[0:00] We'll sing in Psalm 100, all people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, whom serve with mirth, his praise forth tell, come ye before him and rejoice. Know that the Lord is God indeed, without our aid he did us make, we are his flock, he doth us feed, he doth us sheep, he doth us take. We're going to sing the whole psalm to God's praise, and we stand to sing to God's praise. All people that on earth do dwell.
[0:27] All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, heavens and with nervousness, praise for help. Come ye before him and rejoice. Know that the Lord is God indeed, with the Lord is God indeed, with mercy. We are his flock, he doth us sheep, and for his mercy, he doth us sing. O winter, let his gift with grace, a fruit with joy is for thanks to God.
[2:10] Oh, it is to sing, thanks to God. Oh, it is to sing, thanks to God. All is to see, please, so could you.
[2:28] For why the Lord the God is good, His mercy is for ever good, His truth that all can sell we should, And your glory to your children.
[3:12] Apologies for that, I must have misread Thomas' instructions about standing and sitting for prayer. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we give you praise and thanks today for the blessing that we have in gathering together to worship you.
[3:35] It is our desire, Lord, that as we gather for worship and with these words in our lips, that all people on earth would sing with a cheerful voice to the Lord of hosts.
[3:47] Lord, we pray today that that desire would indeed be seen, that we would see more and more people coming to worship the living and true God, that they would share in the joy that we know in discovering Christ Jesus as the Lord and Saviour.
[4:03] So we ask and pray today that you would bless us and meet with us and fill us with reason today to sing with cheerful voice. And as we consider the gospel together, as we reflect on the things of scripture, that our hearts would be enlivened and encouraged and that we would be built up and established more and more in the truth.
[4:24] We pray, Father, for along with that firm foundation of the gospel as our own understanding, we pray that we would also be filled today with a sense of our own contrition and our need for forgiveness.
[4:38] We ask, Lord, that you would therefore help us to recognize sin in our own hearts and to see the things that we do amiss, the things that we say amiss, and the thoughts that we have that lead us into such poor paths and outcomes.
[4:53] We ask, Lord, that you would give us today an assurance of your forgiveness, because the Bible does say to us that there is forgiveness to be found. So let us not despair today.
[5:06] Lead us not, Lord, into the temptation of thinking that our sins are too awful and that we have somehow done something unforgivable. Let us today seek grace.
[5:18] Let us seek Christ. Let us seek the blood that was shed at Golgotha as the means for our forgiveness. And so give us an assurance that belongs to all those of faith, that we would trust in your sufficiency to forgive us in and through Jesus our Savior.
[5:37] We want to pray today for the young folk in the church, and we pray for them as they go back to Sunday school classes today. We ask that you would bless them, help them in their studies, help them to learn these great stories of the Bible, the truths on which we can build our lives, and help us, Lord, to be shaped, all of us, more and more by the things that you have to say to us.
[5:57] We ask all of this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Boys and girls, I am wondering if you can think, perhaps, of a time when you've had to sieve up for something.
[6:19] Have you ever had to do that? Have you ever had to save? I've seen somebody here nodding your heads. You've had to save up for something. And sometimes saving up for something can take a long time, can't it? You can be saving for weeks, sometimes months, before you get the thing you're looking for.
[6:38] Maybe it's a toy. Maybe it's a sports trip. Maybe it's a bike. I don't know what sort of things you'd save up for. Mum and Dad can often be relied on to get you stuff, so you don't have to save, can't they?
[6:51] You can have a wee shortcut to getting things. But I certainly remember when I was young, we used to go once a year to Glasgow, and there was a toy store in Glasgow.
[7:06] It's a bit like Smythe's in Inverness now. It was a big toy store called the Jolly Giant. And once a year we'd go down to my granny's in the summer holidays, and it would be an opportunity to spend the pocket money that we'd been saving.
[7:22] And this year I was wanting to go, and I was absolutely, absolutely wanting to get a particular toy that I had seen in a catalogue. I thought, I really want to get that toy.
