Good morning. Let's try that again. Good morning. Hey, there we go.
We've been several weeks in a series called Faithful Promises. It's just kind of like spontaneously took off and I've had the privilege of preaching a couple of those messages and have been very exciting for me, trusting God's covenant and keeping ours, that God has made promises to us. God has made promises to us and we trust God to do what He says He's going to do. And the responsibility on our end to do what we said we're going to do, but here's the great news about the new covenant.
It doesn't depend on me. Like if I mess up, God doesn't. And so the covenant that we're under is New Covenant, New Testament believers is the same covenant that Abraham was under when God made a promise to him. It was what's called a unilateral covenant.
It's a one-sided covenant. So many covenants, if you think about the old covenant, what we call the law, it was a two-party covenant. God says, if you do this, then I'll do this. And it was in, you think of an if-then statement, but the new covenant is all about God's I will.
He says, I will be their God. I will put my laws in their minds. I will write them on their hearts. I will remember their ascends.
And I'm like, everything under the new covenant is all about what God does. God actually made a covenant with Himself so that we, when He made the covenant with Abraham, actually took Abraham outside of the covenant, puts him to sleep and then makes a covenant with himself, the same covenant that we have today, so that we can trust God, that we can rely on God, that the covenant promises He makes to us are based on His faithfulness and not mine. Thank God. Because I've dropped the ball a whole lot of times.
Now, that is not an excuse for us to be lazy. It's not an excuse for us to be diligent to live in sin or any of those things. It's never an excuse. But the fact that Jesus does it all should make me want to do more.
It should make me want to live a certain way and act a certain way and grow in the Lord. And so today I want to talk about Abraham today. Oh my goodness. I don't know if you guys saw Seth's talking to me earlier.
He said, we have no PowerPoint today, we have no media. So as I was standing here, I said, Father, I thank You that I'm Your heir. I don't need a PowerPoint, I just need You. And if You want me to preach without a PowerPoint, I'll do it.
If You want me to preach without a PowerPoint, I'll do it. But at the end of the day, I just need Him. And so I can encourage you, no matter what you're going through, it's Him and Him alone. Like, what else do we need?
We do need a PowerPoint. Apparently He thought that I needed the PowerPoint. Maybe He thought you needed the PowerPoint. I don't know.
But we're talking about, you know, I want to look at Abraham because Abraham was a man who trusted God for the extraordinary. There are some extraordinary things in Abraham's life, but I want you to see that he lived the life of faith in the ordinary. And Pastor Seth not alluded to this last week and after last week's message, I said, there's what I'm preaching on next week. Like, I don't know, but I knew last Sunday that today I'll treat on Abraham because Abraham just trusted God for some extraordinary things.
But at the same time, he lived his life of faith really just very ordinarily. And I think it's an encouragement to us. I mean, the Bible calls him the Father of our faith. So that we can walk in the same steps of faith that Father Abraham did.
That it's not impossible to walk the way he did, to believe the way he did, and to see the results and have them miraculous in your life just like he did. Like, we have that. We're in covenant with God the same way he was. And so I want to read today from Hebrews, chapter 11.
I'm going to read verses, I think it's 8 through 19. And then we're going to go back through those. So if you would, if you have your Bibles, if you want to turn to Hebrews, chapter 11 of them. And as you're turning their up on the screen, three things I want to talk to you about today is number one.
And these are very ordinary things that Abraham obeyed God. Here, Chris will say earlier about being obedient. He stole my message from you. That Abraham obeyed God.
All these things are by faith. By faith, he obeyed God. We're going to talk about that. By faith, the next thing is that he occupied something.
I'm not going to tell you what yet. He occupied. And third, he offered up. So he obeyed, he occupied, and he offered up.
It'll be our three points for today. So Hebrews, chapter 11, verses 8 through 19 read like this. It says, By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place, which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going.
