"Examples of Faith – Seeking A New Homeland" Hebrews 11:13-16
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on October 22, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Then all died. These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they were thinking about what they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return.
But they now desire a better place, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. May we pray. Heavenly Father, we thank youk once again for your word. We thank youk for the promise of an eternal home, Father, where we will live forever in youn presence, in a new creation.
And finally we will fill feel at home that we are with family for eternity. We thank you that we have that to look forward to. And as we look at the text today, Father, let us see how that is the hope that carries us through the difficult times in this life. In Jesus name, amen. Just a little disclaimer.
I’m having a little hard time making it through this sermon today because found out this morning that Mark Niebuhr’s dad passed away at 6pm last night. So God had me preaching on heaven today. So I’m getting a little emotional at times and if I can’t speak. Hunter heard the message once, he can come up and finish.
My wife shared something interesting with me the other day. You know, you want to know what your wife’s love language is? Have you heard that we’ve been married, what, almost 38 years? And she said, I feel we had this thing and you’re supposed to say, I feel loved when you do something. And she said, I feel loved when you keep the gas tank filled up.
Talking about not understanding women, I was like, what? So I keep the gas tank filled. Now, have you ever almost run out of gas and you’re on a trip and you start looking as far down the road as you can. Before, we had GPS and signs, you know, that tells you there’s a gas station coming up. You start to get a little anxious, but you’re looking with hope that there’s going to be a gas station.
You look at that GPS, it says it’s 12 miles down the road and your gas tank says you can go 12 and a half. You, you know, my car tells me, you know, there are a lot of things in our life that keep us going when things are difficult. Sometimes we’re so sick or depressed or discouraged, it’s hard to get out of the bed in the morning. But there are things that help us to look forward to it. Think about you’re looking forward to a vacation, or you’re looking forward to going to Florida and missing the snow.
Mike. Or just knowing that you’re going to see your grandkids or your children at Christmas time can keep people going and encouraged, maybe planning for retirement. A woman that’s pregnant having all the sickness along with pregnancy, she’s looking forward to having that baby. There are things that keep us going, and maybe even for some people, just looking forward to having another meal is enough to keep them going. Well, in the text today, we’re looking at again all these that have died in faith.
And we’ve talked about Abel and Enoch and Abraham and Sarah and what it tells us that through all of this difficulty that they went through, they’re looking forward to an eternal hope home. And so we’re talking about heaven today, but we’re also talking about how we live in light of heaven. Going back to the text, it says these all died in faith, meaning the faith that they initially had, it took them all the way up to the point that they died. And at that point, it was no longer faith, because at that point, what they believed became reality. What we’re talking about today is first off, the perseverance of the saints.
Sometimes we talk about the preservation of the saints. That’s over here on this side. That’s where God guarantees that once we’re saved, we’re always saved, that Jesus holds us in his hand and the Father holds Jesus hand in his. And then on the other side, we have this deal that we continue to persevere in our faith. And theologically, some people go so far that way.
They just say it’s all preservation. And some people say, no, it’s all perseverance. And to me, it’s the same coin. It’s just that we look at one side or the other because Scripture shows us both. And here we’re seeing that the saints are persevering all the way to the end.
On this side, we are called by God, but on this side we choose to follow Christ. We have faith, but yet James tells us that our works show our faith. And so it is. Sometimes things that seem opposite really work together.
It tells us that these people died in their faith, but it tells us that it’s possible in verse 15 that they might have been thinking about what they might have been thinking about where they came from. You think Sarah ever said, hey, Abraham, remember that favorite spot that we would go down to on Friday Nights back in Ur, you know, And Abraham says, well, you know, I really miss the horchata at Quik trip that we used to get around the corner. I mean, they possibly remembered these things and they, they missed them, especially their family that they left behind.
So there was this possibility that they were thinking about where they came from and those thoughts could have left them to want to return. They had the opportunity to return back to her, but what the text is telling, telling us is that they did not because they were looking forward to something.
