A Better Possession (Hebrews 10:34)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews chapter 10, we're going to read together beginning at verse 32, we'll read through the end of the chapter, verse 39,

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Hebrews 10. But remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

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For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

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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 was promised.

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For yet in a very little while, he who is coming 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.

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But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

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Bow our heads. Our Father, we now ask your blessing upon our time of study in your Word. We have sung to you and expressed the sentiments of our hearts, and now we come to your

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Word and we ask that we might hear your voice in the pages of Scripture, that we may understand this text, understand it rightly, that we may be able to see in the passage what you would have for us in our own day, in our own lives, be able to apply your

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Word to our lives. And we pray that you would use your Word to create in us strong resolve, hope, and a heart and mind that is sober and ready for action and fixed upon the coming revelation of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and all the glory that will attend to that, that it belongs to those who are yours by faith in your

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Son, in whose name we pray. Amen. In the last few weeks, we've been looking at the realities of Christian persecution, the hostility of the world, the inevitability of that, and how unbelievers treat those who are believers.

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And we have been calling this the reproach of faith, seeing that those who bear the reproach of faith will receive the reward of faith.

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And we are called to not only receive that reproach and to embrace it, but also to do so with a certain joy and happiness.

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And that seems completely counterintuitive, doesn't it? It seems counterintuitive to suggest to somebody that you could endure the hostility of the world and receive their reproach and endure tribulations and the seizure of your property and becoming a public spectacle and to share with those who are treated in that way and to be imprisoned and yet to respond with grace and with humility, but also with an outward expression of joy and delight and even happiness in the midst of those circumstances.

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That is counterintuitive, and yet it is the very response that is often implored upon us through Scripture.

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When Scripture tells us how to respond to these things, it says we are to do so with joy. The book of Philippians is a study in this bizarre response to outward persecution and stress.

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The Apostle Paul, suffering imprisonment in the city of Rome, wrote the book of Philippians and one of the main themes of that book is joy and rejoicing.

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You see it all the way through that book. And then when you understand the context in which Paul was writing and what he was experiencing under house arrest, facing a trial before Nero, possible execution for what they said were crimes against the state, even in the midst of that,

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Paul writes this letter that is brimming and overflowing with references to joy and rejoicing.

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That is to be an example, and that is an example for how we are to respond to the world's hostility to suffering and affliction, even the kind that is described here in Hebrews chapter 10.

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Now you might say, how is that possible to do that? How is it that Christians can respond to the seizure of their property, trials and tribulations, being made a public spectacle, suffering and enduring the reproaches of a hostile world that hates the truth and hates the light?

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How can we endure that and do so with joy? You might think at first glance that the way to do that is to ignore your circumstances, to pretend that reality is not reality, to just put it out of your mind and say to yourself,

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I control what I think about and so I'm not going to think about any of the bad things that are happening. I'm not going to think about any of the difficulties that I'm facing.

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I'm just going to ignore this and I'm just going to pretend that real isn't real and that my present is really not as bad as it is.

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Or I'll just deny that it's actually happening, kind of live with my fingers in my ears and my fingers over my eyes all at the same time, however you might do that.

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You maybe need four hands to accomplish that. But hear no evil, see no evil, be aware of no evil, deny all evil, and that if I could just put it out of my mind and deny it and pretend that it's not existing and just make my mind think that reality is different than it is, if I can do that and not have it anywhere in my mind, then

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I can have joy. Well, that's not the response that Scripture commands us to have. We're nowhere told to pretend that reality isn't real and we're nowhere told to put it out of our mind or to not think about it or to deny that it actually is happening at all.

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We're not commanded to do any of that. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The author of Hebrews says, remember the former days when you endured a great conflict of suffering.

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Instead, this is so counterintuitive. We are to remember it, to fix our mind upon it, to mull it over in our mind, to remember it, to count it out as it were one by one, and consider the great conflict of sufferings that you have endured.

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Scripture's answer is not to deny the times are getting tough. Scripture's answer is to be aware of the tough times and then to handle it appropriately.

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That's what we're looking at here in Hebrews chapter 10. We are to live our lives in joy, receiving from the world whatever the world is going to bring against the church and to do so with joy and with happiness and with delight, accepting it as it were from a deep sense of joy within our own hearts and our own minds, and that not because we are ignoring what is going on around us but instead because we are fixing our eyes and our hearts and our minds upon realities that are yet future, not our present but our future.