[7:34] It was an action Porsche. It was called an APC. It was an armoured tank that you could put your toy soldiers in, and you could drive it about, and it would blow things up.
[7:46] It was pretty cool. So I was saving all of my Christmas money, and then I saved all of my birthday money. And strangely, on Sunday nights, me and my sister used to help my dad put his books away.
[8:00] We'd tidy his office for him to study. And so we used to get 50 pence for putting my dad's books away. So I was saving up all of the 50 pences, trying to save up as much as I could for this action force piece.
[8:16] And I got to Glasgow. I was really excited. And it was like the third day of the holidays. I was bugging my parents. I was saying, can we go, can we go, can we go, can we go? And then eventually they said, yes, let's go.
[8:28] And so we went to the shop. And finally, I got the action force APC. It was amazing. It was a box. And you open it up, and you had to build some of it. And you had a bit of stickers on it.
[8:39] And it was really nice. And it was really cool. I was really pleased with this thing. I took it back home. And a few weeks later, I was playing with it out in the grass beside the house.
[8:56] And disaster struck. Because one of the parts, the turret that sat on the top, came off. And it got lost in the grass.
[9:06] And I never saw it again. And I was really disappointed. Because this thing that I had been saving for for so long, I'd ruined it myself.
[9:19] I'd lost something so important to it. And it was never the same playing with it after that. Because the turret on the top that had the gun on it just wasn't there.
[9:33] And so there was no point in having a tank without a gun on it. All it was was just a box. I'd carry my soldiers around. And I was very sad. Now, in the Bible, we're just going to sing a psalm that talks about waiting.
[9:49] And today in the sermon, we're going to be thinking about Abraham. And some waiting that he had to do as well. And very often, the way our lives are, that's kind of the way things are.
[10:00] We're waiting a lot of the time for God to do something. And as Christians, that's what we do. We actually spend our lives waiting. Psalm 40 tells us, I waited for the Lord my God, and patiently to bear until he listened to me.
[10:16] Psalm 130, it says, and we're going to sing in just a minute, it says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.
[10:29] So when I was young, I knew the toy shop was there in Glasgow. My parents had told me about it. I'd seen the thing in the catalogue. I knew that was there. So I had a lot of information that the thing I was hoping for could be achieved.
[10:40] I was waiting for it. But when I got it, I was disappointed very quickly. Because the thing I waited for, I broke it. I ruined it myself.
[10:52] Sometimes when we're waiting for God, we might start to creep in with that idea. Satan will come to us, and he'll say, the thing God promised you, the thing that you're waiting for from God, maybe it won't be as good as I did it.
[11:08] Maybe it's not even worth waiting for. Maybe you should just not bother waiting. Maybe you should just give up. Maybe you shouldn't trust in God at all. Maybe his promises aren't good.
[11:22] And today, what we're basically going to learn in the Bible, and what we need to learn all the time as Christians, we need to keep coming back to this, is that God's promises are always good.
[11:36] that God's promises are founded in the death of Jesus, and the hope of his resurrection. That Jesus has died for us, and paid for our sins, and he has risen from the dead, and he promises that one day, he will return for his people.
[11:57] And so because Jesus is no longer dead, because Jesus is alive today, we can be sure that all of God's promises, and all of God's, all of the hope that we have, and what God is going to do, if it's rooted in Jesus, then it'll all be good, and his promises will always be true.
[12:16] So let's sing just now. We're going to sing in Psalm 130. Lord, from the depths, to thee I cried my voice, Lord, do thou hear?
[12:36] And to my supplication's voice, give an attentive ear. Lord, who shall stand, if thou, O Lord, should mark iniquity? But yet with thee forgiveness is, that fear thou mayest be. I wait for God, my soul doth wait, my hope is in his word.
[12:49] More than may, that from morning watch, my soul waits for the Lord. So let's sing the Psalm, it's about waiting for God's redemption, his blessing, his forgiveness, to come into our experience.
