Better Possessions

Old Testament scripture reading is found in Psalm 89, 46 -52.

Please stand in honor of God's word. How long,

O Lord, will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is.

For what vanity you have created all the children of man? What man can live and never see death?

Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?

Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations with which your enemies mock,

O Lord, with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. Blessed be the

Lord forever, amen and amen. The New Testament reading is in 1

Peter 4, starting in verse 12. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a

Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify in that name.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will and trust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

You may be seated. Pick your

Bibles this morning and let's turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10.

I'm gonna begin reading in verse 19, as this is the point where our writer now begins to exhort and encourage us.

We've seen some of those already, but let's read these verses 19 through 39. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and to good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace?

For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the

Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.

For you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.

For yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith.

And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Let's pray. God, we're here again at this appointed time to open the word of God, to hear you speak to us.

We pray you would give us the ears to hear. I pray, Lord, that your people would leave here with hope today.

I pray, Father, that they would find that you have empowered us by your promises to live for you even in the worst of conditions.

So I pray that you would encourage your people, open their hearts, help them,

Lord, to learn, not just to learn more facts, but to change in light of the glories of your word.

We'll thank you in Jesus' name. Ever been at a crossroads in your life?

I know you have, probably several times you've been at certain places, crossroads. I remember being at a crossroads in 1985.

The Rue Baptist Church had asked if I would come and pastor here. Well, at the moment,

I had to decide if I wanted to come here or go to another church in Clayton, Michigan. I'd also been accepted into two graduate programs at two universities, and that was a possibility.

And so I'm at a crossroads. What am I going to do? Well, I looked back. Had I not been preparing for this for the last five years?

But also, I loved history and theology, and the programs I was going into allowed me to study both, and something

I've always wanted to do. Looking back, I said to myself, hadn't you failed just about every candidating opportunity you had before you came to La Rue?

And that's a whole story. You just blew it every time you went to a church. But I also looked to the future.

The future of teaching history looked rather bleak. And could I really be a pastor?

I mean, I had some real doubts about that. Some people said you might be able to do it. And the church at La Rue seemed to promise something that other churches did not.

And so there I was, looking forward, looking back, trying to figure out what to do. Now, obviously, you know what the decision was.

But you're at a crossroads, and oftentimes you find yourself at crossroads that help you see the course that you need to take.

Now, as we come to our text this morning, verses 32 through 39, we're at a sort of a crossroads in which the writer tells us to look back, and then to look forward.

To look back and to look forward. Now, remember that this book is intended to motivate you to persevere in the faith.

To motivate you to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus, and not to walk away from Him. That you must continue to believe, that you must continue to look at Him as your only hope.

And He's motivated us in that way by spending vast amounts of this book showing to us the superiority of Jesus, that He's greater than anything that could offer any help and hope to you.

It is, He is the only one. Why leave Him when He's your only hope? And He's also encouraged this kind of perseverance by giving us a number of warnings about the judgment that awaits those who do abandon their hope in Jesus.

And just last week we saw the danger of falling into the hands of the living God, if we walk away from Jesus.

Now, He doesn't leave that theme of perseverance, that theme of steadfastness here, as we look at verses 32 through 39.

But our writer encourages you to endure by pointing you first of all to the past, and then pointing you to the future.

You're at this crossroads, as it were. So let's look at our text this morning, verses 32 to 39.

But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised for yet a little while, and the coming on will come and will not delay.

But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Now hearing this text, you detect that the readers are no strangers to persecution for Jesus' sake.

There was a time of suffering and endurance that they had experienced already in the past.

They'd already been through a number of things, so suffering, struggles, that had happened in the past.

And quite possibly now, they're entering a second wave of persecution, or another wave of persecution is on the horizon.

They did well the first time, but now that it looks like, now that they're experiencing it again, their faith is beginning to waver.

And so he says to them, first of all, recall the former days. He says, let's look back, all right?

You're in the midst of persecution again, or you're seeing it coming, let's look back for a moment.

In verses 32 through 34. He says, look back at the hard struggle with suffering you endured in the past.

It was in the days when they first embraced the gospel. It was when they were, as he says, those days when you were in the midst of persecution.