And when I say return, I mean return permanently to er. And when we talk about our spiritual life, there are people that are like the prodigal son. They may wander from the faith for a while, but eventually they’re going to get back on the path following a life of righteousness that God desires from them. And when individuals and people completely return to their former way of life after professing Christ, if they stay there and they do not persevere to the end, there is cause for us to be concerned and to pray for them because it’s possible that they returned to the former way of life because they haven’t really placed their faith in Christ and their desire is not what is in the future. Instead it is looking to the past.
When individuals and people return to their former way of life, there is always cause for concern and a need for prayer. But we should not give up hope.
So these Old Testament saints that are examples of faith, they possibly had thoughts about what they were missing, but they wanted to continue on to something that they just had this glimpse of. They didn’t completely understand it, but they had faith that it was going to happen. Now I know the early service people woke up this morning probably when it was dark. Maybe you guys slept until the sun was up. But if you were an early service person, probably the first thing you did when you got up is you did what you flipped on the light.
Now you in doing that, I mean, when I turn on my light switch in the morning, I’m 100% sure that what it’s going to happen, the lights are going to come on. I’m really shocked if they don’t. But I don’t understand how that electricity gets there. I mean, I have a vague idea, but how did it get there in the wires, you know, and how did it get to the wires and where did it come from and what’s going on? Electric plant.
I don’t understand all of that going on, but I’m 100% certain what the lights are going to come on that’s how they felt about their eternal home. They understood it just a little bit, but they didn’t have to understand it completely to have complete faith that they were going to end up there someday. So they persevered with this certain hope. It wasn’t wishful thinking, it was certainty. It’s the faith in knowing that I live my life this way because I know for certain what I don’t see is really going to happen.
But that perseverance led to our next topic in this passage today. That there was a certain profession of the saints that they made.
There was a profession. There was something that they talked about, and that something that they talked about is what they were looking forward to with certainty. These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them and confessed. Confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth.
Now, those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they were thinking about where they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return. But they now desire a better place. Instead of their former life, they desire a better place, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
So we want to think about what is this profession that they made? What did they talk about? I mean, obviously they were strangers in the land. They didn’t talk the same way. They probably didn’t dress the same way, they didn’t eat the same foods.
I just assumed that people asked them, why are you here? Why did you leave all that? It’s kind of like me moving from the south to the north. My accent is not as bad, hopefully as it used to be. But when we travel, especially when we first moved to Maryland, we go to the grocery store and people say, talk some more, we want to hear you.
You’re not from here. Where are you from? People wanted to hear and we talked to them. That’s how it was with these people of faith. People wanted to know why they were different.
It says here that they saw from a distance, what were they looking for? They were looking to their eternal home. And this word means that they were peering ahead as best as they could.
When you got a beautiful vistas, I don’t know if I’ve seen anymore, but there used to be these things on a stand and you could put a nickel in or a dime and you put your eyes up and you could see in the distance something like binoculars or if you were trying to look out into the Heavens. You would use a telescope because you want to get a little bit better understanding. You want to see things just a little bit better. Not completely, but better. That’s what they were doing here.
They were trying to peer ahead to their eternal home to see what it’s like. And God has given us binoculars today. He’s given us a telescope. And Mary’s not here. My best student, to answer the question, she’s listening on tv.
What is our pair of binoculars that we have to see? The future. The Bible. Great. We need to be peering through that, to be like these people of faith, seeing what we don’t completely understand as best we can.
They saw from a distance, but it also says that they. They greeted them what they were looking forward to. And this word, greet, it isn’t a hey, over there. It’s a greeting to someone who’s right in front of you that you’re embracing them or you’re. You’re saluting them, you’re welcoming them.
This word greed is used to describe what you do when someone who is near who. Who is really present. That’s how close they felt like their eternal home was to them, that they could literally embrace it. They thought of the distant promise as being immediately present with them. Then they confessed.
They talked about what they knew was to be true in the same way that God asked us to share, to confess what we believe, what we are looking forward to, tells us that they sought it out. They were seeking this homeland. To seek. To sought here means to seek something, to inquire about it. So you have to imagine, before we had cell phones, before we had gps, we had an atlas, right?
