Companionship: A Verity to Cherish (Hebrews 13:5-6) | Worship Service

12 views

March 4, 2024

The promise of God's faithful and unending presence is the basis for our contentment. If God has promised to never leave or forsake us, we can rest in that provision and fight the covetousness that unsettles our souls. An exposition of Hebrews 13:5-6. This stream is created with #PRISMLiveStudio

14:28: Good morning, and we welcome you to Kootenai Church. Would you please stand as we begin our worship service this morning with our call to worship from Psalms 118, just kidding,
14:38: Jim. From Psalm 118, verses 19 to 21, it says, open to me the gates of righteousness.
14:47: I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to Yah. This is the gate of Yahweh, the righteous will enter through it.
14:55: I shall give thanks to you, for you have answered me, and you have become my salvation. Let's sing together this psalm, we sang it last
15:02: Sunday, the glorious gates of righteousness, Psalm 118. The glorious gates of righteousness, throw open unto me, and I will enter them with praise,
15:29: O Lord, my God, to Thee, and I will enter them with praise,
15:40: O Lord, my God, to Thee.
15:46: This is thy temple gate, O Lord, the just shall enter there.
15:54: My Savior, I will give Thee thanks, O Thou that hearest prayer.
16:04: My Savior, I will give Thee thanks, O Thou that hearest prayer.
16:15: The stone rejected and despised is now the cornerstone.
16:23: How wondrous are the ways of God, unfathomed and unknown.
16:33: How wondrous are the ways of God, unfathomed and unknown.
16:44: In this the day that Thou hast made triumphantly we sing.
16:52: Send now prosperity, O Lord, O Lord, salvation free.
17:03: Send now prosperity, O Lord, O Lord, salvation free.
17:26: Praise the one who breaks the darkness with a liberating light.
17:35: Praise the one who frees the prisoners, turning blindness into sight.
17:44: Praise the one who breaks the gospel, healing every dread disease.
17:52: Calming storms and feeding thousands with the very bread of peace.
18:04: Praise the one who blessed the children with a strong and gentle word.
18:13: Praise the one who drove out demons with a piercing two -edged sword.
18:20: Praise the one who brings pure water to the desert's burning sand.
18:29: From this well comes living water, quenching thirst in every land.
18:41: Praise the one true love incarnate, Christ who suffered in our place.
18:49: Jesus died and rose for many that we may know
18:56: God by praise. Let us sing for joy and gladness, seeing what our
19:04: God has done. Praise the one redeeming glory.
19:10: Praise the one who makes us one. So we're going to sing a new song today.
19:19: It's a bit different than the new songs we've sung before. Many of you know the song, Is He Worthy, and it's sung in a call -and -response format.
19:27: So that being said, men sing the lines that are written in yellow, and women sing the lines that are written in pink, and everyone together sing the lines in our standard white.
19:38: Okay? So let's sing together, Is He Worthy. Do you feel the world is broken?
19:56: Do you feel the shadows deepen? But do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through?
20:15: Do you wish that you could see it all made new? We do.
20:23: Is all creation groaning?
20:36: Is a new creation coming? Is the glory of the
20:46: Lord to be the light within our midst? Is it good that we remind ourselves of Him?
21:03: Is anyone worthy?
21:12: Is anyone whole? Is anyone able to bring the seal and open the scroll?
21:23: The Lion of Judah, who conquered the grave.
21:30: He is David's fruit and the Lamb who died to ransom the slave.
21:36: Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
21:44: Of all blessing and honor and glory? Is He worthy of this?
22:02: Does the Father truly love us? Does the
22:10: Spirit move among us? And does
22:17: Jesus, our Messiah, hold forever those He loves?
22:27: Does our God intend to dwell again with us?
22:32: Does He love us?
22:41: Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?
22:47: Is anyone able to bring the seal and open the scroll?
22:54: The Lion of Judah, who conquered the grave.
23:01: He is David's fruit and the Lamb who died to ransom the slave.
23:08: From every people and tribe, every nation and tongue,
23:15: He has made us a kingdom and priests to God to reign with the Son.
23:21: Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
23:28: Of all blessing and honor and glory? Is He worthy?
23:37: Is He worthy? Is He worthy of this?
23:47: He is. Is He worthy?
23:57: Is He worthy? He is.
24:07: He is. You may be seated.
24:26: Well, I wish I didn't have to get up and read and preach or pray after that. Will you please turn to Psalm 118 for a
24:33: Scripture reading? This is the one that Josh began our service with, but he didn't read the verse that I wanted to have read out of that, so I'm going to read the entire psalm.
24:46: You would think that we could coordinate better, but we haven't. Psalm 118 is quoted in the passage that we're going to be looking at in the book of Hebrews, the verse specifically here that is quoted in the book of Hebrews.
25:02: Psalm 118. Give thanks to the
25:08: Lord, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Oh, let
25:13: Israel say, His lovingkindness is everlasting. Oh, let the house of Aaron say,
25:18: His lovingkindness is everlasting. Oh, let those who fear the Lord say, His lovingkindness is everlasting.
25:25: From my distress, I called upon the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me in a large place.
25:31: The Lord is for me. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is for me among those who help me.