It was when you were enlightened, when the gospel came to you, and you embraced Jesus by faith.

And by embracing Jesus, you entered into that period of persecution. And he says, do you remember the struggle you had in the past?

Let's recall that, he says, recall those former days. You were publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, he says, verse 33.

They were subject to dishonor, disgrace, maybe even discrimination. Certain things were not gonna be allowed to you anymore.

You were going to be ridiculed, disgraced. You were publicly insulted and humiliated.

Hey, hey, look, he's a follower of Jesus. Wasn't that that crazy criminal they crucified a few years ago?

He's a follower of that guy? Or even today, you're a Christian? You call yourself a

Bible -believing Christian? How can you live with yourself, with all the hate and the bigotry that you show toward transgender people?

How is it that you can even live with yourself, you hater? You might even come to the point where it says, hey, we've got no room in this company for haters like you.

Tomorrow's your last day, right? It may have involved imprisonment and beatings.

He talks about affliction here. There was something, a hard struggle going on.

Sometimes, he says, you were partners with those who suffered reproach and affliction. That is, you did not shrink back from your brothers and sisters who had been identified as followers of Christ.

You know how that is. You see a coworker who's a believer and people start making fun of him.

For you to identify with him and to stand with him means that you will be subject to the same treatment.

And he says, you stood in solidarity with your brothers and sisters. You openly said,

I'm with him, knowing that to be identified with him would mean that you would suffer the same thing that he was.

Oh, so you're one of those bigoted haters too, are you? You sympathize with those in prison, he says in verse 34.

Again, you stood in solidarity with those who are in prison. Again, such kind of sympathy would attract attention to you, which would then mean that you would be exposed to the same thing.

Now, think about a system not like ours, where before you get thrown in prison, you've gotta be indicted, charged, have a hearing that leads to a trial before you go to prison.

Not so back then. Most of the people to whom he's writing are not citizens of the Roman Empire. Only one third of the people who lived in the empire were citizens.

That meant you had no legal protections. If you went and saw someone in prison identified with him, you could very well end up in prison with them in the next few days.

So when he says you had compassion and sympathy with prisoners, he's talking more about, I really feel your pain.

He's talking about the fact that to identify yourself with someone in prison may mean that you land there too.

And he said, you did that. You were in solidarity with those who are in prison. And then the one that strikes me the most, at least it strikes me the most, you joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property.

Can you imagine having your house, your vehicles, the contents of your house, your land, and any buildings on it, gone, taken away from you, and you are homeless?

I want you to think about that for a moment. I think about my little two and a half acres where I live. I've mowed that lawn for years and years and years.

And I've worked there. I've been there. We've lived there. There's memories there. All the things that go with that.

I'm trying to think what would happen if that was just taken away from me. And he says, you accepted the confiscation of your property with joy.

Now, put yourself in that place. Would you be joyful if you lost your house and your possessions?

I'm gonna let you think about that for a moment. Right? I may lose my car, right?

I may wreck something, I may lose something, but to have it all taken away from you, and then to accept that with joy, that's amazing.

You know what? They took seriously the radical life that Jesus has for us when he said, rejoice and be glad when you face persecution, for great is your reward in heaven.

Jesus said that's the way we ought to be. And these people were that way. Now, the question is, what was the key to such extraordinary endurance?

How did they do it? Look at our text. Here's how they did it. For you, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one, look carefully, it was faith.

They believed the promises of God. They believed the promises of God.

Okay? Turn over to Revelation 21 for a moment. I want you to just, this is just kind of a snippet of the promises of God.

Revelation 21, verse one. Now, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Drop down to verse 22. And I saw no temple in the city, for the temple is the

Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the

Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the

Lamb's book of life. He says to them, you believe the promises of God.

You knew you had other possessions that last forever. What's he talking about? He's saying, you believe the promises of a reality with no tears, no tears, no more decay, no more death, no more sickness, no more pain, a reality where there are no more enemies.

And in fact, there is going to exist perfect love and harmony between every human being for eternity.

No more arguments, no more misunderstandings, no more assumptions, no more hiding, perfect relationship with every human being.