And then we had a map. But before that, Mary’s mom talks about when they moved from Florida to North Dakota, they would drive as far as they could down a road, and they’d stop and say, we’re going to North Dakota. Where do we go from here? And somebody say, well, take that road. And then they would drive down that road as far as they could, and they’d stop and they’d say, we’re looking for North Dakota.
How do we get there? And then they. They drive that way. They were seeking to get as much information as they could from other people. And so it is, as we look to our eternal destination, we should be desiring to find out as much about it as we can, because that helps us through this life.
They desired a better place.
Desire means that they’re literally reaching out their hands because they’re wanting to grab ahold of something, something that they are coveting. And that’s a pretty strong word. It’s not just you like it, you want it so bad, you’ll do anything to grab ahold of it because you’re longing for it. That’s how much they didn’t want the land that they were living in. But they were looking forward to the future and that’s what helped them to continue in their faith.
They had this profession, this continual talking.
They were making it evident to others. They were causing them to see what they were seeing themselves. It was the profession of the saints in the Old Testament. And it’s the same way we’re to be professing today. Let’s go to Romans 10, verses 9 through 13.
And what we want to see here is the Gospel is something that happened in our past. We were saved, but it’s also very present and it’s also very future. And we tend to think of the gospel, oh yeah, that happened. I made a decision. We put it on a shelf.
But the Gospel is what keeps us going day by day in the ever present.
Look at the verb tenses as I read. You’re going to see that they’re all in the present in this passage. They’re not about the past. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It doesn’t say if you confessed and if you believed.
It’s talking about this continual confession of faith that we make. For one believes in the present tense with the heart, resulting in righteousness. And one confesses in the present tense, not just in the past with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who not called on the name of the Lord, but those who call today on the name of the Lord will be saved.
We should always think of the gospel in the present tense. It is what keeps us moving forward in our faith. The gospel is not just a past event in our life. It’s an ongoing event. It’s important that we were saved, but it’s just as important that we are being saved and, and that one day we will be completely saved.
You know, God wasn’t surprised by Adam and Eve’s disobedience. It wasn’t that they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And then God said, oh, I can’t believe they did that. I was sure hoping that they wouldn’t. Angels come together, let’s get in a huddle.
What are we going to do now? God wasn’t surprised. He already knew in advance that they were going to sin. He knew it was going to happen, and he already had his plan of redemption in mind. Revelation 13:8 tells us that God knew the names of all those that would be saved even before the earth was formed.
So it is the gospel is past, its present, its future in essence is. It’s just completely eternal in God’s mind. That’s the way it is. But not only are we supposed to have this profession of the saints where we’re speaking the truth about what we’re looking forward to, but there also needs to be a perception of the saints. And this has to do with not so much what we say, but it has to do with how we live.
The world needs to be hearing us profess our faith, but they need to be perceiving that it makes a difference in our life. Acts 16:8. When they had come together, they asked him, lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time? The disciples were hoping what they were looking forward to in the future was going to be right there in the present. They were looking to this restored kingdom.
And their idea of what it was going to be was not exactly what God had in mind, but they were still looking forward to this future time. And this was Jesus answer. He said, it is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. In other words, you don’t know when this is going to come about. But until then, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you.
And you will be my witnesses. My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Just like the disciples. Our life is supposed to be different. People are supposed to perceive there’s something different about us.
And we are supposed to proclaim the Word and we’re supposed to live out the Word. We are to profess and others should have a perception of us. They should have a perception of us that our faith is genuine, that our faith makes a difference.
They’re supposed to say, wow, there’s something different about that person. They’re kind of strange. Has anybody ever said that about you? Don’t raise your hand.
Someone said, wow, you’re different, you know, the Word is special, you know, you’re special, you know, well, that’s like bless their heart in the south. It doesn’t really mean what it sounds like.
We are to walk different, we are to talk different, we are to act different, we are to do different things and we are to think differently. And people should have that perception of us. And that perception is going to help them to grow in their understanding and their knowledge of what our faith really is. So we have to stop and ask ourselves, what is the knowledge and the understanding that people around you have of your faith? Do they perceive that it’s real?