By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of him with him of the same promise, where he waited for the city, which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith, Sarah herself received strength to conceive, and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful, who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having received them far off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland, and truly, if they had called to mind the country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better. That is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to call their God, and he has prepared a city for them.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up is only the God and Son. Appuement was said, and Isaac, your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sentence. Father, I ask today that your word, do exactly what your word says it will do, that your word is alive, that your word is powerful, that your word is sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing a son, their soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of thoughts and intents of the heart. Father, I ask your word to cut to places Lord that may be are hidden.
Father, the things would be exposed that maybe we didn't even know were there before. Things that have been holding us back from stepping out in faith. Lord, I just ask as your word goes forth, I thank you that faith will increase. I thank you that revelation and understanding will come, and we give you all the glory and honor in Jesus' name.
Amen. Number one, Abraham obeyed. Abraham obeyed, it says by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out knowing where he was going. I want to talk about it, it says that he obeyed by faith.
Now, a lot of times we talk about obedience, right? Well, I'm being obedient. Why aren't things working out for me? Do you realize that you can obey out of obligation instead of obedience out of submission?
That you can actually, like, if I wanted to, I could make you do something. Like, if I walked over here and took Curtis's arm, I could make him submit, right? I could make him do what I wanted me to, what I wanted him to do. But that wouldn't be obedient.
That would be a form of obedience, but it would be based on obligation because he had to, because if he didn't his arm would break, right? We see that a lot. But that's not the kind of obedience that Abraham says that he obeyed by faith. So I want you to look at this word of obedience.
Go to the next slide and then we're going to come back to this one. Here's what I love about this word of obedience. The word of obedience is two Greek words that literally when put together Hoopo, which looks like hypo, but Hoopo, which means under, in Akuo, which means to hear, that the word obeyed literally means to hear under. It means to come underneath of the word.
That so many times people obey, but they're coming under the word that's not God's word. And so to obey means to submit to, to subordinate to, to come under the authority of the word of God. See, it says that faith comes by what? Hearing.
So, right? So that we receive faith by hearing and hearing by what? The word of God or the word of Christ. It's not.
It doesn't say that faith comes by having heard. Well, I've heard that before. It says faith comes by hearing present tense. See what happens is sometimes God can give you a word that's obedience in the moment, but then if he gives you another word that's different and you're still doing the old word, you can get off the path.
Think about this. When God says to Abraham, he says, I want you to take your son. You're only begotten son Isaac, and I want you to sacrifice him, offer him as a burnt offering unto me. What did he do?
He took Isaac. He, you know, the story three days that journey got my my myriae. Isaac says, I see the wood. I see the fire, but where's the lamb God?
Abraham says, God provide for himself a lamb. He puts him on the altar. He raises the knife. And it says what?
It says the angel capital A, the angel of the Lord said to him, Abraham, Abraham, do not hurt your son. What if Abraham had still been living in the word from three days ago? Instead of the word for today? Three days ago obedience was sacrificed your son.
The word of the moment is stop. But had he not been hearing and had he been obeying based on what he heard, he would have sacrificed his son. So there's this part of obedience that comes from an act of listening to what God's saying. It says that when Abraham obeyed, when he was called to go to the place where he would receive in the parents, he went out.
Look at that. Not knowing. He went out. He went out.
When he was called, not knowing. How often when God asked us to do something? How does it all work? How do the pieces fit together?
I'm a very logical person. I like to know, A, B, C, D. One, two, three, four. A equals B and B equals C.
I need to know all that stuff. But when Abraham obeyed, comes under the word, he actually can walk out what God says without knowing all the answers. See, that's why it says that we walk by what? Faith, not by saying, you may not be able to see everything.
Yeah, David, in Psalm 119, if I says, your word is what? A lamp unto my feet and a light to my path. So if I have a flashlight, it will give me a certain amount of light on the path. But unless I move, guess what doesn't move?
The light. So until I take a step, I can see a little farther. I can see a little farther. And I take another step and I can see a little farther.
And that's how I can go out because I say, Abraham, because he comes under submission under the authority of God's word, he can trust that God knows where he's sending him. And as he takes a step, he'll see a little bit more. And as he'll take a step, he'll think about when he takes his son to Mount Moriah, it's said, after three days, he looks and sees the mountain that there's a, like, he didn't know till he got there. He actually walked a few days and he says, hey, wait here, we're going to go worship him, we'll return.