The joys and delights of what human beings can produce, and all of it done within the eternal presence of a

God who loves you forever. That's what they believed was coming.

That was the possessions they had. So you ask the question, is that future reality as real to you as the present one?

Is that as real to you as the present one? Is that worth more than the possessions you now have?

Is that reality yet to come to pass? That reality of perfect, unbelievable harmony and love, and it's a reality that we can hardly imagine, but it's true.

Does that mean more to you than this? Does escape from ridicule and hatred now compare to perfect love for eternity?

Does comfort provided by the possessions you've had maybe for 50 years, does the comfort you get from those possessions, does that mean more to you than the comfort that you're gonna have for eternity?

When you compare the two, what is most real to you? You see, they had this extraordinary faith that said,

I believe the promises of God, and he has something better, and I can escape,

I can find comfort, and I can escape hardship now, but there is that that goes on for eternity.

Which is more important? He says, remember, rekindle that kind of faith.

You did it before, you can do it again. He says to them, falling away from the living

God doesn't fit with the amazing changes that marked your lives in the past.

It doesn't fit, you can do it. Now, let's face it, most of us here have not even experienced a first wave of persecution yet.

We haven't even experienced that. Now, some of us, I mean, we're getting to the place where we're gonna be, we're insulted.

We're insulted publicly. We are called horrible, horrible people who hate our children if we don't let them have gender -affirming surgery.

We are the ones called hated, right? We're the haters because we believe that, because we believe that there's something better than that.

You see? We are marginalized, we're insulted. We may be marginalized now. Let me ask you this, how have you handled that so far?

Even that bit, that little bit? If you're gonna handle even the little bit now, the same faith is required.

You must believe God's promises, and you must count them of greater value than the ease of escaping hardship now offers you.

That's of greater value than trying to escape by not identifying as Christians, by keeping our mouths shut, by not identifying with others who call themselves

Christians. The comfort and the ease that's promised us now by doing that doesn't compare to what's yet to come, does it?

That's what he's calling us to do. But he says you also have to take into consideration the future, when all of this ends and Jesus comes to judge.

So, he says, look forward, beginning in verse 35. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance.

You endured in the past, you can have need of endurance now, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.

For yet a little while in the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

He says now, look forward. Look forward. Look forward to the great reward that is ours.

What is that great reward? It's the eternal life that he's promised. It's the eternal life that are the subject of all those promises that he's made.

It is eternal life that awaits us. Look forward to that reward. But that reward is not yours if you throw away your confidence.

Here's the warning. You will not get that reward if you throw away your confidence. Don't throw away the confidence you used to have, that faith in God's promises that you exhibited in past persecutions.

You were confident of that. Notice, true faith is a confidence that God will certainly give us what he has promised.

He says you were confident of that. Don't throw away that confidence. You know what confidence is?

Last week or the week before, my tooth started really hurting and I was getting a bit worried because I'm going to a place where you don't want to go to the doctor or the dentist.

It's not like the medical stuff we have here. And I was thinking, oh man, should

I say anything? Maybe it's temporary. What do I do? Ah, I was a little bit, you know, worried.

I did not want to go overseas and have pain for three weeks and not know what they do.

My guess is if I went to the doctor in Romania, they'd just look at it and get their pliers out and pull it. And by the way,

I don't know if the pliers would even be sterilized. Be that as it may. I went to the doctor.

You got to get a root canal. I called the endodontist and it was like, yeah, we can get you in November 17th, that kind of stuff.

And I'm going, oh man, and I'm calling all these places. I finally find one that says, yeah, we'll take care of it.

And from that point on, I wasn't, I didn't think much about it anymore. Why? Because I had confidence that that guy could do the job and fix it, okay?

That he could do the job. So I was confident in what he could do.

I was confident that I was headed to Romania in good shape because that guy knew what he was going to do.

That's what he's talking about here. The kind of confidence that says, oh, I know, I know it's going to happen. I know that what

God has promised, he's going to give me. A writer says, do what you did in the past. Continue trusting

God and his promises. Continue with that confidence that you have in God.