25:39: Therefore, I will look with satisfaction on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the
25:45: Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. All nations surrounded me.
25:52: In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me. Yes, they surrounded me. In the name of the
25:58: Lord, I will surely cut them off. They surrounded me like bees. They were extinguished as a fire of thorns.
26:06: In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. You pushed me violently so that I was falling, but the
26:13: Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and song. He has become my salvation.
26:19: The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the
26:25: Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
26:32: I will not die but live and tell of the works of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.
26:40: Open to me the gates of righteousness. I shall enter through them. I shall give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the
26:46: Lord. The righteous will enter through it. I shall give thanks to you for you have answered me and you have become my salvation.
26:53: The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the
26:58: Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
27:06: O Lord, do save, we beseech you. O Lord, we beseech you, do send prosperity. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the
27:12: Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God and he has given us light.
27:19: Bind to the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God and I give thanks to you.
27:25: You are my God. I extol you, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting.
27:32: You'll notice several verses in there are directly quoted in the New Testament as applying to Jesus Christ. Verse 22, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
27:42: That's quoted in Acts and in 1 Peter. And then verse 26, blessed is he who comes in the name of the
27:47: Lord. That of course was proclaimed when he rode into Jerusalem.
27:53: And then verse 27, the Lord is God and he has given us light. Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
28:01: And that of course is exactly what Jesus did when he rode into Jerusalem. He went to that place of the altar, that place of the sacrifice and gave himself for us.
28:09: Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our Father, we are your people called by your name, called and gathered here by your grace and by your spirit to worship and serve and to honor our
28:25: King, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have determined to bless us, your people, through him, our
28:33: King, and that all the merits of his sacrifice and his life and his death and his resurrection are imputed to us, credited to us on the basis of faith.
28:45: We thank you that one who is worthy of all worship and honor and glory and dominion and power has died in our place so that all of those attributes may be used for the sake of those who find their refuge in this
29:03: King. We thank you for your grace of calling us here. We thank you for the sacrifice which was made for us in Christ and that that sacrifice is sufficient to atone for our sin, to take it away, to cleanse the conscience, to make us whole and to redeem us an unworthy people entirely by grace.
29:25: We ask that you would strengthen our hearts and our voices, our minds and our souls together today as we fellowship with one another, worship with one another.
29:34: And as we sing praise to your great name, may the meditation upon your word delight us and encourage our hearts together and sanctify us by your truth.
29:44: We pray that you would accomplish this and the power of your spirit through your word today amongst us, your people. For the glory of Christ our
29:51: King, in whose name we pray, amen. Would you please stand?
30:40: We trust your promises that keep our hope alive.
30:49: They steady us throughout life's weary climb.
30:56: Where else can we go? Where else can we go?
31:04: You have the words of life. The words of life.
31:20: Come write your holy truth upon our longing hearts and strengthen us to shine against the dark.
31:35: Lord, guard us from the lies the enemy will see.
31:43: No guilt remains for those who have believed.
31:50: Where else can we go? The words of life.
32:02: The words of life. Make your glory known through the words of life.
32:24: Give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
32:33: Help us in our doubt and unbelief.
32:41: Give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
32:50: Help us in our doubt and unbelief.
32:58: Give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
33:07: Help us in our doubt and unbelief.
33:16: Where else can we go? Where else can we go?
33:23: You have the words of life. The words of life.
33:33: Make your glory known. Make your glory known through all your words of life.
33:45: Your words of life. Through all your words of life, your words of life.
33:59: In Romans chapter 5, verses 6 to 9, it says, For while we were still weak, at the right time
34:07: Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
34:17: But God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
34:24: Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.
34:32: We're going to end our music service this morning and sing together, O Fount of Love. O fount of love, divine that flows from my
34:52: Savior's bleeding side, where sinners trade their filthy rags for his righteousness applied.
35:06: Mercy cleansing every stain, now rushing o 'er us like a flood.
35:16: There the rich and vilest ones stand adopted through his blood.
35:31: O mount of grace, to thee we cling. From them all have set us free.
35:40: Once and for all on Calvary's hill, love and justice shall agree.
35:50: Praise the Lord, the price is paid, the curse defeated by the
35:58: Lamb. We who once were slaves by birth, sons and daughters, now we stand.
36:15: O well of joy, his mighty tree, for my
36:21: Lord has conquered death. Victorious forevermore, the ancient foe is laid to rest.
36:34: Hallelujah, Christ is king, alive and reigning on the throne.
36:43: Our tongues employ with hymns of praise, glory be to God the
36:51: Lord. Hallelujah, Christ is king, alive and reigning on the throne.
37:00: Our tongues employ with hymns of praise, glory be to God the
37:09: Lord. Our tongues employ with hymns of praise, glory be to God the
37:18: Lord. You may be seated.
37:36: And now we turn to the 13th chapter of the book of Hebrews. The 13th chapter of the book of Hebrews.
37:50: We'll be looking today at verses 5 and 6. All right, and let's pray before we begin.
38:08: Our Father, it is a great mercy to us that You give us Your Word. In it is all that we need for life and for godliness.
38:16: Every precious promise, every hope, every gift of grace is given to us in Christ and communicated to us and assured to us by Your Word.