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So joy comes not from denying what is going on right now but from remembering what is going to go on in the future of which you and I are predestined and absolutely secured participants in that glory.

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And since that is going to happen and since we have our part and our portion in that future, we are to fix our minds and our hearts upon the future, that's where joy comes from, not by ignoring the present but by remembering the future.

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That's what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 10. You are to remember those trials and afflictions, be aware of that, here's all that you endured, then you get down to verse 34, you showed sympathy to the prisoners, you accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, where does that joy come from?

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It comes from knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. That's the source of the joy.

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In fact this idea of reward is a theme that comes all the way through the end of chapter 10 and all the way through chapter 11 as well, this reward that is coming to those who are the righteous.

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You see it in verse 34, you have a better possession and a lasting one. Verse 35, you have a great reward.

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Verse 36, you will receive what was promised. Verse 39, you have faith to the preserving of your soul.

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These are the rewards that come to the righteous and then all the way through chapter 11, that's one of the main themes.

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This person endured in faith because he looked forward to this. This person endured in faith because he looked forward to this.

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Over and over again through chapter 11, it is the reward that is ahead of them that allowed Abraham and Noah and Moses to endure the hostility that was set before them in hopes of receiving that reward that was promised.

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The author is constantly putting our minds, not necessarily off of what we are enduring now, but fixing our hope in our mind of what is sure to and we are sure to enjoy in the future.

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That's the idea. So we have looked last week at these two different groups of sufferers, those who had endured the reproaches and faced the hostility, endured the tribulations and had been imprisoned.

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And then there were those who shared with those and who were so treated. So there's two different groups. Today we look at verse 34 a little bit more about what they endured, the seizure of their properties and then why it is that they endure it.

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So today we're going to look at what they suffered, the seizure of their property, how they suffered it with joy. And then why were they able to endure that with joy?

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Because they knew they had for themselves a better possession and a lasting one.

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So what is it that they suffered? The seizure of their property. This is an intriguing glimpse, this statement, this passage is an intriguing glimpse into the life of the

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New Testament church. I wish there were more detail given here, don't you? You endured, you accepted joyfully the seizure of your property.

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What property was seized? What precipitated this? At what point did this happen?

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Who was responsible for it? Were they plundered by religious authorities in Jerusalem, the

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Sadducees and the Pharisees and the high priest? Or were they plundered by Roman authorities, Roman soldiers?

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Did this order come down from the civil magistrates of the Roman authorities or the religious magistrates of the

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Jewish authorities in the city of Jerusalem in the land of Israel? Was it their religious community that did this?

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Their former Jews who they once had worshiped with in the temple who now that they had become Christians those people turned them in?

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Or was this their own family members that were responsible for plundering their property? And what was plundered?

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The means of making the income itself? Is this the result of them losing their jobs and so their stream of income seized up?

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Did this happen on multiple occasions or was this a one -time thing? Somebody came in and just took all of their possessions and that was it?

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Or was this something where they were just held out to public scorn and mockery and time after time people just came and took whatever it is that they possessed?

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I wish I could have answers to all of those questions. It really is an intriguing glimpse into what our early

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Christian brothers endured. How often did this happen? How severe?

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What was the results of this? To how many people did this happen? The language that is used here, the word translated seizure, gives us some idea of what was going on.

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The language is telling. It's a graphic description and even a violent word that is used here. It suggests something coming in and grabbing something suddenly.

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So the English word seizure or having your possessions seized is an apt description. That's a good translation of that.

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It describes a violent grasping, a violent greedy grasping of their possessions.

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The word is only used three times in the New Testament, once here and twice in two of the Gospels where they're used in parallel passages.

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I'll read to you one of the passages, it's Matthew 23, verse 25. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self -indulgence.

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That's the word robbery. That gives you a vivid picture of what's being described here, right? It is to have something taken by force, threat, or violence.

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It is the plunder, the taking of the booty, the robbery, or the rapping of somebody's possessions.

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It is a violent, greedy, sudden seizure of their possessions, which tells us that whatever went on here was unrighteous, unjust, and unlawful.

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And even if the government should make it legal to seize someone's possessions, that doesn't make it right, nor does it make it lawful, nor does it make it righteous.

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It still can be unjust, and it still can be, though legal in man's law, illegal in terms of God's law, because it can still be unjust and unrighteous and wicked for a civil magistrate to do something like that.