Do your family and your friends and your co workers, first off, hear your profession of faith, but do they also perceive that it’s real and that you’re different and it makes a difference in your life here in acts, in faith, we’re looking forward to what we don’t have. We’re looking forward to a complete restoration of the kingdom. But in the meantime, we’re supposed to be witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith should follow the example of these Old Testament faithful that they persevered. Even when they thought about the past, they still continued where they were.
They had this continual profession wanting to learn more about the future, and they were talking about that. But people also had a perception of them, what they believed was real and true to them. That brings us to the next P. And we’re calling that today the permanence of the saints. The permanence of the saints. Let’s go back and read the text again.
They all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance. They greeted them and they confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. What we have now is not permanent. We’re looking forward to something permanent.
Now. Those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. It’s like, it’s wonderful to go on vacation, but it sure is good to come home and sleep where? In your house, in your bed. I mean, that’s just a small feeling of what it’s going to be like to get to heaven someday.
We’re finally home. And they were living in tents.
They didn’t have running water, they didn’t have electricity. It was not an easy life for them, but they were looking forward to a homeland. If they were thinking about what they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return. But they now desire what type of place? A better place.
They desire a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared not the countryside, not a desert area, but he’s prepared a city for them. And just like them, we are strangers. We are aliens, living as it is in Tents. But one day we will be known.
We will be seen as citizens of God’s eternal kingdom. And we will be there permanently. And we won’t have to worry about things changing, of losing our home or losing our job or things getting worse. It will just be constantly wonderful. So with that, I’d like us to just look at a few brief statements about what this home is going to be like, that we are going to and share a couple verses.
First thing is, there will be new heavens and a new earth. Secondly, heaven is a real place.
Then the physical creation will be renewed. Fourthly, our bodies will be renewed. We can presently store up treasures in heaven.
The new creation will be a place of beauty and joy. But living in God’s presence will be our ultimate joy. Let’s just look at a verse or two for each of these. There will be a new heavens and a new earth. It’s promised throughout Scripture.
I’m just reading today from Isaiah 65, 17 and 18. God said, For I will create new heavens and a new earth. The past events will not be remembered or come to mind. Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating. Okay, ladies, how many of you.
Your husband has one shirt that you really would like him to get rid of.
You know, but that’s my. That’s my best shirt. I’ve been wearing it since high school. You know, I’ve got one shirt that I have worn probably for at least 150 paint jobs. So you can imagine what it looks like.
I mean, it’s just covered with paint, all right? And Mary would not let me wear that out in public. But I don’t get rid of it because it’s what. It’s my paint shirt. It’s what I always pull out when I paint.
You know, God’s going to make a new heavens and a new earth just like my paint shirt. Someday it’s, you know, probably when I die, it’ll get thrown away and then nobody’s going to remember it what anymore. That’s how insignificant this world is. When we one day finally get to heaven and we realize that what we thought was so wonderful and what we thought was comfortable was nothing compared to what we have now. And we don’t have to be concerned that this earth is going to get worse and worse and worse and worse.
And we have to continue to live generation after generation, and it is getting worse because sin is having greater and greater effects upon the earth. But it’s all going to go away one day and God’s going to make it all, all new.
Next thing. John 14, 2, 3. Heaven is a real place. When you die, your existence does not come to an end. Your thoughts do not end, your emotions do not end.
You don’t just get absorbed into the eternal, whatever you want to call it. We’re literally going to be in a new place. And Jesus tells us that. Very strong language here in John 14.
In my father’s house are many rooms. Doesn’t that sound like a place to you? I mean, if I tell you I’ve got plenty of space at my house, you can come and spend the night, you’re going to assume what I have a house and I have a place for you. That’s what Jesus was saying here.
And he’s saying, if it were not so, if my father didn’t literally have a house with many rooms, would I told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you. He’s saying, if there isn’t a place, then I wouldn’t have told you that I’m going to prepare a place. That would have made Jesus a liar, and he is not.
And then he makes it even more certain. If I go away and prepare a place for you, then I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also. The literal reading there is that Jesus is preparing us a real place in a real heaven.