It says, when he was called, it says, when he was called, he went out, not knowing where he was going. By say, he obey when he was called, this is what happened this week, when he was called, he went out. Christel said earlier, when God asked you to do, I love him, I don't like being here, she said that. But God impressed on me to do this.
I had to do it. See, when God, he went out, when God called it. See, there's a lot of Christians today that do one or two things. When God calls them, they don't go out loud.
Or they go out when God didn't call them. Like, there's a lot of people out there today in ministry doing something of their own volition and their own will, and they justify it by saying, well, I'm in obedience to God and I'm walking in faith. Yeah, but you weren't called. Or you weren't called.
Yes. So you can get in the ditch either way, God calls me. Well, I'm not going. Or maybe I'm going, but God didn't call me.
So the important thing is here is that when God called him, he went. It wasn't before, like he didn't go out before God called him. And he didn't delay after God called him. There's a timing and a season and a now time to be called.
And so if you even think the apostle Paul said that this way in Galatians 1 verse 15, it says, when, when what, it pleased God. You see that? When it pleased God. Do you realize there's a time that's pleasing to God for you to step into what he's calling you to do?
It says, when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son and me that I might preach the gospel to the Gentile. That's some helpful, but think about this. When did God separate the apostle Paul in utero? So in utero, God sets him apart.
He doesn't call Paul until some many years later, 20, 30 years later, knowing all the things that Paul would do in the middle of that, as Saul, persecute Christians, murder Christians, put him in all this thing. He separates him here, but he calls him here. And when he called him, he did it by grace. He didn't do it because Paul was all that.
He didn't call Abraham because Abraham was all that. When Abraham was called, Abraham was an idol worshiper. Abraham lived in Mesopotamia, or of the Chaldeans. His family, Joshua 24 verse 2, he came from a family of idol worshippers.
God didn't call him because he was a spiritual giant. God called Paul by grace. God called Abraham by grace. But don't you love this one?
When God even called Paul, it says, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, that he may do what reveal his son in me. That I might preach to the Gentile. See, there's a time when God calls you, and there's a lot of people that operate in a calling with no revelation of who Christ is in them or who they are in Christ. And I believe the reason the apostle Paul's ministry was so effective, because even though God called him, he went to the desert for three years to learn directly from Jesus, who Christ was in him.
And the greater our revelation of who Christ is in us and who we are in Christ, the more effective ministry that we will have in preaching to Gentiles or those outside of the covenant of God. Even though it says Abraham by faith did what's our word? He obeyed. Abraham obeyed.
Do you realize his obedience was not perfect? Like this guy did not perfectly obey, but in Hebrews it says, by faith he obeyed. Have you ever heard this statement? Partial obedience is, maybe you haven't heard it.
I know, I know, I just heard it. Partial obedience is what? Disappearance. Have you ever heard that?
Delayed obedience is, oh my wife always said, this would be, it's not for people. Like partial obedience is disobedience, delayed obedience is disobedience. I'm not arguing that though statement. Abraham committed both.
Abraham partially obeyed and Abraham delayed in his obedience, but the New Testament doesn't record his failure. See God's not keeping record of your wrong. First Corinthians 13, 5 in the section on what love is, and we know what God is. Love, it says, 1 Corinthians 13, 5 says love keeps no record of wrong.
He God's not up in heaven, recording your sin, because Jesus already paid for it. It says that I'll remember your sins no more. So what does God record? He records your faith.
See, He doesn't record your screw-up. She records your faithfulness and your obedience. So so many people are, God's not there taking a record of what you're doing wrong. One day there's going to be a big screen in the sky.
You were in bed with that woman and you stole that there over there. You lied about it. It's all going to be on a big note. That was all put on Jesus 2000 years ago.
God records your faith. It says in Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 through 4, it says, the Lord has said to Abraham, get out of your country. Now here we've passed over this a lot. Verse 1 says, it doesn't say God said.
What does it say? God said. Which means God said it before this, like it was already said. So I'm going to put this together in a minute, but just keep that here.
The Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family, from your father's house to a land which I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you. And you shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abraham had been spoken to him, a lot went with him and Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haren.
Okay, so we read that and we think, Abraham is 75. He's in Haren and God, you've all heard Genesis chapter 12. God says, I'll bless you. I'll bless you.
I'll bless you. I'll curse you. We won't hear that. But we read that thinking that God said that when Abraham was in Haren, when actually God said that previously when Abraham was in Mesopotamia, he didn't say it there.
And we know that by, you can go back to Genesis chapter 11 or even in Acts chapter 7. I want to show you this. This is when Stephen is preaching before he gets stoned. It says in Acts chapter 7 verses 2 through 4, Stephen says, brethren, this is Father's listen, the God of glory appeared to our Father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haren.
And said to him, get out of your country from your relatives come to a land I will show you. Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haren. And from there, when his father was dead, he moved to this land in which you now dwelt. First of all, Abraham only partially obeyed.
God said, get away from your family. And who's he bring along? He brought his father, Tara. He brought a lot his nephew.
He partially obeyed. Had he been completely obedient, he would have only brought his wife with him. But he partially obeyed God. He also, although it says when God spoke, he left, he also stopped halfway.
So when God calls him, Abraham is in Ur of the Chaldeans, Mesopotamia, the center of idol worship. His family are idol worshipers. And it says that he left Mesopotamia and went 600 miles to Haren. He stayed in Haren until his father, Tara died.
And after his father, Tara died, he went on to Canaan, another 400 miles. So when God called him back here, he was calling him to take a thousand mile journey, although Abraham didn't know it yet. Abraham partially obeyed, we'll call it 60% obedience. Because he only went 600 miles, and he stopped.
He actually put down roots there. It says he dwelled there until his father died, and then he went on. Interesting enough is his father's name, Tara, means delay in Hebrew. The place that he stopped, Haren, means parched or barren.
When you delay in your obedience, you may experience barrenness in your life until delay dies, and you move on. It doesn't mean he was out of covenant. It's just that there may be some repercussions to delayed obedience. But the good news is God doesn't record your failures.
Abraham partially obeyed God. Abraham delayed his obedience to God. But at the same time when the book or Hebrews was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God says this, Abraham by faith, obey. He didn't say Abraham partially obeyed me?
Abraham delayed his obedience to me? He says Abraham obeyed. Because God does not record your failures. So is obedience important?
Ab-sah-lu-li. Absolutely. But here's what I want to tell you about this point today about obedience. Do not allow your missteps to stop you from taking your next step.
What could have happened? Abraham could have got 600 miles in, put down roots. He was like, I failed. I delayed.
I stopped. I obeyed God for 600 miles. But now I messed up. See, don't let your mess ups keep you from taking another step.
God's not recording them. You are. Does that give you an excuse to send now? But don't let it sidetrack you.
Say it's a walk. It's called the Walk of Faith. It says we follow in the steps of faithful Abraham. See the Bible doesn't call him partially faithful Abraham.
It calls him faithful Abraham. And so that if you messed up, don't let it get you down. Pick up. Put your underwear back on.
Pull yourself up by your bush. Put your big boy panties on or your big girl panties. Get your thumb out of your mouth. And keep moving.
Keep moving. Like the rain sizzling over. Until the day I die, it's not over. Crystal talk to us.
We don't know. Like we don't know when the day is. I can tell you this. I'm going out in faith.
I'm going out in faith. I may have messed up. I may have screwed up. I may be delayed.
But I'm going out in faith. I'm walking that thing out until the day that I die, Jesus comes back. That's going to be my testimony. That's going to be your testimony.
You will die or be raptured. In faith. You're going to do it. Number two, Abraham occupied.
Now, when we think of the word occupy, I want you to go to the next slide first and I'll tell you what I'm talking about. And then we'll come back to this one. So occupy can mean a lot of different things. So when you read this verse, it says by faith Abraham dwells.
We're not talking about that word well. We're not talking about to occupy as to inhabit or live. That's a definition. It can mean to be a resident of.
It can mean that you occupy a country by taking military possession of it. It can mean to step into occupy an office. Or it can mean to engage the mind, energy, or attention of it. That's the occupy I'm talking about.