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So maybe this happened at the hands of their family members or their former friends. Maybe this happened at the hands of civil magistrates.

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If they did that, then of course this is the unlawful and unrighteous and illegal seizing of their possessions.

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But notice that this happened because they were believers. Their possessions were not seized because of a bad investment.

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Their possessions were not lost because of a stock market downturn or hyperinflation due to the fact that government back then spent more money than has ever been devised by God or man, and so it resulted in the lessening of all of the value of their earthly possessions.

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Not that. It's not the downturn in the economy or the unwise use of their resources that caused this.

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They were targeted because they were Christians. This is a targeted, unlawful, illegal, unjust, violent abuse of these people and their lawful possessions.

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In the history of mankind, we have seen this over and over again where some classes of humanity are treated as less than human and less than protected by the law.

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We do this all the time. We've done it in our past as a nation with black people where we treated them as property.

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We did that 150, 200 years ago. Today, it's happening to white people in South Africa where they and their possessions and their persons are not treated equally before the law, and they have become targets.

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It's slowly turning that way in our own culture where just being white makes you guilty of something even if you aren't guilty of anything.

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Just the fact that you have white skin makes you guilty of that. Just the fact that you're a man makes you guilty of whatever offense.

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The unborn are not given any kind of classification as human beings in our day, and so the unborn are treated in the same way that blacks were treated prior to the

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Civil War. We always have this ability in humanity to take a class of people and treat them as second -hand citizens, deprive them of their rights, and target them, and seize what does not belong to us.

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We've done it over and over again. All of humanity has done it, not just the United States. This is the story of human history in every nation, every culture, on every continent that has ever existed.

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Wherever you have two people existing in the same place at the same time, this happens.

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It's just the story of humanity. We're not any more guilty of that today than we ever have been, but we are guilty of that today just like every nation on earth is guilty of the same thing today.

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This is a group of people that was targeted Christians, and they were targeted merely because they professed a faith and belief in Jesus Christ, and so they had their property seized.

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The word for property here describes the base means of living. So here we get some idea of what it is that was taken.

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This is not their Bernie Sanders' third house on a lake somewhere. They're not saying, well, we had our second home seized, or we lost our fifth car, and we're down to four flat -screen

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TVs now instead of five. It wasn't anything like that. This describes their means of living, the base and elemental aspects of their possession.

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They had their food taken. They had their drinks taken. They had their clothing taken. Their houses were seized.

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These people were left destitute without anything. These are not ancillary possessions that they had somehow given up or had taken away from them.

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This is the base elements of their living, the base elements of their provision, what they needed to exist.

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So this results in them being made absolutely destitute and exposed to everything because of what was taken from them.

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So it wasn't part of their possessions. They were rendered destitute and exposed because of it. That was the seizure of their property, the violent taking of their basic staples for living.

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How did they respond to that? Well, of course, they took up arms and revolted.

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You see that in verse 35. You don't see that at all, do you? What did they do? They accepted joyfully, and by accepted, we don't mean that there was an offer and they volunteered for this, right?

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Like, hey, anybody want to be plundered here this week? Have your possessions seized? Oh, call on me,

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Mr. Cotta. It wasn't anything like that. It's not that they accepted it, they volunteered for it, like they had a choice in it, none of that.

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This came to them. This volunteered them, themselves. They had this happen to them.

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They didn't ask for it. It's not something that was offered to them that they chose. It was outside of their control.

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They didn't vote for this. They didn't want this to happen. But when it happened, they accepted it, not in terms of, yeah,

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I want this to happen to me and I'm gladly embracing this, but the way in which they received these events that were outside of their control, they received it with joy.

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They did so joyfully. That describes gladness, a joy, and a great happiness. This is what is so counterintuitive to us, isn't it?

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To have all of that taken away from you and yet to respond with joy, happiness, and gladness.

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You're gonna understand how they were able to do that here in just a moment, but this is how they responded. I'm tempted at this point to take a little bit of an excursus and talk about the biblical doctrine and teaching on the subject of joy, but I think that probably most of you are familiar enough with that that I won't do that.

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I would just simply remind you of a couple of things. First, joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, meaning this is something that is produced inside the heart of a believer, and an unbeliever has no capacity to respond in this way.

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An unbeliever has no ability to experience the type of joy that we are describing here inside of their own being when something like this happens to them.

