The Hope of Glory

Grace Reformation Bible Church iconGrace Reformation Bible Church

2 views

Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 23:1-20

0 comments

00:00
I'll know it's time to stop preaching when I hear stomachs growling a chorus of stomachs as we anticipate this covenant feast
00:10
And certainly that that is something Very exciting. I don't know why
00:16
I'm so loud here that may come in handy later. We'll see well, we are here in Genesis chapter 23 and We're here really at a conclusion at this point in the narrative of Genesis this is for all intents and purposes the conclusion of what we might call the
00:39
Abrahamic cycle within Genesis and Though Abraham survives well beyond chapter 23 the the focus shifts toward Isaac Already in chapter 24.
00:51
So as far as the storyline of Abraham being the central figure It really ends here in Genesis 23
01:00
Last week we considered Abraham we considered his climactic trial upon Mount Moriah We considered why the scriptures call him the model the father of all those who have faith
01:14
We saw how he is the father of faith par excellence the man of faith according to Paul and Romans Who in Romans 4 verse 20 said
01:26
Abraham was strengthened in his faith And he gave glory to God and he was fully convinced that God was able to do all that he had promised
01:36
And there we saw at the end of chapter 22, perhaps more than ever before Abraham's faith when it was trialed in that call to give up his son his only son the son whom he loved
01:48
Isaac and We read in Hebrews 11 beginning in verse 17 by faith
01:54
Abraham when he was tested Offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son
02:01
Of whom it was said in Isaac your seed shall be called and he concluded that God was able to raise him up even from the dead
02:10
From which he also received him in a figurative sense And so we're exhorted earlier in the same letter to imitate those
02:18
Who by patience and faith inherit the promises now this morning we come to the death of Sarah And we're going to look at that in three parts first The first two verses the actual death of Sarah secondly the burial of Sarah will begin to develop that a little bit more and then lastly
02:38
More moving toward application the hope of glory. So the death of Sarah the burial of Sarah and the hope of glory
02:46
We read beginning in verse 1 Sarah lived 127 years these were the years of the life of Sarah and So Sarah died in Kuriath Arba that is
02:58
Hebron in the land of Canaan Notice how significant that is. It's just these little reminders.
03:04
Sarah is mentioned three times by name Sarah Sarah Sarah in the land of Canaan in the land a long time ago
03:14
God had called her and her husband out of her to enter into according to promise and Abraham came in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her
03:25
We have no details between the end of chapter 22 and the beginning of chapter 23 It's not recorded.
03:32
It's not given to us to know what family life was like for the next 25 years or so approximately
03:39
We know that Abraham passed that trial We know that Abraham understood more about God's grace in his life perhaps now he has more of a sense of the revelation that There is going to be a way in which this seed of promise
03:57
Factors into all that God has promised not just to me But even to those who came before me
04:04
The promise that God would give a seed that would crush the head of the serpent that would undo all of the effects of the curse from the fall and having passed that trial having received more of the fruit of faithfulness that God had cultivated in his heart
04:23
Abraham must have been resolved and As the years pressed on and and even as those years led to the decline of his wife those years also saw
04:34
Isaac become a man and this little boy this Perhaps this young lad this
04:40
Adolescent maybe when he was on Mount Moriah is now a man my age And at the same time that his boy is becoming a man and going from strength to strength
04:53
Looming over his elderly parents Sarah's declining Those little early signs of decline the forgetfulness the weakness
05:03
Maybe she's scared now to be in a crowded tent She's not able to do the things she used to do and the day comes as it must come when the wages of sins
05:15
Entrance into the world when the rain that now exists through Adam's fall reaches even
05:21
Sarah and she dies And we stop and we pause and we consider all that she's been through we consider the works of God that she beheld
05:32
The calling of God the mercy of God the divine protection of God God was protecting
05:38
Sarah so many times throughout the Genesis narrative we consider decades of her patient trust and Her trials trials that were put before her when
05:49
Abraham was willing to throw her into the harem of some local warlord or king
05:55
We consider the trials that she brought upon herself and her bitterness toward Hagar and her
06:01
Distrust of God and how the seed would come given that she was in her old age.
06:06
We consider her graces Her manner her disposition her faith that had grown and become
06:12
Sanctified God had begun a good work and now he had completed this work in Sarah's life only
06:20
Now can she enter in to the joy of her master the master that she had learned to follow
06:26
So many years ago when she was called out of her in times of failure and regret but living by faith through grace that God supplied and it was sufficient for all of her needs and It was sufficient as she lay in her tent unable to leave it
06:43
It was sufficient when she was on the last throes on her deathbed that grace was sufficient as Sarah died
06:50
And precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of this princess the mother of the faith
06:57
It's been a while in the narrative of Genesis since we've encountered the death of God's chosen
07:03
We've seen death in the Abrahamic cycle, but we haven't actually seen it in those Genealogical refrains and he died and he died and he died with almost no detail whatsoever
07:15
About the life of these faithful within the line of God's promise Just the the repeated emphasis and he died and he died and he died and we finally come to chapter 23 and she died
07:30
But the narrative slows down and it zooms in and we're not just given the fact that she died
07:36
But we're given the impact of her death. And so there's nothing clinical here But rather there's this sympathetic portrayal of the effect of Sarah's life
07:46
She was a wife we get a sense of just how virtuous a wife she was from first Peter 3
07:56
Peter uses her as the example of how the godly women of old adorned themselves And so he looks at the bossy young wives and the gossipy widows and he says to them
08:08
Don't let your adornment be merely outward Arranging the hair wearing gold putting on fine apparel rather.