Next statement. The physical creation will be renewed. Hebrews 1:10 through 12. And in the beginning, Lord, you established the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands.
But all of these works, the earth and the heavens, it says they will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like clothing. You will roll them up like a cloak and they will be changed like clothing. Go back to my shirt. Mary would just love to roll it up and take it to Goodwill, right?
No, she would never take it to Goodwill. Nobody would buy it. She would roll it up and burn it or throw it in the trash. That’s what God is gonna do with this world someday. It’s with all of its holes in it, with all the effects of sin, with all of its disease, with everything that’s awful.
It’s. God’s just going to roll it up and throw it away. And like giving somebody a brand new crisp outfit that’s perfect, it’s clean, it’s pressed, you know, everything like you would want a bride’s dress to be on her wedding day with absolutely no flaws in it. God’s going to take off the old and he’s going to change the Clothing of the world. The physical creation will be renewed.
And thank the Lord we’re going to have renewed bodies so that we can enjoy the renewed world. That’s the next one. Our bodies will be renewed. First Corinthians 15. But someone will ask, how are the dead raised?
What kind of body will they have when they come? Am I going to have hair? Am I going to be taller? Am I going to be 16? Am I going to be 17?
You know, we just have all these questions, and Scripture doesn’t answer everything. But it says, you fool, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you are not sowing the body that will be but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. And we talked a couple weeks ago, like if you took a kernel of corn and you had no idea what that came from, think how surprised you would be to put it in the ground and see it grow into this plant that’s 7, 8, or 9ft tall and have tassels and leaves and bare corn. Our bodies are going to be that different.
We’re just a little bit. And we can’t really know what we’re going to be like because God is going to give us something that is much more wonderful than we live in now. He goes on to say in verse 42, so it is with the resurrection of the dead. We’re sown in corruption, but we’re raised in incorruption. We’re sown in dishonor, but we’re raised in glory.
We’re sown in weakness, but we’re raised in power. We’re sown a natural body, but we’re raised a spiritual body. And just as we have borne the image of the man of Dust, we will also bear the image of the man of Heaven. Now, on earth, when we plant a kernel of corn, we know that it’s going to grow into a plant. But then fall comes, and what happens?
It dies. That’s not going to happen with our heavenly bodies. There is no corruption, but there’s going to be incorruption, there’s going to be glory. There’s a beauty there that we can’t even understand.
And we get weaker and weaker as we age. But when we get to heaven, we’re going to have unlimited power to live. There’s not going to be a going downhill or a disintegration of anything sown a natural body. But now what’s special is we’re going to have a spiritual body that far surpasses what we have now, verse 51 says, Listen, I’m telling you a mystery. We don’t completely understand it.
He’s saying, but we will not all fall asleep, but we will be changed. That’s what you should put over a nursery. We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed. Talking about diapers. Okay, are y’ all getting.
Mike? Finally got it.
I had to help the early service on that, but I think they had forgotten what diapers were. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, it’s going to be this glorious, incredible, instantaneous thing. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed permanently.
The next thing is, we can presently store up treasures in heaven. Jesus said, don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moss and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store for yourselves treasures in heaven, or neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Some of you are saving for your next vacation. Some of you are maybe saving money for Christmas to buy presents for your kids. Some of you are storing up money so that you can retire someday and not have to work. But in this world, all of that disappear in just an instance. The stock exchange can change overnight.
The interest rates can go up. The interest rates can go down. Someday the government might charge you interest for you to save money because they’re wanting you to spend it. They can do whatever they want.
Jesus says, don’t put all your energies in that, but think. Think more about heaven. And what he’s telling us here is that we can store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where we know that the interest rate is always going to be good and things aren’t going to go downhill. And he doesn’t really explain what it means to store up treasures in heaven. But I imagine that part of it is seeing people that we love are there with us.
But I think it also has to do with the way that we live in this world. Our acts of righteousness, our acts of goodness, our acts of kindness are somehow storing up value for us in heaven. And we have several parables about this where Jesus said that the person gave those that worked for him talents, they gave him gifts, that they he left them with money, and he expected them to use that. And then when he returned, he gave him what he gave him blessings from that to use that point forward. Our lives are that way.