38:26: And so we pray that our hearts and our minds may be today shaped and molded by the truth of Your Word and that Your Spirit would work in our hearts and in our minds to conform us to the image of Christ and to fix our hope, our thinking, and our expectation upon the promises that are yet to come.
38:45: We pray that You would be glorified through our time, our meditation, upon the truth as You conform us to the image of Christ.
38:52: Sanctify us, Your people, by Your truth, we pray in His name. Amen. Well, Scripture says that we have been granted precious and magnificent promises.
39:04: 2 Peter 1, verses 3 -4 says that His divine power has granted to us everything that pertains to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
39:16: For by these, that is, by His glory and His excellence, He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises.
39:23: So that by them, that is, by the promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
39:32: It would take us the rest of our time here and probably the rest of the day to simply recite the promises that God has made to those who are
39:39: His. But let me give you some categories in which some of those promises might fall. God has promised us things concerning our sin and whether or not we will ever face judgment or punishment for that sin,
39:51: His wrath. He has made promises regarding our holiness and our progress in holiness, promises about our security and the state of our soul, about our future, about the kingdom that is to come, about the resurrection of the body, the just and the unjust, about His provision for us daily, about our vindication ultimately.
40:13: He has made promises about our death and about comfort for us. He has made promises regarding our service,
40:20: His love for us, our love for one another. He has made promises concerning the nations and things that will happen to and in the nations, promises about the judgment that is to come, the destruction on the wicked, and the punishment of God's wrath upon those who are impenitent.
40:36: Now faith, which is a major theme of the book of Hebrews, lays hold of these promises as if they were substance, even though there are many of them just in promise form and not yet fully realized by the people of God.
40:50: Faith regards the word of God concerning an issue as if it were substantive and something that we could lay hold of, and faith is mind's eye that grabs hold of that thing and treats it as if it is already delivered and already paid upon.
41:05: And Hebrews calls us to treat the promises of God as if they have been already secured and delivered to us, even though many of these promises concerning the future have not yet been realized by us.
41:18: We are to treat God's promises as legitimate, as secured, as delivered, as certain, and if we fail to do so, it is to question
41:27: His integrity because that is to call God a liar. It is to suggest that He cannot be trusted.
41:33: It is to suggest, at least in our minds and in our hearts and in our soul, as if He might fail to deliver because of some lack or want in Him, as if He were lacking power or knowledge or wisdom or benevolence or kindness or goodness.
41:49: The only way that God could fail to deliver on any of His promises if He lacked one of those qualities, and God lacks none of them.
41:56: And therefore, our response to God's promises is telling. It reveals what we in the moment think about God and His word.
42:04: So when we doubt, when we waver in unbelief, when we refuse to bank our lives upon that promise and to treat it as substantive, we are in that moment setting ourselves up as judges, and we are looking down upon God and His commandments and His promises and His plan, and we are rendering in that moment a judgment upon His validity, the validity of His word,
42:28: His integrity. When we doubt the promise of God, we are saying something about our view of Him, and we are rendering a judgment upon Him, and we are saying that I deem you as unable or unwilling to fulfill these promises.
42:42: And that is a scary thing because there is no promise of God that is too magnificent for Him to keep.
42:49: And what is then the perfect promise for a persecuted people? A lot of Ps in that sentence, but what is the perfect promise for a persecuted people who are discouraged and distraught and tempted and afflicted and suffering and shaken?
43:03: It is the promise that we find in Hebrews 13, verse 5 and verse 6. Let's read that passage together.
43:09: Verse 5, Hebrews 13, Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have.
43:16: For He Himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you, so that we may confidently say,
43:24: The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me? And we have already looked at the beginning of verse 5 over two consecutive
43:32: Sundays and looked at the vice of covetousness, which is described there as the love of money, and what's one of the expressions of covetousness, and that is a vice that we are to cast off.
43:42: Then we looked at the virtue of contentment last week, and the fullness of what we are given there in contentment.
43:48: This is a virtue that we are to cultivate. And today we are looking at this companionship that God has promised us in verse 5, and that is something that we are to cherish.
43:57: Now I want to offer a clarification from something I said last week, because immediately a couple people came up and started asking questions about the application of some of those things, and I realized that there was something that I should have said that I left unsaid, and this might be very confusing.
44:11: So maybe some of you were not confused at all, but once I bring this issue up, you'll be like, Oh yeah, I wish I had been thoughtful enough to be confused by that.
44:19: I should have been, but I wasn't. And here was the confusion or the question that was asked. Last week
44:25: I mentioned covetousness and contentment, and that contentment is us bringing our desires or expectations down to the level of our provision, so that we can then be contentment.
44:36: It's not adding to what we have, it's subtracting from our desires. So I mentioned that last week, and then somebody asked this question,
44:43: Does that mean that we should have no desires then? That's a thoughtful question. That's not a stupid question.
44:49: If the secret to contentment is to bring my desires down into conformity with what
44:55: God has provided so that I may regard what God has provided as sufficient, does that mean then that we should have no desires at all?
45:01: And that's not what that means. What I mean by that is that covetousness is a disordered desire.
45:09: See, desires are not sinful in and of themselves. This is something we have to remember. I desire to sleep in a warm bed, in a dry warm bed.