08:16
Let it be that hidden person of the heart With the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God For in this manner
08:29
So here's divine commentary In this way in this hidden person in this quiet and gentle spirit precious in God's sight
08:39
The holy women who trusted in God adorned themselves being submissive to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed
08:46
Abraham Calling him Lord whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.
08:53
So Sarah becomes an example This is how she adorned herself Peter says
08:59
Sarah had a gentle and a quiet spirit within her and she was precious in the sight of God how blessed
09:06
Abraham was To have a wife with that kind of virtue How blessed
09:12
Abraham was to have a holy marriage? Not a perfect marriage as we've seen
09:18
But a holy marriage nonetheless not by virtue of their own holiness But by virtue of God's presence and God's supply of grace to them.
09:26
She was a wife Consider the impact of this wife
09:32
Consider the impact of her faithfulness how utterly Impossible would it have been for Abraham to do anything that God called him to do if Sarah had not been by his side his support his comfort his help if Sarah had not been the co -laborer and the heiress according to promise then
09:57
Abraham could not have even taken so much of a step out of her and So God's faithfulness to Abraham is in part demonstrated by his faithfulness through Sarah and As Christian husbands, we know this is always true
10:15
That we're not able to do anything that God has called us to do if our Wife is not that faithful help meet our support our confidence our encouragement
10:27
And One of the precious few who knows all of our words and still loves us all of our shortcomings and still and still is that Warm embrace that that smile and so no wonder
10:45
Abraham came To mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. This is the great patriarch the man of faith
10:53
Mourning for the wife of his youth. She was this beautiful princess renowned even among the
10:59
Empire of Egypt for her beauty and That beauty may have wilted in the twelfth decade of life physically but it became so much more beautiful in the eyes of Abraham as He reflected on this life.
11:13
They've lived together and all that God has done between them and through them and for them And so we have this picture
11:23
This blessed marriage what a blessing it is to endure To the sunset of life in a
11:29
Christian marriage. What a blessing to be in a believing marriage with God's presence and when physical health and physical beauty give way the memories and the experiences and the trials and the tempests
11:51
They become more endearing more beautifying to that marriage May we never be tempted to think otherwise or be neglectful of our marriages may we strive
12:03
To have this kind of impact On each other to model this out
12:09
To a world that knows nothing of this it used to be commonplace To grow up and have to go to a 50th wedding anniversary
12:18
That's a rarity nowadays. How much more rare is it going to be in the next 30 to 40 years?
12:27
It's a good thing for us to model out this singular devotion this willing support this tender delight and We see it when
12:38
Abraham comes to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her there's a lot of discussion in the commentaries about how to understand that is there a
12:49
Differentiation between the ritual mourning that would have been culturally appropriate but also the personal
12:57
Subjective weeping and perhaps that is something it's enough to say Abraham came to mourn, but it says more than that He wept for her
13:06
Jesus wept for Lazarus and that was not ritual weeping. He wept Peter wept when he betrayed
13:13
Jesus The Ephesian elders they wept upon the neck of Paul when they knew he was to be taken from them.
13:22
We don't read of Abraham Weeping for Isaac when he's under the impression that he must sacrifice him, but here he's mourning for Sarah Abraham knows
13:35
God's desire is not to raise Sarah Yet not in Abraham's earthly lifetime.
