story, it wasn't like that for the people who were part of
25:03
this long story arc between Abraham and Jesus. He says this, there were
25:08
others who didn't win, who weren't victorious. There were others, and there
25:15
was no bow on their story. There was no happy ending, There was
25:18
no smooth landing for others. They were tortured and they refused to be released.
25:25
They refused to lie, they refused to recant so that they might gain
25:29
an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging and chains and imprisonment.
25:41
Some, he says, were put to death by stoning. Some of them
25:45
were sawed in two they were killed by the sword. They were destitute.
25:52
They were so destitute. They had nothing to show for ending. They had
25:56
nothing. They went about in sheepskins, that's all they had for clothes and
26:00
goat skins. Destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. And then my favorite part
26:07
this is this, This should there should be like music behind this. This
26:11
is so powerful. It's like he he's because I'm just reading part of it.
26:15
He's gone through all these people, all these stories leading up from Abraham
26:18
all the way to the coming of Jesus, and it's like he puts his
26:22
quill down or his pen down, and he just stops and takes the deep
26:26
breath, and their tears in his eyes, and he picks it back up,
26:29
and he writes these words. The world was not worthy of them.
26:37
They endured in spite of to be a part of what God was up to,
26:45
and they never doubted that God was up to something in spite of what
26:48
they experienced. These were all, he goes on to say. These were
26:53
all commended for their faith, their confidence in God. They're in spite of
27:00
circumstance, confidence in God. Yet none of them, this is amazing.
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Yet none of them received what had been promised, promised to Abraham. Yet
27:11
none of them received what had been promised. Since God had planned something.
27:15
And here it is. If you haven't been paying attention, come on back.
27:18
This is important. All of this was building, building, building,
27:23
building, building. Some were victorious, some suffered, some were victorious for
27:27
a while. But everybody died. Everybody's body decayed. It all ended the
27:32
same for everybody, regardless of their circumstance, he said. And all of
27:34
this built and built and built, since God had planned something better for us,
27:45
better for you, better for me, better for those of us who
27:52
have embraced and accepted Jesus' invitation to participate in the new covenant between God and
28:00
the human race, he says, now, in light of all that,
28:03
because of all that, Having said all that, therefore, since now he
28:08
asks us to use our imagination, He says, Now, therefore, since
28:11
we are all surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, he says,
28:15
imagine, somewhere in heaven are all these people I just listed who were faithful,
28:19
faithful, faithful, some of them all of them sinned, all of
28:22
them were unfaithful at times, but they maintained their faith in God, even
28:26
when they departed from God, that came back to God. Maintain their faith
28:30
in God. We're part of the story. Since we're surrounded by these extraordinary,
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extraordinary people, men and women who kept trusting and following and believing,
28:37
who did not interpret hardship, who did not interpret hardship as God's absence.
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Since that is the backdrop of our faith, How should I respond to hardship?
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How should you respond to hardship? Should I? How should we respond
28:53
to circumstances that seemed to say God is far and God is absent and God's
28:57
not paying attention? He says, here's how. Therefore, since we're surrounded
29:03
by such a great cloud of witnesses, Ready, let us throw off everything
29:10
that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. He says, anything that
29:17
would mitigate against you understanding and trusting that God is faithful and with you through
29:22
this, He says, you just disentangle yourself from those thoughts. You cast
29:26
that away. Don't allow he mentioned sin, don't allow the difficult times to
29:30
cause you to depart from God, because when you depart from God, it
29:33
does not make your life better. It's just gonna make your life more complicated.
29:38
So he invites you, and he invites me to join this cloud of
29:41
witnesses that were faithful in spite of And he says, let me give you
29:48
a word picture, and I want you to I want you to run,
29:51
he says, And let us run. Run with perseverance the race marked out
29:57
for each of us. So let's talk about those. See right now,
30:08
you might be in the season of the section of the race that's the downhill
30:11
section, it's the easy section, it's the wrinkle free section. Everybody's in
30:17
school, everybody's dating somebody you like. You know, you got a bonus.