45:19: So if my window is broken and my roof is leaking, it is not sinful for me to desire to be warm and dry.
45:26: It is not sinful for me to desire to be fed and to drink water if I am thirsty.
45:33: It is not a sinful desire to desire a spouse if you don't have one, or to desire children if God has not given you children.
45:40: Those are not sinful desires. So the issue is not whether we have desires. The issue is what we do with the desires.
45:47: The issue is, does my desire then become an idol and am I obsessed by this desire? And does this desire then make me discontent?
45:56: Does this desire become an idol that I am willing to sin to serve that idol? So when the desire, the legitimate desire, whatever it is, then takes center stage, it becomes an idol, and then the question is, am
46:10: I willing to sin to get that, to fulfill that desire? Or am I willing to do something foolish in order to have that desire served?
46:18: So you might have a desire for a better job or to improve your station in life or to have certain things.
46:24: Those are not sinful desires, but when those sinful desires become central, they become disordered desires, and it is the difference between the legitimate desire when it is elevated to a position of being an idol, that legitimate desire, the difference between that and the idol is where discontentment comes in, and that's where bitterness and anxiety and restlessness and frustration and worry, all of that breeds inside of that zone of discontent.
46:49: So the answer is to bring the desires, though they may be legitimate, down into conformity with what
46:55: God has given to me, and we can be honest and say, I have a desire to this, but God has not given me that fulfillment for that desire, and then we can be content with that.
47:03: But when the desire becomes disordered, then it becomes an idol, and that's when it becomes sinful and discontentment comes in.
47:10: Now verses 5 and 6, enough of the clarification, contains for us a truth that we are to cherish. He will never leave us, and He will never forsake us.
47:18: That's in verse 5. Verse 6 is one of the applications of that truth. The author obviously intends for us to apply that principle to the subject of contentment, since it is in the very sentence that he raises that issue of God's presence with us.
47:31: So it applies to the issue of contentment and covetousness, but there is another application given in verse 6, and that is that we will not fear what man shall do to us.
47:39: And that's contentment, as you will see, to a whole new level. Now let's look in verse 5 at the first quotation.
47:47: You'll notice in your translation that they're set aside in some way, either italics or all caps. It indicates to you that this is a quotation or intended to be a quotation from the
47:56: Old Testament. We have one quotation in verse 5 and one in verse 6, and we will handle them separately, though I promise you, be encouraged, do not lose heart.
48:03: We will do both of these quotations today. The first quotation in verse 5, it's a little uncertain where the author is pulling that from, since it's not a direct quotation of any one specific promise like that in the
48:16: Old Testament. So there are five different places where the author could have had in mind when he quoted this, when he cited this.
48:23: And here are the five places. The first two, which I think is what the author had in mind, is
48:28: Genesis 28. This is the first one, verse 15. Behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go and bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what
48:37: I have promised you. Then Deuteronomy, the second place is Deuteronomy 31, verses 6 and 8, where we read,
48:45: Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you.
48:51: He will not fail you or forsake you. You notice that language is a little more in keeping with what we read in Hebrews 13 than the previous one.
48:59: And then Deuteronomy 31, verse 8, The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you. He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.
49:05: Do not fear or be dismayed. The third possibility is Joshua 1, verse 5. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.
49:12: Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. That one's really close.
49:18: And in 1 Chronicles 28, verse 20, is David's statement to his son Solomon. 1 Chronicles 28, verse 20,
49:25: David said to his son Solomon, Be strong and courageous and act. Do not fear or be dismayed, for the
49:31: Lord your God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you until all the work of the service of the house of the
49:37: Lord is finished. And then the fifth place is Isaiah 41, verse 10. Do not fear, for I am with you.
49:43: Do not be anxious. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you.
49:48: Surely I will help you. Surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Now those are five different passages from the
49:55: Old Testament. Two of them are very similar. Deuteronomy and Joshua. And then you have
50:00: Isaiah and David to Solomon. Yeah, David to Solomon and then God to Jacob.
50:05: Those are the five places. Now here's the thing. There's not just one of those passages which is actually just a word for word quotation that the author is citing there.
50:14: So the author may have in mind any two or all five of those passages and he may be by quoting the
50:22: Old Testament giving us the summation and the summary of those promises all the way through the
50:28: Old Covenant. And the author may not be just quoting one of those but he may be trying to sort of sum up here's what the
50:35: Old Testament says and be quoting this promise of God's presence and his promise to never forsake us.
50:42: Now I think that the author probably has in mind and this is my speculation since I'm not able to ask him.
50:47: I think that the author probably has in mind the first two that I mentioned. Genesis 28 and Deuteronomy 31.
50:53: Now here's the context for both of those and I'll show you the similarity between that Old Testament context and our modern or even what was back then their modern context.
51:03: Genesis 28 verse 15. Behold I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what
51:10: I have promised you. Now here's the context of that promise. That's God speaking to Jacob. This was after Jacob had secured the blessing from Esau through his trickery and his deception.
51:21: Esau had a lust for blood and Esau had said I am going to kill my brother Jacob as soon as my father dies.
51:27: And so Isaac's wife Rebekah sent Jacob away from the land of promise to her own homeland and this meant that Jacob was leaving the land that had been promised to his father and to his grandfather.