13:42
And so he mourns And he weeps if he followed the customs of the time he would have torn his garment
13:53
You can picture Isaac all of the servants all the retinue around him
14:00
We see in a few verses. You're a mighty prince meaning like you're you're a very formidable
14:05
Warlord among us, you know got a lot of servants and your reputation precedes you and yeah, we're not gonna mess with you
14:12
You can imagine this whole retinue hovering around the door of that tent Sarah is in that bed and Abraham approaches her torn garment disheveled hair and he weeps
14:27
He scoops up Dust and puts it over his head He's wearing sackcloth
14:36
He fasts he's looking God. He's mourning the death of his wife Sarah had been by Abraham's side for a century and so it's not surprising that this man of God wept and he mourned over the loss of his wife and I think perhaps more than ever
14:59
Abraham is able to see In the passing of Sarah Just how far
15:05
God has taken him? Just how amazing this call of grace has been over the course of the life of Sarah who would have thought back when
15:17
I was a young man and her of the Caldeans that my Infertile wife my barren wife would be in this land with these promises with Isaac our boy
15:28
Knowing that the day will come when we'll be heirs Who would have thought I remember when my my grandmother on my dad's side passed and my grandfather
15:42
She had been declining for a long period of time and it was not so much a question of if but when and so I think emotionally my grandfather was able to prepare for that kind of brace for the impact of that loss put things in order and Throughout all of the
16:01
Arrangements and Arriving early at the funeral home, and he kind of assembled the family
16:07
We all sat around the whole time. He never really showed any emotion at all as is typical with the loss of a loved one
16:14
Right often everyone else is at a place where they can mourn and those who are the most impacted by that loss
16:20
Are not are not able yet to truly mourn and so they're in the position of actually comforting saying it's okay
16:26
We're okay, and then the morning really begins after the fact But I remember being impressed by how
16:34
Comforted my grandfather seemed and then he stood in front of us at the room and the first thing he said was she was my best friend and he just broke down and Just captured in those words.
16:45
I think were the summary of all that She had been to him throughout all of their life together.
16:50
She was my best friend I've lost my best friend and that must have been how
16:56
Abraham felt She was my best friend I Never had anyone in this life like Sarah Who else could
17:05
I turn to? Who else could I weep with? Who else could
17:10
I show the things that I'm wrestling and struggling those things that are? Consuming me or filling me with anxiety who else would straighten me out?
17:18
Who else had the kind of clout in my life to come to me and rebuke me? No servant would dare look me in the eye, but Sarah would march right up to me and straighten me out
17:28
She was my best friend and Sarah was not just a wife.
17:34
She was a mother We can almost imagine just how close this relationship was She had the best world of being the age of a grandmother in the position of a mother.
17:45
That's like the best She actually appreciated every single moment that she had
17:50
Isaac even in the midst of that decline How often would she have been on her bed grasping her hand saying here boy?
17:56
Come here boy. Come here, my boy Lay next to your mother. Let me smell your hair. Let me embrace you
18:03
I love you Isaac and we get a sense of of that intimate bond that Isaac had with his mother.
18:11
In fact in the next chapter we read when Isaac brings Rebecca home He brings her into Sarah's tent and we read he took
18:18
Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her and so Isaac was comforted after his mother's death
18:26
This is three years later Isaac still needs to be comforted for the loss of Sarah Doesn't that tell you something of the impact this woman made upon Isaac?
18:39
That he needed to wait all these years and and pursue Rebecca just to have some comfort some solace
18:46
To fill something of the void that this mother had left in his life
18:51
She was a wife. She was a mother It doesn't that speak to the impact this woman of faith had
18:59
Doesn't that tell us something about the power of that quiet gentle spirit? That hidden person in the heart that is so precious in the sight of God How powerful that is?
19:11
to family members and friends It's interesting that so often we we want to emulate and we read biographies of and we admire the great heroes of the faith and they tend to be the stout lion hearted bold heroes
19:25
What whether men or women? But something tells me that if you went into that family circle, there'd be more stories told about Susanna Spurgeon than Charles More about the wives of Adoniram Judson than Judson himself
19:41
This is something about the impact the impact of a virtuous woman a virtuous wife a
19:50
Virtuous mother. It's a sad thing when children have little regard for their parents.
19:59
Maybe even no regard for their parents I have a neighbor who despises his parents
20:05
He's a he's a he's an adult. He has boys of his own It breaks my heart He has such a
20:13
Such a negative stance toward his own parents that he can't relate even with his with his in -laws
20:20
He has a hatred really toward any parental authority We were exchanging things to listen to so he recommends atheist podcasts to me and I returned the favor and One one of the thinkers that he enjoys listening to published a whole book about how we owe our parents nothing and Society can never change for the good until we break the illusion that somehow we owe obeisance to our parents
20:48
This is the kind of thing he fills his mind with you know an unbeliever can have the the worst childhood the worst upbringing and In Christ by his grace find something redeemable about it something to be thankful for Some way to respect parents who failed them at almost every turn
21:12
That's what an unbeliever can do in a believer can do in Christ for an unbeliever They can have the very best childhood and have nothing but unthankfulness ungratefulness
21:22
Nothing but hatred I deserved more The difference that Christ makes it is a sad thing a tragic thing it's an evil thing
21:32
When children have little regard for their parents or no regard at all. But here we get a sense of Sarah's conduct and Abraham's love for her and Isaac's love for her and the impact this woman of faith made and so that's our eulogy for Sarah She died and we're having this sort of sermon eulogy for her
21:56
She's a mother of the faithful When scripture points to Abraham, she's not far behind.