That Abraham was able to dwell. We're going to talk about this what this means in a minute. He was able to dwell in the land of promise because he kept his mind occupied on something. See, there's a consistency to your walk with the Lord that won't take place if your mind is in your past.
What you set your attention to will establish the direction of your life. It's going to talk in a few verses that all of these have not received the promises died in faith. There were certain promises that Abraham didn't receive. He received Isaac his son.
He had that promise. But there were other promises. You all nations of the earth will be blessed. He never sold that.
It says that your seed will possess the gates of their enemies. There were promises that Abraham had that he actually didn't receive, but he died in the grave believing. From the time he was 75, when he left Iran for the day he died, he was 175 years old when he died. He was 75 when Abraham believed God and God counted at 10 for righteousness.
For 100 years he lived in. Think about that. You want to talk about having a consistent life of faith? This man did it for over 100 years.
You can certainly do it for the next 30 or 40. Some of you more than others. David says, I hope. Absolutely.
You can go out on top. I want to talk about what he did to occupy his mind. It says, by faith, you go back and slide. It says, by faith he dwells.
This word dwell is not the word dwell that means to take up residence. When Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is with you and he will be in you, that the Holy Spirit resides in us, that he takes up residence in us. That's the word may know. That's not the word that's here.
That word for dwell. This is a different word that means to dwell as a foreigner. It means to live as a stranger. It means to dwell in a foreign country as a foreigner.
Think about this. If somebody comes to live in the United States as a foreigner, I'm not saying that's right wrong. If they come here to live as a foreigner, foreigners look different. Maybe you see somebody like, that person's from India because they wear a shirt that's down to their knees.
Or maybe you see, oh, that person's probably from Africa because they dress a certain way. They're probably from South America because they dress like so. When a foreigner is living in the US, their dress looks different. Their customs are different.
The way they act is different. The way they speak is different. Are you seeing a similarity here? That he lived in a foreign land as a stranger, which means while he lived there, the customs of the land that he lived in didn't change who he was and how he acted.
We are in the world, but not of the world. But too often we're in the world and we continue to look and act like the world. See, this isn't our home. Like when you live here as a believer, as a son of God, as an heir of Christ, as a new creation, you should be looking, living, acting, thinking, speaking like your home, native country.
Not like the one that you're residing in temporarily. It says that he lived in the land of promise as in a foreign country. dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob heirs with him in the same promise, for he waited for the city which foundations the builder makers got. The word weight is a different word.
It means to reach out in an effort to receive. Phil talked about us too much ago about the need to receive. It's just not like, oh yeah, that's great. It's actively reaching out to receive something.
See, a lot of times we think of waiting like we're in the doctor's office. That's me. I'm going to send the doctor bill because my time cost more than his does. This is ridiculous.
Right? That's not the type of waiting we're talking about. This is the type of waiting like when your kid, well, Christmas morning, like, like, like, is it time to get up? No, it's only three in the morning.
It's the time to notice and it's only four in the morning. And finally you can see it at five a.m. And they can't wait. What did I get?
That's how he waited. He waited eagerly expecting to receive something. It says even though he didn't receive it. He and he lived all that way till the day he died.
See what happens when we don't get what we know that God's promised us, maybe a week or a day. Oh, man, I'm standing in faith. I'm standing in faith. A year goes by.
Oh, I'm gone. I'm not believing anymore. No, we give up too quick. We the way that we actively pursue that day one day one, you should be pursuing it the day you die.
It says these old died in faith not having received the promises that having seen them before were assured of them and braced them confess them that they were strangers to pilgrims on earth. Those who say such things plainly declare they seek a homeland. Let's stop there for a minute. Do you see this?
It says they saw them. They didn't receive them, but they saw how can you see something in the future? They saw them far off. See, when I spend enough time in the Word of God, I begin to see with the eyes of faith and not the natural eyes that I had in my head.
See, words create pictures. Do you know you can see something in your mind? If I say imagine an elephant. I just saw elephants a couple weeks ago.