51:39: Jacob was leaving the land that had been promised to him by virtue of not only the birthright but also the blessing that was given to him.
51:46: So he had secured that in word only and he has to apprehend this or receive this by faith but he has not yet received those promises.
51:54: And now he is leaving the land that God has promised to him and so the question in the back of his mind as his brother hates him, he's leaving his family and he's walking away from the land that God has promised to him the question then would be is
52:06: God going to keep these promises to me? I've secured it in the blessing, I've secured it in the birthright but here
52:13: I am leaving the land. So then God appears to him in Genesis 28 verses 13 to 15 and behold the
52:19: Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord your God, of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie
52:26: I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and in you and in your descendants all the families of the earth will be blessed.
52:38: That is a reiteration of everything God promised to Abraham and then to Isaac. And now God is giving it to Jacob as Jacob is wandering away and leaving the land that he was promised.
52:49: Spurgeon said this, he was now flying away from his father's house leaving the over fondness of a mother's attachment abhorred by his eldest brother who sought his blood he lies down to sleep with a stone for a pillow with the hedges for his curtains and the earth for his bed and the heaven for his canopy and as he sleeps thus friendless solitary and alone
53:12: God says to him I will never never leave thee. So verse 15 says behold
53:18: I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what
53:24: I have promised to you. So there is God pledging to Jacob to fulfill the word that he gave to Abraham and then to Isaac and pledging to him even though you are leaving the land
53:33: I will bring you back here, I will multiply your descendants and they will be a blessing to all the families of the earth. God's presence with Jacob was the fulfillment partial fulfillment, let's say it this way
53:45: God's presence with Jacob was the guarantee of God's fulfillment of those promises.
53:51: God gives him all those promises and then says, yeah the promises are still there, you are still the recipient of these promises here is the guarantee that you will receive those promises,
54:01: I will never leave you and I will never forsake you until I do everything that I have pledged that I will do for you.
54:08: That is a pledge to never leave him. God would not leave him, God would be with him and therefore
54:14: God would bring to pass all the promises regarding Jacob. The second place that I think the author has in mind is
54:21: Deuteronomy 31 verse 6 and the context is similar because now when we get to Deuteronomy 31 we've got to rewind history a little bit and get back to when
54:29: Jacob left the land again but this time to go down to Egypt not to go north, back to the land of his fathers but to go to Egypt south and west and he went into Egypt to be with Joseph and there spent a couple of centuries and now they've come out of that slavery in Egypt through the
54:43: Exodus and the Passover, parted through the Red Sea wandered around the wilderness for 40 years while God provided for them and gave them everything that they need and protected them from their enemies and their adversaries and now he's brought them all the way to the threshold of the land of Canaan and about ready to give them the land that he promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the children of Israel are there and now the question is with all of these enemies in front of us all the fortified cities and the stone walls and the gates and the armed nations that we have to go in and to conquer are we going to go into this land and be all by ourselves?
55:15: Will we be forsaken or now the question is will God fulfill his promise to us and to our fathers and that is where God says in Deuteronomy 31 verse 6 be strong and courageous and do not be afraid or tremble at them, that is your enemies for the
55:30: Lord your God is the one who goes with you, he will not fail you or forsake you. Deuteronomy 31 verse 8 describes the same thing the
55:39: Lord is the one who goes ahead of you, he will be with you, he will not fail you or forsake you do not fear or be dismayed.
55:46: Now that's Moses' last counsel to the nation of Israel before they go into the land and he's going to hand off the reigns of that nation to Joshua and then
55:56: Moses is going to die and they're going to go into the land without this leader who has been with them for the last 40 years now the context of the nation of Israel and Jacob and the original writers the original readers of this letter is very similar just as Yahweh had pledged his presence to those who would enter his land so he has pledged his presence to those to whom he has given a kingdom remember chapter 12 verse 28 -29 therefore since we have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken therefore since they had received a land that God had promised to their forefathers that is bringing them into it you can trust me
56:33: I will never leave you nor forsake you what about those who have received a spiritual kingdom we have not grabbed hold of yet we're not standing on the threshold in the sense that we're on this side of a river and we have to pass through this and then go conquer the land we're not on the threshold of a physical promise like that but what about the spiritual promise that we have received a kingdom will we actually see that will we actually be able to enter in will we survive the hostility and the animosity of our enemies and our adversaries because they are many they are around us they surround the righteous all day long are we going to be able to endure that yes the promise of God is that he would be with us just as he is with the children of Israel to fulfill the promise that he made to them so he will be with us and will fulfill the promise that he has made to us just as Israel faced enemies coming into the land so we face enemies before we will walk into the promised land and receive that kingdom and step across the threshold as it were into God's glory but the promise is the same he will be with us and he will never ever forsake us just as Yahweh's promise to Israel secured was secured by his presence so his promise to us is secured by his everlasting and unfailing presence now notice in the passage what is not promised so that we're careful not to confuse what it is that we are being promised here as we don't want to understand
57:49: God's promises in a way that is not intended because then we will start to think that maybe he has not kept his promise to us but notice what is not promised we are not promised that nothing difficult will happen we are not promised that no trial will afflict us in fact the previous chapter promises the opposite doesn't it