22:01
She's always by his side Listen to me Isaiah says you who pursue righteousness and seek the
22:07
Lord Look to the rock from which you were cut the quarry from which you were hewn Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who gave you birth
22:16
She's the mother of those who have faith Hebrews 11 11 by faith Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age because she considered him faithful who had promised and so she too is the mother of all those who believe and now we look at the burial and I Won't take the time to read through the verses again
22:40
But I do want to highlight this exchange what takes which takes up most of chapter 23
22:46
We read at the beginning about the death of Sarah We understand that Abraham wants to secure a place of burial and at the end he does so and there's a conclusion to that but the bulk of chapter 23 is in this negotiating this transaction between Ephron and Abraham now, of course in the ancient
23:08
Near East and this is still somewhat the case in Middle Eastern culture Generally, you're expected to haggle over prices and this is just a textbook setup for haggling
23:18
We don't do that very typically in the West the sticker price is the sticker price
23:23
If you go to a yard sale, maybe there's a little room a little leeway given to negotiate
23:30
But for the most part you don't walk into a store and say yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry cashier at Walmart $3 .99
23:37
for beef jerky. It's not gonna happen. Listen two bucks, right? You can't haggle but in most marketplaces in most parts of the world you could in fact you were expected to I remember being a teenager
23:48
And we went down to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and I had my mission to get a Folex a fake
23:55
Rolex And I knew that it was expected to haggle and so I'd find the street vendors
24:00
You always hope you get a real one. That was stolen off some businessman. No I Don't I don't think the real ones were out in the street vendor cart, but I remember how
24:11
Empowering it was to haggle, you know, and my dad would kind of be giving me tips He'd say let's try another one.
24:17
You know, you were a little too easy on that. Let's try this one So the next vendor I'd be go 70 toucher.
24:22
You're crazy. No, see you later. Hold on my friend my friend Wait, you know, let's listen 40 40 tops, you know
24:29
So the haggling would commence and this has all the ear markings of that it's exactly what you would expect
24:36
The first thing is you sort of offer to give it away. Okay. I'm so generous here I can just give it to you and that's death.
24:42
You never take that up That would be the most shameful thing you could do. No, no, no. No, I'm gonna give you full price Essentially now you name your price and he does well
24:51
The land is clearly worth 400 shekels of silver and now the having is supposed to begin.
24:57
Oh, you know Certainly it is my lord, but please will you not consider 50 and then maybe 300 and then 100 eventually you kind of find the middle
25:05
Ground, but Abraham just says he's kind of like the worst negotiator of all time 400 shekels sold
25:12
You didn't even have What are you doing? If anything, there's almost shame now on on the other side now
25:20
Efron's in this position of I really robbed this guy. I started out with something
25:26
Astronomical 400 shekels is all sorts of money I mean every scholar agrees even a thousand years later 400 shekels would have been exorbitant
25:36
I don't know how inflation works at this point in time. We don't have Reaganomics But 400 shekels is a lot of money for instance
25:45
David when he Negotiates for the land on which the temple is built.
25:51
He only pays 50 shekels and he says You know,
25:56
I'm going to pay something And the price is paid and so the king pays this somewhat hefty some not for a king like David but a
26:07
Decent sum of 50 shekels for the land upon which the temple is built 400 shekels
26:14
And you don't even need the field. You're just you're paying that just for the cave and the fields kind of thrown in there
26:20
I don't really actually need the land. I just want this cave And so what's going on here is it that Abraham is just a clueless negotiator that he's really a poor steward and lousy with money
26:32
No, not only is gaining a parcel of land a step forward and what God has promised
26:38
Abraham Well, remember that also part of the promise was Abraham would bless the nation and so in this almost
26:46
Foolish display of generosity just kind of name it. It's yours. I'm gonna lavish this upon you
26:53
Abraham's also taking a step forward in blessing the nation's Remember that Moses is writing this for Israelites who are about to enter the land how instructive this would be for them
27:05
For those upon which you'll dwell as neighbors. You must have this generous instinct This is how you must regard them
27:12
You must show them honor and treat them generously and in so doing you will be a light to the nations
27:18
They will say who is the God that these Israelites serve? verse 4
27:27
Shows us of course the most important part Give me property for a burial place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight
27:35
Which would have been an idiom. He's not saying get it out of my sight. It's just a it's an idiom It's a it's an appropriate way to speak of burial
27:44
What Abraham asks for literally is a holding for a grave or you could translate it give me a possession for a burial place and That's really a significant term because it's used later in Genesis as the holding or their possession of The promised land we see it in chapter 17 in chapter 48 and later on It's always connected to the possession of the land by the
28:12
Israelites according to the promise so Abraham's already Connecting the purchase of this cave at Makpola to the promise of God's inheritance within the land and not only does
28:24
Abraham recognize that but Isaac does and Jacob does and even at the end of Genesis Joseph gives instructions for his bones to be brought back to the land
28:33
Why burial? Why burial? this passage
28:41
Genesis 23 Singularly begins the entire biblical Theology of burial that will become the most significant factor for Jewish funerary practice through the rest of Scripture and still today here in chapter 23, we have a theology of burial
29:00
Why burial why go to such a great length and such a great cost a body to bury the body of Sarah?