But if I said imagine an elephant, can you see that elephant? Imagine a pink elephant. Imagine a pink elephant standing on three legs. Imagine a pink elephant on three legs wiggling its ear.
So the more words that I give you, it paints a clearer picture in your mind. The more time you spend in God's Word, meditating on God's Word, reading God's Word, praying over God's Word, the Holy Spirit will begin to let you see the thing that's promised, even though you can't see it here. See Abraham spent time with God so that he could see the thing before he could actually see the thing. See, some of you need to see yourself healed.
You need to see yourself delivered. You need to see yourself being obedient. You've seen yourself be disobedient so long. You can't see yourself being obedient.
You need to see yourself thankful. You need to see yourself righteous. When you're heading that pipe, see yourself righteous. Like see yourself that way.
It says they were assured of them. That means they weren't persuaded. So when I see something, you can't take that from me. Paul says this the same word is short.
He says being confident, same word, being confident of this very thing, Philippians 1, 6, that he who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Not that he's going to quit, like you know how faithful God is, he's so faithful you can believe that he'll continue to do his work in you until that day. So why can't you trust him until that day? Paul says that I am persuaded, same word, Roman Zate, that neither death nor life nor angel nor principalities nor power nor things present or things that come.
Nor any created thing shall ever be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. He's confident in that. He's persuaded because he can see the fact that he's one with the Father. See I can see that I'm one with Jesus and nothing is going to change that because I can see it.
It says they were assured of it. They embraced it. I'm a hugger. I'm a mother hugger.
You had to be here for three nights of fire to understand that one. Thank you, John. I'd completely like that from my memory. But to embrace this word in grace, it means to reach out and pull in.
See too often people give the, oh yeah okay I got that verse. I got that one. See we take God's word and we just give it a little way. I know all that.
No he says that. Embrace that thing. Like you embrace. If I embrace Pastor Seth, I could do this or this or this.
When I embrace him, I value him. I honor him. I love him. And he said I want you to take the word that I've spoken and I want you to see it.
I want you to be confident of it. I want it to be so part of you that you wrap your arms around that thing. Give it a big bear hug. Hold on to it.
And then it says what? It says they professed. Like they saw it. They were confident.
They were assured of it. They embraced it. And they professed it. It says with the heart, Romans 10 and with the heart, one believes, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Salvation is more than just quote unquote getting saved. Salvation includes healing. It includes deliverance. It includes protection.
It includes restoration. It's all those things that there comes a time when you have to speak out your faith. Like there's a profession or a confession that joins with the belief in your heart. Do you notice this?
It says with the heart and unbelief and what the mouth confession is made? Confession comes after the belief. Do you notice profession or confession is listed last year? The apostle Paul, including David, he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 13, he says that we have the same spirit of faith.
We have the same spirit of faith. According as it is written, David says this. I believe and therefore I spoke. Paul says we too believe and therefore speak.
We believe and do what? Speak. See, there's too many people trying to speak in order to believe. Well, if you say it long enough, say it till you make it.
Say it to you. There's probably some value in that, but that's not what God's Word says. What's God's Word say? I believe in quoting scripture.
I quoted it all the time. I meditate on it like I want it to be part of me. But when it gets so deep in me, guess what the natural result is? Boom!
I'm like, I'm jacked up. I believe. I believe. And therefore I speak.
I see it. I'm assured of them. I'm embraced it. And now I'm preaching it.
It says, yeah, here's where he occupied. What God occupied, not the land. His mind, it says, if truly, it's like this is a true statement. It says truly, if they had called to mind the country which they had come out of, they would have had opportunity to return.
If Abraham, once he made it to the Promised Land, Canaan, which doesn't represent heaven, it represents the finished works of Christ today, once he got there, if his mind had been occupied here, he would have created his own opportunity to go back here. See, I don't know what you've been delivered out of. Maybe you were delivered out of pornography. Maybe you were delivered out of addiction.
Maybe you were delivered out of immorality. Maybe you were delivered out of having a lying tongue or being a backlighter. Or maybe you were delivered from the power of sin and your life. Whatever it is.