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Unbelievers do not have that capacity. Second, it is not situationally dependent. We can have joy in all things and in all circumstances regardless of situations or our circumstances because circumstances do not create this joy, and if circumstances do not create this joy, then circumstances cannot take this joy.

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This joy is something that transcends circumstances, so it's not situationally dependent. It is, in fact, truth dependent, meaning that this joy comes from me having an abiding and right and proper understanding of a number of things.

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First of all, myself and what is true of me, or you understanding this and what is true of you.

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So joy comes from me knowing that all of my sins are forgiven, all the weight of my transgression has been laid upon another, and I bear none of its sin, none of that shame, none of that guilt anymore, and that this is not just something that is true of me temporarily or provisionally.

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It is something that is true of me eternally, and it can never be reversed. That sin and that shame, that guilt can never be put upon me.

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There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, and that I am secure in that position that no matter what happens in this world, even if everything is taken from me,

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I can still be joyful because I know that eternally all of my sins have also been taken from me, and that can give me joy.

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So I have joy because I know of something that is true of me, that I have been redeemed, that I am a child of God, that I am under his hand, that I am sealed by the

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Holy Spirit, that I have been justified, that I am being sanctified, and that I will most certainly be glorified, and because I know all of that,

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I can have joy in the midst of any of those kinds of afflictions. It is because joy comes from knowing something that is true of my situation, that it is under the control and the administration of a sovereign

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God, and that before you had ever lived even one day in this earth, every last detail of every last one of your days was written out for you in a book,

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Psalm 139, and God mapped out and he knew the content and the events of all of your days before there was yet one of them because he knit you together in your mother's womb, and if I can remember that,

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I can accept joyfully the seizure of my property because I know that the seizure of my property does not take

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God by surprise, does it? Well, that seizure of my property happens to be the content of one of my days, one of my days, which was written for me before there was even yet one of them.

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So if it's in his book, and he has ordained this, and God has ordained whatsoever things shall come to pass, and if he is sovereign, and he is providentially working out his own will, and he has promised that everything that happens to us, and everything that happens around us, and everything that happens during our lives works out for the glory of his name and the good of his people, if I can remember that, then

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I can have joy in the midst of circumstance. I can have joy because I remember the truth, I remember what is true about the future, the truth about the future, that there is a reward, that the wicked will be punished, the righteous will be rewarded, truth will be vindicated, and every wrong that is ever done to a child of God will be punished, either upon Christ on the cross because he bears the sin of those who wrong us and then later repent, they're his child, or they will be born in hell for all of eternity on the back and on the head of the one who commits that wrong.

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But because I know what the future holds, I can have joy in the midst of those circumstances because my joy is not circumstance dependent, situation dependent, it's truth dependent.

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It comes from understanding what is true regarding me, regarding God, regarding the future, regarding all things that happen and come to pass.

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This is why Acts 541, after they suffered for the faith, it says, they went out of their way from the presence of the council rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name.

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James 1 -2, count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Jesus said, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

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Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. Jesus didn't say rejoice and be glad because the suffering is fun.

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He didn't say rejoice and be glad because it really doesn't hurt, just pretend that it doesn't. He doesn't say that. He says rejoice and be glad because your reward in heaven is great.

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Look past the moment of suffering, the seizure of your property, the horrible things that are happening, you look past that to the future and understand

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I have in heaven a reward that is great and if I have in heaven a reward that is great, I can rejoice not in the suffering but in the midst of the suffering because I'm rejoicing in something else that suffering cannot take away, namely my better and lasting possession.

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This signals to the world that something about you is different when you respond this way to their trials and tribulations, their reproaches.

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It tells the world something's different about this person. We go kill this group of people and they respond a certain way but when we go over here and we try and do this to Christians, their response is entirely different.

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That's entirely different because unbelievers don't have the ability to respond the way that we do. We can do this because we have the fruit of the

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Holy Spirit. We can do this because we have an eternal inheritance. We can do this because we, of all people on the face of the planet, have the ability to look past this world and fix our minds and our hopes on the world that is to come.

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But if this world is all that you have, I feel sorry for you for one, but if this world is all that you have, then when somebody comes in and they take this from you, then you're going to respond appropriately.

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You're going to respond as if, well, you're going to respond as if this world is all you have. And if you live for this life, then when you lose it, that is going to be a hard loss because if this life is all you have, then

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I can understand why you would be upset if somebody took it from you. But if you know that you have a better possession, then you also know that when you lose this world's possessions, it cannot faze you because you have a better possession and a lasting one.