29:08
Abraham is sowing the seed of the body as it were by faith in the hope of the promise in the
29:16
Recognition that there's going to not only be an inheritance but a resurrection
29:22
This is a major step towards resurrection theology in Scripture.
29:28
We could even paraphrase it this way By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Sarah concluding that God was able to raise her up even from the dead
29:39
And so this is why her body must be buried in the land If there's no resurrection what uses it?
29:45
It doesn't really matter what you do with the body and where you put it But if you're expecting the inheritance to be true
29:53
Then it must be that she will not be in this state of death indefinitely God will be able to raise her up even from the dead and so his promise will be true
30:04
Abraham in other words goes through this process in an understanding of the way that God's promise will lead to new life life from the dead and undoing of the curse of death from the fall and So begins the theology of burial we read for instance
30:22
Jacob in Genesis 49 saying I'm to be gathered to my people Bury me with my father's in the cave that is in the field of Ephraim the
30:30
Hittite We have to just say real quick that what we know as the biblical Hittites which are part of Anatolia.
30:37
This is different this is correctly translated Hittite, but Hittite because it's the
30:43
Gentilic form of half the sons of half so just keep that in mind. This is not Hittites proper Ephraim the
30:49
Hittite in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah to the east of Mamre in the land of Canaan Which Abraham brought bought with the field from Ephraim the
30:59
Hittite to possess as a burying place there They buried Abraham and Sarah his wife there
31:04
They buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife and there I buried Leah The field in the cave that is in it were bought from the
31:11
Hittites So he too keeps emphasizing this is our land. This is our cave.
31:16
This is our burial place This was bought this was bought this was bought by Abraham from Ephraim So he's repeating the same emphasis about the significance of this place
31:27
Which is significant because of the burial Which is significant because of the promise the promise that Abraham Isaac and Jacob will be heirs
31:40
God's promise of the land was not just a promise to them but a promise to their descendants
31:46
And so not only is the immediate family all buried there
31:51
Sarah Abraham Isaac Rebecca Leah Jacob all buried in this cave
31:58
But beyond them there's this memorial this token this stake
32:04
That what the land ultimately points to will be sure and in this way
32:09
They all are looking afar off to see the day of Christ And we see again when we come to Christ the significance of burial don't we first Corinthians 15 where Paul gives an account of his gospel
32:22
I Delivered to you first of all that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures
32:31
Please just notice that that's the first thing that Paul says About his gospel his testimony of the gospel.
32:38
Is that the first thing your average evangelical would say about the gospel? What's the first thing to say about the gospel if you only had one sentence to give about the gospel
32:49
What should that sentence contain? That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
32:55
That would be Paul's answer But notice what follows this and that he was buried
33:03
It's striking to me that Paul doesn't say Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and he rose again on the third day
33:10
It's significant enough to take the time to say and he was buried he already said he died for us the next step is the resurrection as evangelicals we typically ignore the significance of burial and the significance of the
33:28
Ascension as Typical evangelicals we ignore these we slight these What matters to us is that he died on the cross and he was resurrected but Equally important to these are the fact that he was buried and that he ascended when he was resurrected
33:47
Now I say it's significant that he is buried in part because there's there's this
33:52
Gnostic tendency that Western Christians have in the way they think of final things in the way that we think of heaven in the eternal state
34:03
By Gnostic, I mean we have a dualistic way of looking at our lives and death in the life to come
34:10
That there's something Physical about this life that must passed away and we enter into something ethereal quasi spiritual something apart from Creation and that that is the great hope of the
34:26
Christian when that is in fact a Gnostic lie The the theology could be reduced to the sentiment and I you know
34:37
I don't mean to take a shot at it because I understand what it's meaning to imply But how it's stated is not helpful not correct and perhaps you've heard it.