58:09: God loves those whom he disciplines and he disciplines all his sons that's affliction that is suffering that is difficulties trials and tribulations those things are promised to us so this is not a promise that we will not endure anything difficult or not endure any trial that we will live a suffering free life we are not promised that we will not be persecuted or hated or mocked we're not promised an easy life we're not promised everything we want everything we desire everything we crave we're not promised a life that is free from disappointment or discouragement but instead we are promised that he will never leave us through all of those things we're not promised to bridge over troubled waters but we are promised that he will pull us through the waters if we can stand the toad that's what we're promised he will be with us through that and he will never leave us you may look forsaken to your enemies you may look forsaken to everyone around you you may feel forsaken lonely alone in solitude abandoned and forgotten you may feel that but that is not true because we don't live by our feelings what you feel in the moment is irrelevant to what is true what is true is that he will never leave us and that we are not forsaken though we may feel forsaken though we may look forsaken though our lives may give evidence to everyone who observes it that we are forsaken he will never forsake us
59:46: Jesus said to his disciples that they were to go into all the nations baptizing them in the name of the
59:52: Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that he commanded them and then he said to them I am with you always even to the end of the age that's our age that's where we're at that's his promise to us
01:00:01: I'm with you always wherever you go in every endeavor Jesus is Emmanuel he is
01:00:06: God with us he has pledged himself to us all authority is his and he has pledged his presence with us and he cannot fail
01:00:14: I want you to think for a moment I realize for a moment that is the best promise that you could be given his presence what if he were to promise you everything you want in this life would that be a better or a lesser promise that's a lesser promise because this life is going to come to an end what if he promised you a whole bunch of stuff how long does that stuff last as long as stuff lasts and then it's all burned up and it all goes away and they drop you in a pine box and put you in the ground and less than a generation or two you're forgotten eventually even your kids will forget about you this is your encouragement for the week but he has promised us that the worst thing that could happen to us will not happen to us that's what this promise is you will not be forsaken that's the worst thing that can happen to you to be forsaken the worst thing that can happen to you is not that you would live a meager existence alone it's not that you would be thrown into prison that you would live and face hostility in this world that's not the worst the worst thing is not that you would have a life of affliction or difficulty or unending pain and weakness the worst is not even that you would be abandoned by your family by your spouse by your children by your friends by your neighbors by your acquaintances by your business associates the worst is not that you would go without everything that anybody else has in fact the worst that could happen to you is not that you would be stripped of everything you own and cast in a ditch somewhere to die cold naked and alone forsaken by everybody else on the planet that is not the worst thing that could happen to you the worst thing that could happen to you is that God would leave you in your sin and then forsake you to your enemies abandon you to your lusts walk away from you in your need and then to cast you into outer darkness and then to pour out
01:02:12: His wrath upon your head for your sin for all of eternity that is the worst thing that can happen to you that He has promised will never happen to you that's good news the worst thing that could happen to you
01:02:27: He has promised will never happen to you that is that promise I will never leave you nor will
01:02:33: I ever forsake you this is the greatest thing He could promise because He has promised us Himself the guarantee the security that God will keep
01:02:43: His every promise that He has made to us is the fact that He will keep this one promise to be with us forever that's the guarantee of every other promise
01:02:53: He will never forsake us that means that He can never forget what He has promised He will never leave us or abandon us which means
01:03:01: He cannot leave us in the grave He can never forget anything that He has said to us because to forget and to let even one promise that He has made fall to the ground unfulfilled is for Him to forsake or abandon us
01:03:15: He will not turn away from us but everything that He has promised He will deliver on and all of those promises are secured by this one
01:03:22: I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you that means that all of His attributes are with us the loving, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, reigning, wise, gracious, eternal and transcendent
01:03:35: King of all things has promised His presence with us and therefore every attribute of God is on your side because when
01:03:44: God promises His presence it's not just some spiritual reality that we do not fear it is the promise that every attribute of deity now is employed for us for our ultimate good
01:03:56: Spurgeon said this there is no attribute of God that can cease to be engaged for us is
01:04:02: He mighty He will show Himself strong on behalf of those that trust Him is He loving then with everlasting loving kindness
01:04:09: He will have mercy upon us whatever attributes may compose the character of deity every one of them to its fullest extent shall be engaged on our side close quote every attribute of deity is engaged on your side you may say that doesn't feel like that because I feel abandoned and forsaken right now
01:04:31: I promise you that right now whatever any of us are going through whatever difficulty affliction trial tribulation and temptation may be assaulting you
01:04:41: I promise you that every attribute of God right now even right now is working for your eternal good and glory and this life is just a brief moment in the history of your existence but I can promise you on the basis of Scripture that what rests ahead for us as believers is beyond our ability to comprehend it will take us eons and ages to unfold the inheritance that is promised to us and that is secured for us and reserved for us in heaven
01:05:12: Peter says and you and I are then kept for that inheritance every attribute of God has secured that on your behalf and is moving you inexorably and unfailingly and inevitably toward that goal because that is
01:05:27: His intention this is the promise of security if you are in Christ if you belong to Him and you have been purchased with His blood then
01:05:34: He has given you life in Him He has given you His Holy Spirit as a pledge of the inheritance that is to come
01:05:42: He has taken you from the pit of death and given you life He has taken you out from underneath of His wrath and He has promised you nothing but everlasting bliss and contentment and joy and delight in the ages that are to come
01:05:54: He has adopted you into His family you who once were far off and removed and alienated from the life of God that is in Christ Jesus He has made you sons and daughters and He has given you a seat at His table and made you a bride for His Son so that you now are pledged and betrothed to sit down at the marriage supper of the
01:06:11: Lamb and to enjoy feasting and joy and rejoicing in His presence forever more for all of eternity that is what
01:06:18: He has pledged to us and He has given you a reward in that kingdom and promised you that until all of that is fulfilled
01:06:26: He will never leave you nor will He ever forsake you and therefore brethren you are secure in your salvation do you know why?