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You see, what produces the joy is not the affliction and the suffering itself. It's not the persecution. What produces the joy is not the pain.

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People who receive joy out of pain need to have their head read. That's not what produces joy in us.

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What produces joy in us in the midst of the pain is understanding what is yet future, knowing the truth about these things.

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They were not joyful because someone seized their possessions. They were joyful because they had possessions that no one could seize.

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That's the source of their joy. They weren't happy. They didn't stand by and applaud the seizure of their possessions.

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They weren't happy just in that. They were happy because they understood that they have a better possession and a lasting one.

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That's the end of verse 34. We aren't joyful because we endure suffering. We're joyful because we know that in spite of the suffering, that God is working through the suffering an eternal weight of glory that is not worthy to be compared with anything that happens to us in this world.

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And if I can keep my mind and my heart fixed upon that reality, then suffering cannot take any of that from me.

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We aren't joyful that the wicked are triumphant now. We're joyful in the way that Psalm 37 describes joy, which we read earlier.

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For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while, and the wicked man will be no more, and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there.

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But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. When you know that, when you can believe that, when you can see that with the eye of faith and know it to be true, you can have joy when all of your earthly possessions are seized.

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Because you can say to yourself, this fool's taken everything that belongs to me. Oh, well, one of these days

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I'm going to dwell in the land, I'm going to delight myself in abundant prosperity, I'm going to enjoy the land,

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I'm going to dwell in it, I'm going to abide in it with the saints of old, I will have all of that, and none of those things can be taken from me by the wicked, none of them.

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Now why were they joyful? They were joyful because, you see, it says they knew that they had for themselves a better possession and a lasting one.

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Now there's a bit of an interpretive issue that we need to deal with here in this text and a bit of a translation issue that I want to bring up and make you aware of in the text.

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Because there is a textual variant in the New Testament manuscripts, I'm going to get to that here in just a moment, there are a couple of different translations.

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So as I read it in the NASB, if you had a different translation like a King James, New King James, or ESV, you might have noticed that they phrased the translation a little bit differently.

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Here are the various ways that it's translated. The King James says, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and enduring substance.

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Knowing in yourselves. The New King James says, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

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One you know in yourselves, one you know for yourself, or you have for yourself. The NASB says, knowing that you have for yourselves.

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And the ESV, the English Standard says, knew that you yourselves had a better possession. So this all boils down to what is the significance of this textual variant and what is the use of the word yourself there mean?

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What is it amplifying or modifying? So there are a number of different ways of understanding it in terms of interpreting it.

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There is a textual variant, as I said, and what I mean by that is, and you look at all the Greek New Testaments that have come down to us from which we make our

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English translation, there are some differences at this point in the wording of the manuscript. Some words that are there that are not in other manuscripts, some words maybe that are not there that are in other manuscripts.

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So there's a variant here. And all the variant means is that somewhere along the line, somebody probably either incidentally skipped a word or added one for clarification, and that has come down to us.

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So the translation is going to be determined by which of those Greek texts you think most accurately reflects the original.

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And that's why we have a variety of translations. Now it can be interpreted a couple of different ways, and here are some ways that it could be understood.

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You possess for yourselves. So that would emphasize that this is your possession. In other words, that you possess this.

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You yourself possess this. Not that this belongs to your brothers and sisters in Christ, but you possess for yourselves, emphasizing you are the one who possesses it.

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Or you yourselves possess, restating it as the one that is what you possess.

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You have this massive thing for yourselves. Or you yourselves know you have, which emphasizes the reality of what they knew to be true.

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In other words, the author would be saying, look, you know this. You yourself know this, simply reminding them of what they in themselves know to be true.

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Or a fourth option is that you possess in yourself this great reward. This is the way

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I think that John Owen took it, and it's with great fear and trepidation that I disagree with John Owen on almost anything.

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But at this point, I think, I feel like I have to. I don't think that what is being described here is an inward, something that we have in ourselves, which is the great reward of the better possession, right?

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You have in yourselves a better possession. That means that I would look into my faith, my assurance, what's in my heart, what

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I know to be true, my knowledge of these things, something inside my heart. That would be my better possession. I don't think that that is what the author is describing here.