34:50
It's from a hymn in 1919 This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through That would be your typical
34:59
Evangelical view of death in the last things This world's not my home. I'm just a passing through Jesus died on the cross and then he was resurrected and we're gonna die someday
35:11
But we'll be in heaven won't that be great and we'll be on puffy cumulonimbus clouds Stringing harps and just won't that be wonderful to be some quasi angelic being of light in a vapory world of glory
35:24
That's a typical understanding of these last things but when you say he was buried
35:32
He was buried in this world in this tomb in the same way that Sarah was buried and Abraham was buried and Isaac was buried in this place in this tomb
35:53
Because of this promise then you see how Genesis 23 is presenting a much larger understanding of the significance of Christ's burial if Isaac is just the the pointing to the seat of promise and he must be buried in The land of the promise for the sake of being heir of it
36:16
Then how significant is it that the ultimate seat of promise the true Isaac? Jesus the son of David is buried in this earth in this soil so that according to the promise he can be the heir of all a fundamental misunderstanding
36:39
That has often attempted to be corrected One of the great reformed theologians
36:44
Herman Bovink. He has a very famous Maxim grace restores nature grace restores nature
36:52
And that's Loaded from that Maxim he writes thousands of pages grace is not
37:06
Separate or distinct from nature grace is not an alternative to nature Which would be
37:13
Gnostic dualism right grace restores nature. This is why
37:20
Christians bury bodies Because grace restores nature if Christ is the first fruits of our glory
37:30
Then we ought to pay a lot more attention to the significance of Christ's burial
37:39
The consequence of having a different view of grace a different understanding of the things to come
37:47
Essentially leads you to separate creation from the gospel That God created this world created this earth created our bodies as human beings created a whole cascading symphony of Purpose in this life and in this world and in all the created matter
38:09
But then grace comes as an alternative and that will just sweep us away into some vague
38:15
Spiritual afterlife that has nothing to do with this created order and when you disconnect creation from the gospel
38:22
You don't actually preserve God's grace. You begin to lose it And so all of our emphasis on the cross
38:32
Begins to become equally Gnostic it becomes escapist
38:37
Our calling then as soldiers of the cross as cross bearers equally becomes something
38:44
Relatively disconnected from this life in this world and this earth and our labors upon it And so evangelicals are content to only begin with 1st
38:52
Corinthians 15 Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures now if that's all you have that's what you must have
39:00
But so often we reduce the gospel to just being justified He died on the cross to forgive my sins and now
39:07
I can be taken away away from creation away from this world to some Vague heavenly existence for all of eternity
39:14
That's not the Christian. Hope That's never been the Christian. Oh The Gospels more than being justified
39:23
Christ is our Redeemer His grace restores our nature
39:30
Jesus became that which he would save Jesus was truly man and truly
39:38
God to deny Creation in terms of the gospel would be akin to denying the incarnation in terms of Christ Jesus redeems what was marred by the fall.
39:50
He restores what was lost and ruined by man's rebellion He renews what was disfigured by sin.
39:57
In other words in the incarnation. We understand something something about what it means to be human as God intended and That then leads to the significance of Christ being buried in this earth as the first fruits of our hope our hope of glory
40:17
Let me just I just want to show you just from two Psalms This is something I've been reflecting on ever since we've been in Mark to be honest
40:28
See if you can detect what I'm trying to pick up on the on the language of the Psalms. We opened with with Psalm 96,
40:36
I think we open with Psalm 115 either way. I'll read them both Psalm 96 beating in verse 10 say among the nations the
40:46
Lord reigns The world it also is firmly established. It shall not be moved
40:52
He shall judge the people's righteously. Where does the judgment take place on whom does it take place?
40:59
What will not be moved let the heavens rejoice And let the earth be glad.
41:04
Why is the earth gonna be glad? Why should the earth be glad if it's just gonna be dissolved up? Everything's gonna be some vague cloud of bliss, right?
41:12
So why is the earth rejoice heavens rejoice? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we get that But when God judges on that day all of the nations, why is the earth rejoicing?
41:22
Let the sea roar and All its fullness let the field be joyful and all that is in it
41:28
Let all the trees of the woods rejoice before the Lord for he's coming. He's coming to judge the earth
41:34
He shall judge the world with righteousness and the people's with truth. Why is the world rejoicing?
41:40
Why are the fields singing? Why is the sea roaring with the light? Is it that the the
41:46
King is finally coming and they're all you know All of the created order is in glory rejoicing.
41:52
Finally. He's come to bring righteousness upon the earth No longer will all of creation groan under the burden of the curse, but will now be delivered and oh no, we're being burnt up Oh, yeah, that's right.
42:04
We were never part of the equation. The earth rejoices because it was always the intention of God For redemption to include all that he had created
42:17
Psalm 115 beginning in verse 12. The Lord has been mindful of us. He will bless us
42:22
He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron He will bless those who fear the Lord both small and great
42:29
May the Lord give you increase more and more you and your children May you be blessed by the
42:34
Lord who made heaven and earth the heaven even the heavens are the Lord's but the earth
42:40
He has given to the children of men The dead do not praise the Lord nor any who go down into silence
42:47
But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore praise the Lord.