01:06:35: because if you were to fall away if He were to allow you to lose your salvation it would require
01:06:41: Him to forsake you and to abandon you for all of eternity and that is the thing that He has promised
01:06:47: He will never do now if you still want to cling to this idea that you can lose your salvation here's what it would require it would require you to walk away and turn away from that salvation and depart from Him you say well
01:07:00: He's not abandoning me oh He would be if He let you do that but He won't let you do that He will keep you because for you to walk away and perish would require that He abandon you and forsake you and that He has promised to never do this is an eternal promise never will
01:07:17: I leave you or forsake you how long does the never how long does that cover?
01:07:23: that covers a long time that means that if you were to live to be 100 years old and you suffer through untold misery and difficulty for all 100 years of your existence and you were to enjoy not a single blessing not a single gift not a single token of God's goodness and love in this life other than your salvation and though you were to disappoint
01:07:48: Him for all 100 of those years never living up to what He has called us to be and even if you were to sin against Him and fail
01:07:55: Him time and again and though you might forget about Him from time to time He will never forsake you or leave you the entire existence of your life here and it means that in this life and in your death
01:08:07: He will never forsake you He will not leave you in the grave but in the resurrection you will hear your name called in the resurrection and He will call you forth to life everlasting and He will give you a new body and then you will enter into the new creation and 100 million millennia from now when this suffering is just a brief shadow in your memory 100 million millennia from now your resurrection body will be just as powerful and glorious and disease and sin and broken downness free as it can possibly be as it was on the very first day of your resurrection and that new creation will never wear out never ever and God's people will dwell with Him forever because this has been
01:08:56: God's intention from the beginning of creation that His people will dwell with Him and He will dwell with them and He will be our
01:09:03: God and we will be His people and He will never leave us or forsake us and in that new creation it doesn't matter how far out into the nether reaches you go in the new heavens and the new earth
01:09:13: He will be with you constantly and the glorious part of that is that His presence and the reality of that will be as palpable to you and I as the temperature in this room as the clothes that we are wearing as the physical things that we now enjoy now that's the promise and frankly words fail me and the mind falters me to even begin to explain that because I think we could spend the rest of our lives just meditating upon that reality and what that means both now and in the grave and in the resurrection and in a new creation and all the promises that are to unfold and our minds could never plumb the depths of that but let's move on now to the promise applied and that's in verse 6 contemplating all of those realities
01:09:58: I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you the author has in mind here not only a cure for discontentment and an encouragement for contentment and a cure for covetousness but also the quotation in verse 6 as he applies it shows that he has in mind here also a cure for the fear of man and how that drives us to discontentment look at the quotation this is from Psalm 118 verse 6 the
01:10:24: Lord is for me I will not fear what can man do to me the Lord is for me
01:10:29: I will not fear what can man do to me this is directly tied to the issue of contentment his presence with us is a motivation for contentment and this is how the author ties this in discontentment is the demand or the desire for what
01:10:43: God has not given contentment is the satisfaction and delight in submission to what
01:10:49: God has given so now the question comes up in verse 5 what is it that God has given to us God has given to us the promise of His very presence so since that is what is promised to me can
01:11:00: I be content with that can I be satisfied in God's presence with His presence and His promise to never forsake me can
01:11:09: I be satisfied with that and allow my discontentment with other things to go away in other words can
01:11:17: I bring my expectations down to what God has provided for me He has given me His very presence and therefore
01:11:23: I have everything that I need and the best thing that I could have is God Himself all of His attributes all that He has provided His promise to never leave me or forsake me and then when we begin to ponder the truth of God's presence and fix our hearts on that then contentment begins to come back but then we realize yeah
01:11:43: I may not have this and that and this other thing here's what I do have I have a promise from Yahweh Himself by His name that He will never leave me or forsake me a hundred million millennia from now
01:11:58: He will still be with me and still be lavishing His goodness upon us Spurgeon said this to be content with such things as we have should be especially easy to us because we have so much to be thankful for such constant communications from the great benefactor and so certain and assurance that He will withhold no good thing from those that walk up rightly
01:12:18: I'm not speaking now of those who have houses and lands and goods in abundance for their complaining is discord indeed but I speak of all
01:12:26: Christians this world is ours and the world to come earth is our lodge and heaven our home it ought to be easy for us to be contented since all things are ordered for our good arranged by our own dear
01:12:40: Father's hand His appointments ought not to be difficult for a loving child to approve I'm going to repeat that listen to that it ought to be easy for us to be contented since all things are ordered for our good arranged by our own
01:12:56: Father's hand His appointments ought not to be difficult for a loving child to approve the trial of our faith will soon be over a long life of affliction is but a pin's point of time be it ever so painful we ought to be willing to bear the light affliction which is but for a moment we know that God loves us for we feel