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However we understand it, though the translation might differ, the interpretation would vary a little bit, the point of the passage, it doesn't matter how you translate it, the point of the passage is the same.

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Namely, that you possess something that cannot be taken away from you by the enemies of Christ. That's the point.

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Whether it's in yourself, whether it's you yourselves know this, whether it's emphasizing the possession, your knowledge of the possession, your hope for the possession, whatever it is, the point is the same.

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You possess something that cannot be taken away from you by the enemies of Christ. I don't think it's something subjective,

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I think it's something objective, something outside of us, something that is yet future, something that belongs to all Christians, something upon which we can set our hope that is yet future to us,

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I think that that's what's being described. I think that that's what's being described because in chapter 11, example after example is given to us, not of an inward knowing or an inward awareness that is their better possession, but something outside of them, external to them, that was their better possession.

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We'll get to that here in just a moment. They have a better possession. Hold on one second. Very sorry, still working on my voice.

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They have a better possession. This idea of better is something that is all the way through the book of Hebrews. We've seen this comparison, right, between the things in the

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Old Covenant and things in the New Covenant. We've seen that Jesus Christ is a better high priest, belonging to a better priesthood, who made a better sacrifice, offering a better blood, and provides for us better intercession, securing us in a better covenant, built upon better promises, providing us a better rest.

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That's just a few of the betters in the book of Hebrews. Well, here's another better. You have a better possession.

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And this one, a lasting one. Better in comparison to what has been seized. You have endured the seizing of your property, but you do this because you know that you have property, you have a possession that is yet better than anything that they have or can take away from you.

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And I think that this possession, and this is the key, what is the possession? What is the better possession? I don't think it's any one thing like, well, you have heaven, or you have

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Jesus, or you have a crown, or you have a reward. I don't think it's any one thing.

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I think that what the author is signifying here is an all -encompassing description of everything that the righteous will inherit.

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An all -encompassing description of everything that the righteous will inherit. So this is an objective future reality.

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It is not a sense, or a feeling, or an inner faith, or an inner assurance. It is something outside of us.

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It is something that we currently possess. But listen, we have not yet received all of it.

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We've received some of it. It's ours, just as certain as God is God. It is ours. It belongs to us.

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It has been secured for us by the work of another. So it is guaranteed to be ours.

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It is guaranteed that we possess it even now, though we have not entered into it and received it just yet.

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What is being described here? It is an all -encompassing term to describe everything that the righteous will inherit.

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Let's begin with what I think is probably foremost on the mind of the author here in the immediate context, and I say this because of Chapter 11.

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I think that he is describing here, at least in part, the kingdom promises of the Old Testament.

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When he goes into Chapter 11, what are the examples that he gives? Abraham, Chapter 11, verse 10,

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Abraham was looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Look at Chapter 11.

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Read with me verses 13 through 16. Chapter 11, all these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them, and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

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For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have opportunity to return.

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But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their

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God, for he has prepared a city for them. What are we looking for? It's the thing described in Psalm, Chapter 37.

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The righteous will inherit the land. The righteous will dwell in the land forever. The righteous receive the land.

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The righteous will abide in the land. Over and over again, the prosperity of the righteous is the fulfillment of all the

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Old Testament promises regarding the land and the people of Israel living in that land. And now, we as Gentiles incorporated into the new covenant by a better blood built upon better promises, we get grafted into that.

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We get to enjoy all of those eschatological blessings as well. Chapter 11, verse 22,

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Joseph, by faith, commanded that his bones be taken up out of Egypt into what? Into the land. Why? Because he knew that someday he would be resurrected and he would dwell in the land.

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That was his hope. Moses looked to the reward, the bringing in of the land and receiving the land. And so, he spurned all the treasures of Egypt, Chapter 11, verse 26.

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Psalm 37 describes the righteous inheriting the land. There is a kingdom to come. We will dwell in that kingdom for a thousand years on this earth and then all into eternity in an everlasting kingdom that will never come to an end.

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First, the earthly description of that in Revelation 20 will fulfill all of those Old Testament promises given in the

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Old Testament to the Jewish nation regarding their dwelling in the land. It will fulfill all the promises of Psalm 37 that the righteous will inherit the land.

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We are to look at that kingdom promise and realize we get brought into that, that glory of that paradise, that kingdom that will be in this world where truth and righteousness will rule and reign for all of that time.

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We get to enjoy that. We get to be there for the substance of that. We're not going to be just spectators of that.