42:55
So God's people Forever rejoice in the Lord and The earth is given to them forever
43:05
Abraham is a nobody. You're a mighty prince among us. That's a form of flattery. He's about to chart
43:10
He's like a used car salesman. You're a mighty prince among us 400 shekels He's really for all intents and purpose he's a nobody
43:20
He's been in the land for decades and he's buried in the edge of a field that he didn't even own and he's he's in a cave
43:30
But the meek inherit the earth The meek inherit the earth
43:40
The belief that we will spend eternity in heaven But that is the true home and that is an alternative to to what
43:48
God has created That is something already in play distinct from some final redemption yet to be revealed
43:56
Is to say that Christ is not really the first fruits of what we shall be and that he's not the deposit the guarantee of what will happen and what
44:05
God has created it also denigrates the physical It removes the
44:11
Christian hope of the body to some vague Greek idea of the soul
44:20
Some undefined spirituality But this world is our home
44:27
Though we are obscure and meek within it We bury in the hope of what
44:33
God has promised and so from Genesis to Revelation The hope of believers is a bodily resurrection on the earth
44:44
Though we must be as it were unclothed
44:50
We're according to Revelation tenting in heaven Tenting is not a permanent abode
44:56
We tent in heaven waiting to be further clothed and we do so when that new
45:02
Jerusalem descends upon the earth when there's a new heavens and a new earth then we are further clothed
45:08
In other words, then we have a body like unto the Lord's and it's this new heavens this new earth
45:14
Which is a way of saying and completely redeemed Created order that was
45:19
God's desire from the beginning and that is why Christians bury their dead No, this doesn't mean that someone who was in an attic fire or the veterans of World War one that were
45:36
Disintegrated into the soil in Flanders are somehow absent from this promise
45:42
God's able to reconstitute From the very particles that he made human beings from from dust were made to dust we return
45:50
God gathers as he sees fit But I'm saying there's a theology of burial. That's very significant And and if possible when possible
46:00
Christians bury their dead Because while we grieve we do not grieve as those without hope and when we bury we bury in hope
46:10
And so let's lastly talk about the hope of glory briefly We're living in a world of despair our inability to have a
46:20
Clearer understanding of what the gospel entails about redemption is part of our failure to give a witness to give a light to this despair
46:30
People honestly think you just take the proverbial dirt nap and that's all there is It's interesting to me that only really since the
46:39
Enlightenment Has that become something even conceivable to any human culture in the history of the world?
46:46
Every human culture that we know of throughout history has had some understanding of the afterlife
46:51
Until you get to the monument of man's arrogance and pride in the Enlightenment and now it's just a dirt nap
46:57
So take what you can while you can People don't know why they're here what they're here for you don't know what life is.
47:06
How are you gonna know what death is? If you're not able to cope with life, how are you gonna cope with death?
47:14
Living well means dying. Well being prepared to die. Well Martin Lloyd -jones says what is life?
47:21
What is living? What does it mean to us? What is it all about? Is it not one of the major tragedies of life indeed?
47:28
Is it not the greatest of all tragedies that amid all of our concerns about life all of our intellectual activity all of our discussions?
47:35
The one thing which men and women are never concerned to face is the first and most obvious thing of all
47:41
Namely life itself, and you know that we distinguish life from living, right?
47:50
We can talk about living as that state of being that existential state
47:55
That means our hearts are bumping and our neurons are firing but then we also talk about life as if it's something above that state of existence a
48:04
Greater purpose a greater energy, you know get out and live a little get a life we make a distinction between living and Having a real life and people are living today
48:23
With no understanding in utter despair about the prospect of life And I think it's in part because Christians have fumbled on death
48:34
We've fumbled on death More than ever in the history of the world. We've insulated ourselves from death
48:43
If you if you read any Reformation biography They tend to only read as though people went from their nicely heated homes and insulated walls
48:54
To church and back and you know, there was the funeral parlor that you went to once every three years
48:59
That would be typical for us You were surrounded by death Death death was staring at you all day long
49:08
If you weren't thinking about death death was thinking about you Was inescapable Christians wouldn't fumble on that It gave us a witness people would
49:20
Look at that confidence and that joy and perhaps you've been a Christian long enough to see the difference between a believer's funeral and an unbeliever's funeral
49:28
Where it's like get me out of here get me to the little after -lunch so I can take some shots I need to dull myself and get away from this a few days and I'll never have to think about this again
49:39
Where Christians are singing hymns and rejoicing grieving Certainly grieving
49:46
Talking about the memories and the loves and the virtues and the graces and all the things they'll miss and they still grieve
49:53
But what a difference it is to grieve with hope And because we've fumbled on things of death
49:59
Christians nod and agree with the most vacuous errors that are sprung out at funerals and calling hours.
50:06
Oh Well, you know, you know an angel now, you know in the glory now forever.
50:12
It's like no It's not the vision. That's not the hope. It's not some ethereal existence
50:17
I want my body, but I don't want my body back as it is prone to what it's prone to I I want my body
50:24
Back glorified. I want to see the Lord and be made like unto him. I want to live in Eden I want
50:31
Eden to extend the very corners of the cosmos I want God's glory to suffuse it so that the light is not from the
50:38
Sun But the light is the glory of the Lamb and I want to experience that bodily The Christian has the answers to the reality of death
50:51
Christians alone are in a place that they can be wisely prepared for and Even hopeful and joyous about the prospect of death.