You've been delivered out. Now you're standing in the finished works of Christ. And if you don't continually stand the Word, see the Word, embrace the Word, be assured of the Word, profess the Word, then your mind becomes occupied with the place that you came out of. And you naturally create an open door to walk back to the place that God told you out of.
You need your mind occupied with God's promises day in and day out. See, it's not up to you. It's not you doing it. But what you're doing is you're positioning yourself in a place where the Word begins to work in your life.
Like, I don't want to have a... I love to eat food. I'm a big eater. I hate fasting.
Let me be honest with you. I am not a good pastor. But the same way that I want to eat every day, and I need fuel. Right here.
Like, I need fuel. I need spiritual fuel. I need the Holy Spirit in me, living through me, pouring out of me. I need God's Word renewed in my mind every day.
Like, it doesn't get to a point where I just hit crude. See, if you put it, you can only drift so long. Like, momentum will carry you for a period of time. And I get, you know, don't get legalistic if you miss a day, no big deal.
Momentum eventually ends. And you can only drift uphill so long if you eventually drift down. Or stop. So Abraham was occupied.
Next slide. Here it is. See, he was living in one country, but his sight was on another. He was living in the natural, but his mind was renewed to the spiritual realm, to the heavenly realm.
To the same way that Paul says this, he says, your citizenship is where? In heaven. Like the place that I am a resident of is heaven. Now, I live here.
And I actually live in West Virginia. But West Virginia is not my home. My home is there. I'm a citizen of there.
I reside there. It says your citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we await. Remember, waiting from it, we await a savior.
So you can read that one way and say, well, we're waiting for the savior to come from heaven. I don't understand it that way. What I read it as is that I am a citizen in heaven. And from my heavenly position, I wait from there.
I'm waiting from my real home in heaven until the day Jesus comes back. See, a lot of people are down here. Well, we're just waiting for Jesus to come from heaven. That's great.
But I'm waiting from heaven for Jesus. There's a difference. See, Jesus opened the door to this realm in John chapter three. Listen to this.
Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. John chapter three, next slide. It says, no one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven. That is the son of man who is in heaven.
Look at this. I don't have time to go. Like, we're running. I could preach on this verse a long time.
Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. He said, no one has ascended to heaven. But the son of man who has descended from heaven. So where's Jesus when he's talking to Nicodemus?
Physically. Where's he's talking to him? Physically. Where's he at?
On the earth. Jesus says, no one has ascended to heaven, but he came down from heaven. That is the son of man who is where? Who is in heaven?
Well, he's not in heaven. He's right here. See, Jesus lived with the realization that this was temporary. He lived from the reality that he was in heaven, even though he was here.
And when we're citizens of heaven, we need to live on earth from heaven as if we're already there because we are there in the fact that we're seated in Christ. Like, that will change the way that you approach faith. All right, the last one. I'm going to hurry up on this one.
I feel like all of these could be a message. I don't have time to read the story of Abraham offering Isaac. But if you want to read it, I encourage it to. I think it's in Genesis 22 and I think about verses 1 to 14.
I'd encourage you to read it. There was a verse in there. I just feel like God wants me to share this because as I read that this week, I saw something I never saw before. So I'll go ahead and give it away.
Maybe Seth can preach it. I don't know. After Abraham offers Isaac, God says this. He says, now I know that you fear me, for you have not withheld your son, your only son.
And so what stood out to me this week about that was that a lot of people tried to define the fear of the Lord, but the first definition of the fear of the Lord was, now I know that you fear me, for you have not withheld. That we demonstrate fear for the Lord by the ability to release the thing that's most important to us. That the thing that I love the most, the thing that I've been contending for the most, the thing that I believe God for all my life, if I'm willing to the degree that I'm willing to lay that thing down, is the degree to which I fear God. That was God's own word.
But do what you want. It says, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, get this. God does not tempt you, right? God tests you.
So a lot of times you're like, well, is it God testing me or is it the devil pimping me? I don't know. You know what doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because if you follow God's word, you're going to come out on the right side in either situation.