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We get to be participants in that earthly kingdom and that earthly glory. We possess the kingdom, and that's not it.

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Because after that thousand years is up, there is an entire eternity of blessing and grace that has opened up to us and that becomes ours when all of this world is burnt up and there is a new heavens and a new earth created.

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And then that heavenly city comes down whose architect and maker is God, a city that has foundations, a heavenly city.

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We get to dwell in that as well. That is the glory that awaits us. That is our inheritance.

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Peter describes it this way. 1 Peter 1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance, which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

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Peter is writing to suffering Christians who are facing hostility, opposition, and persecution for the faith.

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And he says to them, you have been born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ to a living hope so that you will obtain an inheritance.

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And here's how he describes our inheritance. It is imperishable, it is undefiled, it will not fade away, and it is reserved in heaven for you.

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And at that point, the readers of Peter's epistle could have thought to themselves, well, it's kept in heaven for me, but I'm facing hostility and opposition and persecution here on earth.

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What is the guarantee that I will ever see that thing that is reserved in heaven for me? I could say to you, look, I have a cheesecake reserved for you at my house.

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But if you're never able to get to my house because I don't give you the directions, I keep it a secret so that I can eat it all myself, but you're never able to get to my house and take possession of that cheesecake, then what good does it do for me to reserve it there for you?

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Well, Peter says, you are protected by the power of God. You want to know what guarantees that you will see your inheritance?

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The same power of God that saves you and causes you to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that same power keeps you so that you cannot be lost, so that you will ultimately receive the inheritance that is reserved in heaven.

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It is the same power of God that keeps my inheritance there reserved for me, is the same power of God that keeps me so that I cannot fall away, that I cannot be lost, and I will ultimately receive that inheritance.

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A glorious picture. Persecution can't keep that from happening to me. Hostility of the world can't keep that from happening to me, receiving that inheritance.

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1 Peter 5 .1, Peter says, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witnesses the sufferings of Christ and partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed.

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Acts 20 verse 32, Paul says, I commend you to God, to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

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Paul describes Jesus' commission to him in Acts chapter 26 .18 this way, that he was to go to the Gentiles to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.

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Notice the emphasis on inheritance. Ephesians 1 says that we have been given every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Jesus Christ.

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Ephesians 1 .11 says, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.

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Colossians 1 .12, we give thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. Colossians 3 .24,

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knowing from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. What is the better possession?

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It is everything that the righteous look forward to enjoying, all of it. It's an all -encompassing term to describe the blessings of the land, the blessings of the kingdom, the blessings of the king, the blessings of salvation, the spiritual blessings that were given in Christ, the inheritance that is kept for us while we're being kept for the inheritance.

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It's all of that. Everything that is yet future, everything that comes to the righteous is this better possession. We get all of it.

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Salvation, forgiveness, a preserved soul, the gift of faith, the gift of repentance, justification, sanctification, glorification, being conformed to the image of Christ, the reward for your faithful service, your admittance into heaven, eternity in the presence of God to enjoy pleasures at His right hand forevermore, eternal joy, eternal comfort, eternal rest, glorified bodies, your participation in the resurrection to life, the thousand -year reign and rule of Christ in this earth with His glorified saints in a paradise, your service to Him in that kingdom, your rewards for your service to Him in that kingdom, ultimately the new heavens and the new earth, all things are yours.

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Truth and triumph and righteousness and every good thing that is to come is secured for you in Jesus Christ.

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It is preserved for you by Jesus Christ, and He is keeping and preserving you for all of that inheritance.

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That's what you get. That's what your future holds. That is better than anything that this world has to offer.

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And listen, if the world takes everything from us, all they're taking is monopoly money.

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That's all they're taking. They're taking nothing of any lasting value. They're taking nothing of any eternal nature.

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They can't take anything that is going to be here for any length of time at all. It's all going to be burned up.

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You can actually sit back and laugh at the fools for taking all of your stuff and think to yourself, you're just taking everything that's going to be burned up.

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If a thief broke into your house and stole your flat screen TV and he's walking out laughing at you, you could be laughing at him if you knew in fact that that flat screen

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TV didn't work. You're taking something that is of no value. You accepted joyfully the seizure of the property knowing you have a better possession.

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Yeah, you're just taking funny money. You're just taking monopoly money. You're taking possessions. All that's going to be burned up. It doesn't work.