51:01
And so Abraham is mourning But he's also teaching us all the way back in Genesis 23 to have a faith
51:10
Toward the promise not the promise of a detached eternity and some quasi mystical existence
51:19
But the hope that Sarah is gonna wake up from her sleep and walk out of that tomb and dwell in a renewed new heavens and new earth just like the early
51:29
Christians would come out of their bunks under the catacombs of the cities as If they were sleeping which is why early on in the
51:36
New Testament the verb for death was sleep Because it's all you're doing you're sleeping until you awake and the
51:45
King has come in his glory And you look and you see him and you're made like him and you watch as the trees and the fields and the seas roar it's just like any any great dramatic moment when yeah you think a
52:01
Lord of the Rings or something and you know all the powers of evil and darkness seem to have the upper hand and everything's looking so dismayed and then
52:08
The light breaks and the triumphant tubas start blasting and you get that rush of adrenaline in the theater seat
52:16
The King has come You know The good is going to prevail and it's almost like everything there is rejoicing and that's just a crayon
52:25
Scribbling of a shadow of a glimpse of what's gonna happen on that day To be an angel on a cloud would be about the worst afterlife
52:35
I could ever think of but to be like Christ and to dwell in a world as It was made to be by God who designed it to be good.
52:48
Very good to live to live in a land where God is dwelling with his people and I behold him when
52:55
I look upon the face of my Savior and to be among all the redeemed and Even to meet this mother of the faithful Sarah and say, you know, we talked a lot about you
53:06
And we were looking forward to this That's the hope of glory whether you want to or not you must settle your view of your life so that you can settle your position in death and You must prepare for the grief and the guilt and this whole way of life of living before God look to Abraham and Sarah They are your mother and father in the faith even here
53:36
You cannot avoid these issues. They will not go away It shows why we must begin the gospel with the forgiveness that comes from the blood of Christ Because if we've worked out the issue of our guilt before God Then we can trust
53:50
God will work out the issues of our life and death and we can be buried in the hope of glory
53:57
Brothers and sisters, we don't want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep Paul says in 1st Thessalonians 4
54:04
We don't want you to grieve like the rest of the men who have no hope Now we have a hope of glory
54:12
Hebrews 11 8 through 10 was picking up on the fact that Abraham referred to himself as a stranger by faith
54:19
Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of the place which he would receive as an inheritance and he went out
54:24
Not knowing where he was going by faith. He dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country
54:30
Dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise For he waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is
54:40
God He was not waiting for a city that would be above the clouds out of physical sight
54:46
He was waiting for a city that would be in the very place where the field of Machpelah bordered the tomb of his wife's body
54:53
That's where God's gonna build his city and that city like Eden's gonna expand all of the cosmos
54:59
And so my sons my boys when your time comes to die like mine bury yourselves in the hope of this promise the promises of God The death and burial of Sarah How we deal with death as Christians shows everything about our understanding of the gospel
55:20
About the promise about the whole storyline of Scripture It shows us everything we believe about why
55:27
Christ came and why he was truly human Why he came and dwelt among us as us and then on the cross in our place
55:36
The hope of the resurrection is is not for some new mode of being but for the same body
55:45
To be renewed and restored in glory And so the human body does not lose its significance at death
55:53
In fact, perhaps we realize for the first time just how much significance it has There should never be a believer that says just put me in the oven it doesn't really matter it matters
56:09
It matters The human body does not lose its significance in death
56:16
Because the promise of God does not lose its significance in death the human body does not
56:23
Somehow break the promise and purpose of God for this world Rather, it's sown in hope.
56:32
I Eagerly expect Paul says in Philippians 1 and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but I will have courage so that now as always
56:39
Christ will be exalted in my body whether by life or by death for to me to live as Christ and To die is gain
56:47
Philippians 3 our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there
56:55
From there The Lord Jesus Christ Who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies
57:06
So they will be like his glorious body Spurgeon says and I close with this death in its substance has been removed only the shadow of it remains
57:16
Nobody is afraid of a shadow a shadow cannot block a man's path Not even for a moment the shadow of a dog cannot bite the shadow of a sword cannot kill
57:26
Death has been made a shadow by the power of him who's broken the power of death
57:32
And this is why Christians are buried in the hope father.
57:46
We thank you for the truth of your word and The awe of your purpose
57:52
Lord May we be more eternally minded in the right ways not in a way that takes us out of this world, but rather a way that That energizes us and fills us with with the hope and the faith and the delight of your purpose for this world
58:15
Help us to reflect more deeply upon the language of your word whether it be in the Psalms In the mission and ministry of your son
58:25
Help us Lord to not fall into those easy errors of dualism Of gnostic thought of Of making grace an alternative rather than the restoration of our nature
58:42
Help us Lord to have our hope in the right place as we ourselves are prepared to die as we continue to bear the the emotional wounds the
58:52
Heaviness of spirit that comes with those we have buried Lord Let us remember that we are those who grieve with hope and not like the rest