[13:02] There may be some of you here today, who are still in that place, waiting for the first time, to have never experienced God's forgiveness yourselves. And yet the answer to you, is to continue looking. The Bible is very clear on this.
[13:13] Knock on the door, the door will be opened. God will never reject someone who comes looking for his forgiveness. So Lord, from the depths, to thee I cry, my voice Lord, do that. We'll sing the whole song.
[13:23] Dear God, I cry My joy is your I hear I will do my job In this kind of wine If I'm not yet to leave Lord, who shall stand In the Lord To shine and give it with me I will do my joy
[14:26] I will do my forgiveness That the earth the day has been I will do my joy My joy is your My hope is in this world More than the last My heart will watch My soul is far The night of night I may be more Than I do
[15:29] The night of night The Lord will rise to see Let Israel open the door For within there is me And let the earth begin The earth will rise to the earth For within there is me And from all this sin is with me The world shall devise
[16:30] The world shall devise Genesis 23.
[17:14] This is reading from the English Standard Version. Seda lived for 127 years. Leaves with the years of the life of Seda. And Seda died at Kiriath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.
[17:30] And Abraham went in to mourn for Seda and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, I am a sojourner and foreigner among you.
[17:41] Give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The Hittites answered Abraham, Hear us, my Lord. You are a prince of God among us.
[17:52] Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land.
[18:04] And he said to them, If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat me. For Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns.
[18:18] It is at the end of his field. And for the full Christ, let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place. Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites.
[18:29] And Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites and all who went in at the gate of his city. No, my Lord, hear me. I give you the field. I give you the cave that is in it.
[18:40] In the sight of the sons of my people, I give it to you. Bury your dead. Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land.
[18:53] But if you will hear me, I give the price of the field. Accept it from me that I may bury my dead there. Ephron answered Abraham, My Lord, listen to me.
[19:03] A piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? Bury your dead. Abraham listened to Ephron. And Abraham answered, Weed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites.
[19:17] 400 shekels of silver according to the weights current among the merchants. And so the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mammon, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area, was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites before all who went in at the gate of his city.
[19:43] After this, Abraham buried Sera, his wife, in the cave in the field of Machpelah, east of Mammon, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And the field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites.
[20:01] Amen. This is God's word to us. Let's again bow our heads in prayer to God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we gather in worship today, we thank you for the many assurances that come to us out of Scripture, the promises and the Psalms, that you are a God who hears, that we can wait patiently for you, that we can anticipate your answer, because you are an almighty God.
[20:26] There is nothing out with the power of your arm to give because you are a faithful God to the prayers of your people. And we thank you today, therefore, that we can come to you with confidence in prayer, that we can come to you with expectation that you will hear us, that you listen, that you are a God of answer and action, and a God of might and power.
[20:47] And so we come to you today, Father, with that sense of great expectation in our prayers, that you will do more for us than we can ask or think. We thank you today for the Gospel. We thank you that today that is why we are gathered here.
[21:00] We're here because we want on the Lord's Day to remember the resurrection of Jesus, because we want on the Lord's Day to hear the good news of Christ and what he has done, because we want to hear of the availability of forgiveness and hope for your people, because we need to be reminded of all of these truths and that firm ground on which we build our lives upon.
[21:23] And so we ask today, Father, that you would speak into each one of our hearts, that each one of us today would receive the blessing of God, grace upon grace, and that we would see Jesus clearly.
[21:36] We ask that our faith would be stirred up, that we would be encouraged in it. We want to pray particularly, Lord, for those who are going through times of spiritual conflict internally. We know, Lord, that so often the evil one will come to us, will tempt us to despair of your promises.
[21:52] Perhaps something, Lord, that we've been longing for, praying for over many years. I know many, Lord, who pray for their children, perhaps even for their grandchildren, to receive Christ and to pass on the heritage of salvation and the Gospel that we have received ourselves.