God has invested in us Things that we are to be using so that we can gain a reward in heaven someday for those things. Now, we’re not talking about whether you’re more or less saved, but when you get to heaven, if you are the servant that gained more, then you’re going to be given more. And in the parable, there’s a servant that gained little, was given little. The way you live your life is either storing up lots of treasures in heaven, storing up some treasures, or heaven, or hopefully not living the life where you’re storing up no treasures in heaven, because those treasures will be definitely permanent. The new creation will be a place of beauty and joy.
I’m just putting Revelation 21 we read this last week. You can read about the glories of heaven and the beautiful city. And I talked about how it’s like going up to a palace and you’re just thinking, wow, it must be wonderful on the inside because it looks so good on the outside.
Well, what’s on the inside is what our ultimate joy will be. And that’s the final statement here. Living in God’s presence will be our ultimate joy. Revelation 21 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. The main thrust of this passage is God where he is, that will be in his presence. That is what we are going to enjoy the most. And the psalmist understood this. In Psalm 27, he said, I’ve asked one thing from the Lord.
It is what I desire. And if you just stop there and think, well, what is it? He asked, and you don’t read forward. Did he ask for wealth? Did he ask for a kingdom?
Did he ask for wisdom like Solomon did? No, none of these things were important to him. The psalmist said that the one thing that he wanted was to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the Lord and seeking him in his temple. Just to sit and look at the glory of the Lord is the greatest thing that we can all experience.
Think about the wedding where the bride comes to the door and all of a sudden it’s just this wow moment. You ever feel that way? I like to look at the groom’s face because when the bride walks through the door, it’s definitely for him a wow moment. Whether he’s crying or smiling, whatever it is, think about seeing Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon for the first time. You just have no concept of it, until all of a sudden you see it and it’s like, what?
Wow.
Or you get on a roller coaster and you get to the top and you go over the top, and what do you feel? Wow.
Or somebody brings you a dish of food or a dessert, and you taste it and it’s absolutely the best thing you’ve ever tasted, and you go, wow. Or you hear a song for the first time if you’re a musician, or even if you’re not, and. And you think, wow, that’s just so beautiful.
Our earthly bodies are made to experience wow in small doses. If you’re on that roller coaster and you had a continual drop for hour after hour after hour after hour, you might not make it. Okay. We can only stand so much excitement. But when we have our heavenly bodies, we’re going to be able to handle wow continually.
Because if you took all of these wows and add them together, if you saw the bride at Niagara Falls coming over the edge of the Grand Canyon, you’re on a roller coaster and you’re eating something to listen to most wonderful music, and it’s all happening at once, you would just be overwhelmed. And that isn’t anything compared to what it would be like to be in God’s presence.
But not only are we going to be wowed, but we’d say, well, won’t we get tired of that? And the answer is no, because God is completely unsearchable. Meaning that we’re going to continually learn more and more and more and more about him, so that the wow is going to just get bigger and. And better and better and better.
It’s like when I went to Canada, we were driving along the parkway and we stopped to look at a lake, and I thought, wow, this is the most beautiful lake I’ve seen in the world. I always thought when they took pictures, they put special filters to make it look so green and so blue. Have any of y’ all been to look at lakes up there? Well, that’s really what they look like. And then we drove down the road, and he pulled us into another lake.
I thought, wow, this lake is even better than the first one. Well, we got to the third lake, and guess what? Wow. It was even better. It seemed like every place we stopped, it was better and better and better.
It’s going to be that same way with God. We’re going to continually learn more things as we go around each corner in eternity, because God is unsearchable. And we’re going to be prepared to live in his presence as our ultimate joy. We need to think more about heaven. Dying is not an awful thing.
It’s sad, it’s difficult, it can be painful. But it’s also wonderful for what it means for the believer that we will step over and to experience all that God has created for us. And that is what is supposed to keep us going through the difficulties of this life. May we pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have promised us a wonderful future.
Help us to be faithful. Holding on to that Father, professing it to others, and living out our life in such a way that people perceive that what we believe is real to us and just real. Period. In Jesus name, amen.