01:13:15: His love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit should not contentment be easy under such circumstances close quote so what has been given to us everything every good thing you don't possess all of that now but every good thing has been given to you every good thing has been pledged to you and until He secures on that promise
01:13:41: He has promised you His presence never to leave you never to forsake you this is not only the fuel with which we fight the enemy of covetousness and feed the virtue of contentment it is also the fuel that we need to face every enemy with courage
01:13:59: God's presence is our help and this is verse 6 the Lord is my helper I will not be afraid what will man do to me that means that the author here is reflecting upon that passage and he is saying there is grace for trials there is patience in affliction there is strength in temptation there is courage that God provides in the midst of discouragement
01:14:17: Psalm 27 verse 1 the Lord is my light my salvation whom shall I fear the
01:14:22: Lord is the defense of my life whom shall I dread when evil doers came upon me to devour my flesh my adversaries and my enemies they stumbled and fell though a host encamp against me my heart will not fear though war rise against me in spite of all this
01:14:37: I shall be confident there is courage in the midst of that promise the promise that God will never leave us or forsake us this allows us to face the enemies and the persecution of man with the confidence that we shall not be afraid because what will man do to me this
01:14:52: I think is the primary application for the original readers of this letter they had endured the seizure of their property some of them were in prison they had been reproached and slandered for the name of Christ they had suffered at the hands of men and the temptation in such circumstances is always to think to yourself if only
01:15:10: I had more things I would be more secure if only I had more money I would be more protected if only
01:15:16: I could secure these things out there then I would be I would have a hedge against the enemy and against all of his attacks but if the
01:15:23: Lord is our presence if the Lord is in our presence and He has promised to never leave us then that itself is better than any security money or things money does give us a sense of security it's a false sense of security because it can go away like that it could be hyper of everything you save could be hyperinflated away in a matter of a week from now and you could be wheeling in wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread all of it can be taken from us in a heartbeat but we deceive ourselves into thinking if I only had more stuff
01:15:57: I would be more secure that is a lie if God is with us then are you secure what will men do to me well it turns out they can persecute you and afflict you and hate you and slander you and revile you and imprison you and even kill you but the
01:16:15: Lord has said He will never leave me nor forsake me so abandoned and persecuted and hated and reviled and afflicted and slandered and imprisoned and killed the
01:16:23: Lord is with me through all of that because He has pledged He will never leave us nor forsake us one last quote from Spurgeon I should have just asked him to preach this sermon
01:16:34: Spurgeon said a child of God afraid why there is nothing more contrary to his nature if any would persecute you look them in the face and bear it cheerfully if they laugh at you let them laugh you can laugh when they shall howl if any despise you be content to be despised by fools and to be misunderstood by mad men that's gold that last sentence belongs
01:17:02: I was going to say it belongs on a pillow but somebody took the last time I said that and put it on a pillow and I have two in my office that sentence belongs written in the sky there you go somebody paid to have it written in the sky be content to be despised by fools and to be misunderstood by mad men because that is what the world does they're insane so yes they revile us but the
01:17:28: Lord has promised to never forsake us or to leave us if covetousness is the insatiable craving for more for more than we have then it tells us the lie that there is something out there that can protect us from the things that we fear we have nothing to fear because the one who is always with us tells us to fear nothing we can fear men's disapproval which is why we gain more stuff why we acquire more stuff we want to be thought highly by men we want other people to respect us we want other people to admire us we want other people to think that we're something so we collect things so that other people look at us and that's nothing more than a fear of man that fear of man drives discontentment so just acquire things, get more things, do more things be more things if I can do all of that then people will respect me and love me that fear of men drives and feeds discontentment and covetousness the fear of men's hostility makes us think that we can be protected by the things that we have and so we pursue more but the truth is that God's presence with us and the promise of His faithfulness until He has secured every promise that He has given to us that is enough and that is sufficient so if I can mortify every sinful and covetous desire that militates against that and that drives me against that then
01:18:43: I can rest with contentment in the promise that He has given that He will never leave us or forsake us this is the sword with which we wage our war against discontentment and covetousness this is the fuel that feeds the fires of contentment the
01:18:58: Lord is with me He has promised this He will never leave us and He will never forsake us and that is enough and when
01:19:05: I am satisfied with that I am content let's bow our heads our
01:19:12: Father we praise and thank You for Your great goodness to us all the promises that You have given to us,
01:19:19: Your people we know and can have complete confidence and faith that You will leave none of them unfulfilled, none of them unmet and in fact
01:19:30: You will fulfill all of Your promises to us in an abundant way beyond all that we can ask or even think these promises contain blessings that are millennia in the future for us and we would just pray that You would give us the eyes of faith to see that to apprehend it and to trust in it to believe it and to live our lives in light of it thank
01:19:54: You for the grace that You have given to us thank You for Your presence make us now content with this promise of Your everlasting goodness and Your everlasting presence with us we ask this in Christ's name,