Like if it's God testing you and you walk it out in faith, you're going to be okay. If it's a devil tempting you, God with every temptation makes a way of escape. You're going to be okay. God uses whether it's his testing or the devil tempting.
He can use them both to develop you. So it says that when Abraham was tested, he offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up is only be God's son of whom it was said. In Isaac's, how your seed be called, concluding God was able to raise him up even from the dead, which he also received in a figurative sense. Here's what I want to say about this.
There's an aspect of faith that's for the unknown. The first thing we read, it says that by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called and he went out not, no. So there's always this aspect of faith that we're stepping into the unknown taking a risk and stepping into what we don't know. But there's another level of faith that Abraham displays here and it's actually where faith becomes logical.
So a lot of times we think, well, we talk about well and the pieces don't fit together and the numbers don't add up and all those things. And that's an aspect of faith. I'm trusting God in the unknown. But there's a point in your walk with the Lord to where when you develop such a history with God's faithfulness that the unreasonable becomes reasonable.
The word conclude is the word account or to take account of. It's an accounting word. It means facts. It means that I've weighed all the options and I've done this, this and this and this and this answer now makes logical sense, which is opposite of the way we think of faith.
Look at this in the amplified version. Look at the next verse in amplified. It says he considered it reasonable to believe God. Now we don't think about faith being reasonable.
See there gets a point where the unreasonable becomes reasonable, that the illogical becomes logical, that God was able to raise Isaac in for the dead. How could Abraham believe God and it seemed logical that what's God telling him to do so? I want you to sacrifice your son. It says that Abraham believed God in whom it was said in Isaac shall your seed be called.
So what do you have? He had a promise from God that said in Isaac all of your seed, all of your descendants will be numbered, named, counted through Isaac. So here's Abraham. Okay.
God told me to kill Isaac. But I also have a promise that says in Isaac all of my descendants will be counted. Okay. That's not sure how that all works out.
But here's where logic comes in. Abraham had a time in his life probably 20 years earlier when he was 99 years old. It says in Romans it says that he considered not his own body, which was dead, being nearly 100 years old, nor the deadness of Sarah's womb. Abraham looks back to a time in his life 20 some years earlier.
He's 99. Sarah's 89 and they have a baby at 99 100. When Abraham's body was dead. He was dead.
Sarah's womb was dead. And it said that God who calls things that be not as though they are, he actually gave life to a dead body. He gave life to Abraham's reproductive body that was dead. And he gave life to Sarah's reproductive organs that were dead and out of death brings life.
And so Abraham says this, if God was able to give life to my dead body then, and I had a promise then, if I have a promise now, then he can certainly give life to Isaac's dead body to fulfill his promise. And all of a sudden because Abraham has history with God's faithfulness, he's able to conclude that if God did it then, God's able to do it now. That makes sense. Abraham concluded that God was able.
He concluded God was able. Pastor Seth said this last week on Close with this statement. He says God's faithfulness in the past feels my current perseverance. See, I can persevere today because God was faithful yesterday.
I can persevere next week because God was faithful last week. I can persevere next year because God was faithful last year. That if he did it then, he'll do it now. That he's the same yesterday, today and forever.
See Abraham's journey didn't start out perfect. It started out with the step of obedience that became disobedience, that became obedience again, but God didn't record the disobedience. He only recorded the faith. It's the same for you today.
Maybe you started your walk with the Lord. Maybe you've had some successful years, maybe you've had some great experiences, maybe you've had those intimate moments. Maybe you got off path a little bit. Take a step back on path.
Step forward. Step forward. Don't let that hold you back. While you're stepping forward for the next 30, 40, 50, 60, 100 years, keep your mind occupied on the country that you reside in.
I get that we all live in the United States, but this is not my own. I am a citizen of heaven. I wait for the promises of God from heaven. I see things from Jesus's perspective.
And when it comes down to it, when God wants to put the past in front of me, can I trust him enough to willingly not withhold the very thing that I've been persevering for my whole life? Can I lay it down? If God asks you to lay it down, what you do? I don't know what that is for you.
I don't know what it is you're holding on. I don't know what it is you were intending for that you got it. Boy, it's mine. Go here.
Like it's all here. That's right.