He's saying to them, conclude your lives. As we look forward, he says, conclude your lives in the same way that you began.

Now again, this is something about the nature of true saving faith. I hope that from this book, you are getting an understanding of what true saving faith is.

It is not a one -time decision. It is a living, continuing trust in Jesus.

You don't abandon your trust. You've heard me say it many times. I'm going to say it again because I think we're all, not that you're thick -skulled, we all are.

And that is, I have confidence in Jesus today.

Not back when I was whatever it was, eight or nine years old when I made a profession. I have confidence in Jesus today.

And I'll have my confidence in him tomorrow. It is, true saving faith is a continuing reliance on Jesus.

You know, marital love is like that. How do you know you love someone?

Because thick or thin, you stay faithful to that spouse. Thick or thin, you're going to stay faithful.

You may remain loyal to one person. That's love, you see.

It's continuing. It's a continual loyalty. I want you to keep in mind what we confessed last week at the end of the service.

It's appropriate here. Saving faith may exist in varying degrees so that it may be either weak or strong.

Yet even in its weakest form, it is different in kind or nature from the faith and common grace of temporary believers.

Therefore, faith may often be attacked and weakened, but it gains the victory. Even a weak faith, even a weak faith is enough.

He's not talking about, you got to have this incredible strong faith. He's talking about even it can be a weak faith, a weak faith that says,

I'm going to continue to believe in Jesus, even though you might be faltering in your steps, even though you might be hesitating.

Yet you still take those steps of faith. You still believe. And so he says then in verse 36, all right?

In verse 36, don't throw away your confidence. What should you do? You need to endure.

You need to endure. You endured in the past and endurance is required again as this second wave of persecution comes sweeping over you.

Endurance is still required. And that endurance means what? Notice what he says, doing the will of God.

Endurance is in the midst of persecution. You continue to do the will of God. Well, what is that will?

You don't endure by running and hiding or denying. You do the will of God.

You endure the insults. You endure the discrimination and the afflictions. You will identify with other believers when they're oppressed.

You will accept the confiscation of your property. You will do the will of God. You will continue to believe and do what

God says, even in the midst of persecution, when the pressure is on and tells you, no, don't do it.

There's an easier way out. But that endurance brings the enjoyment of God's promise, that eternal life that he promised.

You must endure to receive the promise. Again, look at those promises.

They're amazing, aren't they? They're amazing. Would you give up that perfect, harmonious existence that goes on forever in the loving presence of God, everyone getting along.

Getting along, more than that, they're doing everything they should with one another. All the wonderful things that come that Jesus promised.

Would you give that up for the temporary acceptance that comes from deflecting the insults and the afflictions?

Would you give that up for the temporary pleasure of earthly possessions? Would you give that up for the temporary comfort of avoiding prison?

Would you give all that up just to have some temporary comfort and ease right now?

Now, here's what I want you to see. And if you forget everything that I say today, don't forget this.

Listen carefully. You've got to see that God imparts the power to endure by giving you a promise to believe.

I'll say it again. God imparts the power to endure.

By giving you a promise to believe. That is the fuel of your perseverance.

That is the fuel of your steadfastness. The promises of God, the greatness and goodness of his promise far outweighs, far outweighs the inconvenience and even the horrors of persecution.

They far outweigh what we're going to face here now. God imparts the power to endure by giving you a promise to believe.

Always remember this. God commands much, but promises more.

God commands much, but he promises more. Now, just so we get the point, our pastor quotes scripture to make this point.

It's probably a combination of some verses from Isaiah 26 and Habakkuk 2, verses three and four.

And he is essentially saying those prophecies, those things are fulfilled in Jesus when

Jesus comes to judge. And since Jesus will come, you must not shrink back in unbelief, but continue steadfast in the faith.

Don't shrink back in unbelief, but continue steadfast. Again, here's the warning.

To shrink back in unbelief will court God's anger, not his pleasure.

It means, he says in verse 39, it means destruction if you shrink back in unbelief.

You say, well, how is it shrinking back in unbelief if I want to avoid all the hardships that come with persecution?

Because if you really believe the promises, you would, if you really believe the promises, you would go on.