[22:10] And, Lord, as we see the years go on by, we see perhaps that prayer, that request going unanswered. I pray, Father, that you would strengthen the faith of those who are experiencing that temptation from Satan just now.
[22:23] Lord, you're a gracious God, and we don't know, Lord, what a day or an hour will bring. And so we pray, Father, that out of your great grace, you would remember those covenant children who have grown up within the church, but who have turned their backs on the things of the Gospel.
[22:39] We pray as well today, Father, for those around us in our communities. We see it, Lord, continually now. These communities that were once almost exclusively just the same Hebridean folk, the same folk who've always lived here and passed on crofts from one generation to the next.
[22:56] We see, Lord, our communities changing. We see so many folk coming in from outside. And we ask and pray, Father, that you would give us a heart to reach to them with the Gospel as well, that we would not be, Lord, guilty of that fear of the outsider that would keep us from sharing the best of news with them.
[23:16] Help us to be bold in making Christ known to all those who live around about us and give us confidence in the Gospel as we seek to make Jesus known. We want to pray, Father, for our community and all of its particular needs.
[23:29] We pray for practical things. We know, Lord, there's jobs that are needed. There's uncertainty around livelihoods. And so we pray, Father, for jobs and security for people. We pray for education.
[23:39] We pray for the fabric of our communities, just the simple things like the state of the roads. And we pray, Lord, for all of these practical things and ask that you would help us and remember us in these practical needs.
[23:51] We pray, Father, for social needs because we know people are lonely, because people are isolated, because people are fearful. And we ask and pray, Father, for these social needs that they need to be made.
[24:04] We pray for the health service. We pray for the practical care of those who are housebound. And we ask, Lord, that in all of these things you would continue to provide for us, that you would continue to bless us.
[24:15] But, Lord, above all of these things, we pray for the spiritual welfare of our communities. We pray for an awakening to the Gospel among people, that Jesus would be made known and that your name would be exalted.
[24:27] We want to pray, Father, for the church. We pray for its health. We pray for a pastor for this congregation to be raised up. And we pray for unity in the congregation as they look for a pastor.
[24:39] And we pray for your blessing on all those who carry responsibilities within the congregation just now. We pray for the moderator. We pray for him. We pray for the presbytery with their oversight of the congregations across this island.
[24:52] And we pray, Father, for the office bearers of the church as well, and for the Sunday school teachers, for those who help in practical ways in the life of the church. In every respect, Father, may you bless us as a people with spiritual wisdom and knowledge to know what is the love of God and the power of his might in bringing about the salvation of men and women.
[25:13] We pray for our nation just now, Lord. We lift up our land and we pray for the church within it. We pray for the work of the Gospel today as it's preached up and down our nation. And we ask for your power to accompany the preaching of the word all over the place.
[25:26] We pray for our leaders. We pray for those elected to govern us. And we ask and pray that you would help them and give them wisdom in how they deal with the challenges of the age as well.
[25:38] We see, Lord, these challenges so clearly on our news day by day. We see the threats. We see the difficulties. We see the uncertainty in the world as well. And in the midst of so much uncertainty, we pray that we would cling all the more to that sure ground that is in Christ Jesus.
[25:55] Help us to remember his promises more and more. Help us to be certain of what he has said he will do and to look forward to his coming. We think of that, Lord, when we see wars and rumors of wars, where we see crises upon crisis.
[26:09] We see times of uncertainty coming on the horizon. Lord, in all of this, we know none of this is a strange news to you. And none of these things are unexpected. None of these things catch your plans unprepared.
[26:22] And so we ask, Lord, that you would help us to rely on a God who is ever ready to help and full of preparedness. We pray that especially, not only for ourselves, but for our brothers and sisters who experience persecution day by day.
[26:36] We pray for the church in places where it is outlawed. We think, Lord, of Iran, for example. We pray for the church there. We pray for the church across the Middle East today. We pray for parts of North Africa.