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Guess what? The righteous inherit the land. We get all of it.

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Everything that belongs to our God and to our Christ, we will possess. We possess it now.

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We just haven't entered into the realization of it yet. It is certain, it is lasting, it is reserved in heaven for us, and your glorification is already reserved.

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Your glorification is already secured. Now you might say, but Jim, you say this is true.

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There is this inheritance there. I don't possess it now. I don't see it now. It's described for me in Scripture.

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It's talked about in Scripture, but I'm here and I live here and now. I have people right now that they hate me, that wish

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I were dead for the cause of Christ because I stand for the cause of Christ. I have people right now that reject me. I'm suffering things right now.

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Probably going to suffer some things in the future, and you're just describing these things. Everything you've said for the last 45 minutes is just words.

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It's just words describing that inheritance. I haven't actually possessed any of it right now. I'm not in a kingdom.

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Truth and righteousness are not reigning right now. So what do I do with this right now? This is why, it's almost as if the author might even anticipate that objection from someone, which is why in chapter 11, verse 1, he says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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You see, most of the stuff that I've described to you that I just listed off to you here is stuff that you can't see. It's things you hope for, things you've set your affections on, but it's not something that you can see.

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In Hebrews 11, 1 says, faith, saving faith, takes those things that we cannot see, those things that we hope for, and treats them as if I possess them now, sees them as if they're in my possession and I am enjoying them now.

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It is the eye of faith that looks forward to those things, the future reward, and says, I can have my emotions and my affections and my desires and my response to things in this life informed and molded and shaped by those future realities because I know by faith that those things are certain and assured.

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Yes, I only hope for them. Yes, I cannot see them now, but by the eye of faith, I see them as if they are actually there and real, and I will treat them as such.

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And therefore, all of my way of responding to the hostility of the world comes as a result of treating all of those things that I cannot see as if I could actually see them, because that is what faith does.

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Faith gives you the eyes to see your future eternal reward as if it is just as real and present now as it will be 10 ,000 years from now when you have received it in full.

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This is why Peter says in 1 Peter 1, verse 13, therefore, prepare your minds for action.

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Keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Fix your hope completely. On the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Just a few verses from Psalm 37. Depart from evil and do good so you will abide forever. For the

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Lord loves justice and does not forsake his godly ones. They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.

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The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. Wait for the Lord and keep his way and he will exalt you to inherit the land.

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When the wicked are cut off, you will see it, but transgressors will be altogether destroyed. The posterity of the wicked will be cut off, but the salvation of the righteous is from the

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Lord. He is their strength in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him.

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You will inherit the land and the righteous will dwell in it forever. That is his promise. Faith is the assurance of those things that we hope for and the conviction of what we do not yet see.

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Have that assurance of things hoped for and that conviction of things you do not see and you will accept joyfully whatever

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God has appointed for you. Let us pray. Father, we rejoice in your goodness to us, in your promises, and in your word, and in your truth.

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We know that one day the righteous will rule in this world. We know that one day all of the nations and all of the kingdoms of this world will belong to our

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God and to his Christ. And he will rule them with a rod of iron. It will be truth.

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It will be righteousness. It will be justice. We long for that. And we know that while we are in this world and the wicked prosper and the wicked enjoy their triumph now, we know that it is short -lived.

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And we pray that you would fix our minds and our hearts upon these things. Help us to remember what is ours in Jesus Christ, what is yet future.

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Help us to see them as if they actually are even right now our possessions, for they are ours. They do belong to us, even though we have not experienced them yet.

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We know that they are secure, and we know that we are secure in Christ. And there is nothing that can thwart your purposes for us.

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So give us grace to fix our hope entirely on the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ, and thus to be sober -minded and alert and ready for action.

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We pray this in Christ's name. Would you please stand and sing with us as we close out the service this morning?

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It is well. It is well with my soul.

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It is well with my soul.

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It is well, it is well with my soul.

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Though Satan should come, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul.

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It is well with my soul.

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It is well, it is well with my soul.

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My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole.

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It is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the

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Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.

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It is well with my soul.

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It is well, it is well with my soul.

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And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound, and the

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Lord shall descend, even so it is well with my soul.

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It is well with my soul.

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It is well, it is well with my soul.

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Let's sing that a cappella. It is well, it is well with my soul.

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Sing it out. It is well, it is well with my soul.

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May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. Have a great week.