30:19
Things are good. You know, your lawn even looks great, your
30:22
grass survive, you know all. You know, I just I mean,
30:25
it's just it's just good. He says, you need to make sure you
30:30
persevere through the good times, because in the good times, you will be
30:33
tempted to abandon your heavenly father because you won't sense or see a need for
30:41
others of you. That's not the stretch of the race you're in, right,
30:47
You're in the you're in the divorce stretch of your race. And you've
30:53
been married twenty five, twenty six years, and suddenly he or she decides,
30:56
hey, I'm done him out. You'll have been married three years and
31:00
all of a sudden you discover you discover something about her, about him,
31:03
and it's like, oh no, and you just never saw this coming.
31:08
Or maybe you're in the prodigal son or prodigal daughter season of your race.
31:15
And you raised them right, you raised or right, You did everything you
31:18
could have possibly done. You paid extra for stuff, I mean, and
31:22
now that it's just like they've become a different person and they don't care,
31:26
and they don't connect, and they're not interested in any of the stuff,
31:29
any of the values that you raised them with and you just can't figure it
31:32
out. And they're friends and now they're dating, and it's like oh,
31:34
and it's like you just you don't know what to do, or maybe you're
31:40
in the health crisis stretch of your race and you're too young to have to
31:45
deal with what you're dealing with, and there's no good answer, there's no
31:49
good treatment, and the doctors kind of scratch their head and they try to
31:52
sound confident and you get in the car and you realize they don't know,
31:56
or they prescribe something that's like months and at the end of those months,
32:01
we hope it works out. And that's the season you're in. Or maybe
32:06
it's the job loss or the job loss again, or a financial and financial
32:09
pressure or bankruptcy season. Well, whatever it is, you didn't choose it.
32:15
You're just running your race. And you came around the ben and there
32:20
it was, and you wonder, where's God. Peter the Apostle Paul John,
32:30
who brought us the story we talked about last week, would say to
32:32
you, Okay, before you panic, before you hit eject, before you
32:37
hit I don't believe. I just want you to look at the promise God
32:43
made Abraham, and I want you to imagine all the details that happened between
32:47
Abraham throughout the story of Moses and the ancient Israelites and the Old Testament all
32:52
the way to Bethlehem, when a king was born on your behalf, who
33:00
grew to be your savior and punctuated his love for you, his care for
33:06
you. And remember this is so important. Like Jesus liked the Father.
33:08
If you want to know what the Father is like, you look at Jesus.
33:10
Don't look past Jesus, you're looking past God. If you want to
33:14
know what the Father is like, you look at the Sun, the son
33:15
who came to give his life for you, to demonstrate how much he loves
33:20
you, how much he cares for you, and how much he is in
33:22
fact there with you and for you. The author's words, those are my
33:29
words. You just fix your eyes, make sure you're looking in the right
33:32
direction, he says. Let me just say it for you, the race
33:35
marked out for you, regardless of what that race looks like. Fixing,
33:38
focusing your eyes not on your circumstances, not on the person who hurts you,
33:45
not on the doctors who just don't seem to cooperate and don't seem to
33:49
care as much as you think the ought of care. Fixing your eyes on
33:52
Jesus and to address what I'm sure somebody out there is thinking, or somebody
33:59
in here is thinking. This is not just preacher talk. This is not
34:00
just theory. I have seen it over and over and over. I've sat
34:05
with, I've wept with people for whom there was no bow. There wasn't
34:08
going to be a happy ending. There wasn't going to be a safe landing
34:13
walking through the valley of the shadow of death. In fact, some of
34:15
you are there right now. I'm telling your story walking through the valley of
34:20
the shadow of death. And you keep trusting, and you keep believing,
34:24
and you keep hanging on to God. When it appears that God is hanging
34:28
on to you and you're not trying to explain, you've gotten past explaining.
34:32
Well, maybe this and maybe that. You quit explaining because there is no
34:36
emotionally satisfying explanation for what you're going through. And that's you. I would
34:43
say about you what the author of Hebrews said about the men and women he
34:46
wrote about the world. The world is not worthy of you. Because when
34:58
I sit with you, and I p with you, and my heart breaks
35:00
with you, my faith gets bigger because I am remind I'm reminded as many
35:07
of you have been reminded when you've been in situations like that with believers who
35:10
are hanging on and believe in any way, I'm reminded, there is This
35:15
is the promise. There is a grace, there is a strength, there
35:20
is a power, there is an energy. There's a something that you won't
35:24
experience until you need it, but it is there when you need it.