It's more than just knowing the promises, you actually believe those promises. You know, for several years,

I would go with the sixth graders to Camp Ohio. Every year, Elgin sixth graders went on a trip to Camp Ohio.

And it was like three days, almost like three days at Camp Ohio, and I went every year, whether I had kids or not,

I always went. I thought it was a good thing to do. And so I would go. And one of the things they had at Camp Ohio, they had all variety of things for the kids to do.

One of them was the high ropes course, the high ropes course. And what it was is way up in the trees, they had built this course out of ropes, you know, rope ladders to crawl across, swinging from one platform to another, all kinds of things to do on these ropes, which are pretty high, right?

They say, what are we doing? Sending our kids to their deaths? No, because each one wore a harness that had two bungee straps attached to it.

So if they fell, they would not fall to the ground. They all had a harness on.

But fascinating to see these kids. They'd be up, some would be up there, ah, crying, and hugging the trees, and acting like they're gonna die if, ah!

And no matter how much encouragement or even anger you shouted at them from the ground, they would sit there and moan and cry and hug the trees.

And yet there were some other kids who'd be clambering around up there like a bunch of monkeys. Who would just do it.

What was the difference? Those kids who clambered around believed the harness would help them.

The other kids who were hugging the trees and crying like a bunch of babies, they, they had the harness on too.

They had the harness on too. But they didn't believe it. They had it, they knew it, but they didn't believe it was gonna do anything.

They were scared to death, all right? That's what it means.

You shrink back in unbelief. They didn't believe it would do any good. If they did, they would do, they would go through the course.

And the same thing is true of us. If we really believe the promises, we will continue.

We will remain steadfast. We will not shrink back in unbelief.

Now let's be honest now. I'm gonna be honest. It looks like tough times may be on the horizon for us.

I'm no prophet, I don't know, I pray that God would intervene. But we may face some kinds of persecution.

Some of the same kinds mentioned in this passage. It's a possibility. You need to think about the fact that Christians who refuse to do abortion because they want to remain faithful to God may end up with no career in medicine no matter how much they want it.

It may be that Christians in a few years from now will not be able to be teachers because they're not gonna go along with all the stuff that comes with the transgender stuff.

You may have to say, I can't be a teacher. All right? We're just talking about what you can't do.

We're not talking about what may happen to you. I am, I don't know, but it is entirely possible that men like Pastor Andrew and I will spend time in prison if we dare talk to a child about transgender issues.

A minor. There are already ordinances on books, or at least the attempt to get municipal ordinances along those lines.

It may be that that's going to happen. I don't know, I hope not. I hope

God shows mercy on us. But the point I'm trying to make is simply this. Now is the time to know and rehearse the promises of God.

Now is the time to familiarize yourself with those promises. Now is the time to load up on the fuel for your perseverance.

Don't wait. Now. Know them. Know them.

Get to know them, dwell on them. And yet he looks at them and says, you can look forward to all of this with confidence, he says, verse 39.

Why? But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and persevere, preserve their souls.

Our pastor friend believes that the God who worked in them long ago will continue his work. That the warnings he pronounces will be the means that he uses to keep them, and the promises he makes will provide the fuel for their endurance.

He's convinced of that. You need to be convinced of that too. You need to be convinced that as you know and exercise faith you will too remain steadfast.

So then how will you handle the suffering that inevitably comes in some form or another to anyone who claims

Christ? Well, you need to know the promises of God.

You need to rehearse the promises of God. You need to live in the promises of God.

Now, you need to ask yourself, does the promised bliss of the future mean more to me than the temporary comfort of the present?

Which means more? Will I look only at what's happening now, or will

I look to that future reward? God's calling us to remain steadfast no matter how hot or how hard it gets.

And we can, we can. He will remain faithful to us.

He has given us his promises. Father, thank you for your word, which amazingly shows us what the world is like, shows us what our hearts are like, and shows us what you are like.

Thank you for the promises that you have made us. You've not left us to deal with what comes our way on our own, calling us to draw on our own strength.

Rather, you give us strength as you show us the promises. Father, help us now to know, to rehearse, and to live in the promises of God.