35:31
Back to the Author of Hebrews, he says, and let us run with
35:35
perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the
35:37
leader and the complet, the author and the perfector of our faith. He's
35:45
the reason we can have confidence. The Author's point is fix your eyes on
35:50
Jesus and not on your circumstances. Not preach your talk. This is how
35:54
you lean in and experience the power and the presence of God in the midst
35:58
of circumstances. You didn't choose. They just showed up in the course of
36:04
your race. Who, he says, for the joy set before him endure
36:10
something you will not have to endure, although it may feel like it at
36:14
the time, Who endured the cross for you? Scorning it shame? This
36:19
is such a powerful word I wish I could spend more time on it,
36:22
It says. If Jesus is hanging on the cross, saying, is that
36:24
all you got? Is that all you got? When you see what's waiting
36:30
for me on the other side of this, this is nothing. And the
36:36
author of Hebrews says, and after he died and rose from the dead,
36:39
he went and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
36:45
And he says, come on, don come on, come on, come
36:46
on, consider him, Consider him, Consider him who endured such opposition from
36:52
sinners. Why so that here it is so that you will not grow weary,
37:00
you will not lose faith, so that you will not lose confidence,
37:04
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. And then earlier he
37:08
says this, here's the invitation. I want you to approach. He says.
37:13
I know you're not perfect, I know you got stuff, But come
37:15
on, come on, I want you to approach. Let us, then
37:16
approach let us, then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. And why
37:22
can you approach God's throne of grace with confidence? Don't miss this? Because
37:25
what has he just told us? Because sitting next to your heavenly Father is
37:30
the son who endured such opposition and such pain. He knows, he feels
37:36
that he felt it. And he is there seated by the Father interceding for
37:40
you because he cares you're been there, felt that, faced that savior.
37:53
And then here's the kicker. Here's the promise, because there's a promise so
37:57
that so that we may receive. And here it is. Do you know
38:02
what you can bank on? Do you know what you can count on?
38:05
Do you know what you can hold God accountable to? This is the part
38:08
where you can say, Heavenly Father, you promised me. This is your
38:14
promise, this is my promise. This is the New Covenant promise. And
38:16
certainly there is more, but this is the core that you may receive with
38:22
confidence, mercy and find grace to help in your time of need. Mercy,
38:31
God weeps with you. Grace in this context, strength to indure,
38:42
strength to persevere, strength to endure without giving into the temptation of despair.
38:51
The question is is that enough? And the answer is yes. And if
39:00
you're not sure, I would like to try to demonstrate it for you,
39:05
because in this room with me and in the room where you're sitting, if
39:07
you're at one of our churches, maybe in the living room where you're sitting
39:10
with some other people, watching people from all over the world. It's not
39:15
a great cloud of witnesses. It's a great crowd of witnesses to the reality
39:21
of what the author of Hebrews tells us. Because among you, around you,
39:25
sitting beside you, are people who experience God's sustaining grace in the midst
39:31
of extraordinary circumstances. And so I'm going to ask you just a minute,
39:38
if you have experienced God sustaining grace and extraordinary and extraordinarily difficult circumstances in about
39:45
four seconds five seconds, I'm going to ask you to do something a little
39:49
awkward. At all of our churches, I'm going to ask you to stand.
39:53
And if you are in the midst of extraordinary circumstances and you are experiencing
39:59
cur God sustaining grace, I'm going to ask you to stand as well as
40:04
evidence for those who wonder if this is a reality, if may or maybe
40:08
just preach your talk if they're wondering, is that could that be available for
40:15
me? So if that's you in the past or currently, would you stand,
40:27
and if you need it right now, would you stand. Yeah,
40:34
I'd love for everybody to stand at this time. Here's your promise. Approach.
40:44
Approach God's throne of Grace with confidence, because there is no barrier between
40:52
you and your heavenly Father, thanks to Jesus. And you will receive mercy
40:58
and you will find grace to help you in your time of need, because
41:02
he sees, he knows, he cares. His grace and his strength are
41:07
available to those of us who lean in and ask for it