[26:47] We pray for parts of Central Africa as well, where there's great turmoil among your people. And we ask and pray, Father, that wherever the church experiences that hardship and that fear, we ask that your presence would be with them, that you would surround them and guard their hearts and enable them to shine brightly for you in the midst of such a great darkness.
[27:10] We ask, Lord, then, your blessing today. Continue with us as we sing your praise. Help us to lift up our voices with joy and thanks. And we ask all of us in Jesus' name. Amen.
[27:25] We're going to sing one more time to God's praise. This time from Psalm 19. And we're going to sing from verse 7 of this psalm. Wonderful words that remind us about the law of God and the word of God that comes to us and the power of it, the promises that God has given us and the certainty that we have in God's speech.
[27:49] God's law is perfect and converts the soul and sin that lies. God's testimony is most sure and makes the simple wise. The statutes of the Lord are right and do rejoice the heart.
[28:00] The Lord's command is pure and doth light to the eyes and part. We're going to sing through the verse 11 to God's praise. So five stanzas. God's law is perfect and converts the soul and sin that lies.
[28:12] Amen. God's law is perfect God's law is perfect God's test in heart, he is most true, and makes the simple wise.
[28:53] The stature songs adored and write, and purely joys the heart.
[29:11] The Lord commanded you, and that light to the eyes of wine.
[29:30] And despite the days of the year of God, and I thank you for ever.
[29:49] The judgments of the Lord are new, and write your song again.
[30:07] The Lord has called me, and that light to the Lord is new.
[30:23] The Lord is new, and that light to the Lord is new.
[30:39] The Lord is new, and that light to the Lord is new.
[30:55] The Lord is new, and that light to the Lord is new.
[31:07] A great reward for all life it is, for them that keep us here.
[31:26] Amen. Abraham addresses the Hittites and says, I am a sojourner and foreigner among you.
[32:02] Give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. Let's bow in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we turn our attention just for a moment to your word, give us clarity and insight to what you are seeing.
[32:22] This is your word. It's not just a story from sometime in the Bronze Age of an event far away, and very distant from our experience.
[32:34] Help us to see how this connects to our lives, and what you are seeing to us in it. And help us to live with the example of Abraham. He is the example of faith throughout Scripture.
[32:46] He is constantly referred to as that model of what the faith of the believer looks like. And so we pray today that you would give us the faith of Abraham, as we look upon our lives, and perhaps even on our deaths, and give us insight to how we should live.
[33:06] We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. If you are reading through the book of Genesis, this is almost the end of Abraham's life.
[33:18] His death isn't recorded until a couple of chapters on from this. There is the story first of Isaac's wife being found. But the story is kind of coming to its conclusion.
[33:31] And you have a little, in the previous chapter, you have got one of these recitals of ancestry and generations that seem to serve almost as way markers throughout the book of Genesis.
[33:52] And what Moses was trying to highlight key points throughout. And so when you come to chapter 23, on the face of it you think, well this is about the death of Sarah, Abraham's wife.
[34:06] And if we were writing it as a biography, that there would probably be a lot of maybe attention and focus and thought given to the question of Abraham's grief.
[34:17] Sarah has been his wife for a long time. A hundred years. A long marriage by any stretch. And you might think, well what was the impact of that on Abraham?
[34:30] And no doubt he grieved it. That's mentioned almost in passing in fact. It's not the focus of this story. But Sarah has died. It's about 30 years after the birth of Isaac, the promised child.
[34:45] And the focus on it though seems really strange. The focus is about this negotiation with the Hittites and particularly with Ephron about the purchase of this field.
[34:57] And it's really a strange one because the price is outrageous. Now that's maybe one of the things just to note.
[35:08] The price of this field is absurd. The price of 400 shekels of silver is an absurd price. You almost see it in fact the way Ephron refers to it to Abraham.
[35:19] He's almost joking when he says the price. Look, Abraham, even if I was to put a price of 400 shekels on this, what's that between you and me? Have the field. It's fine. I'll give it to you. But Abraham is so keen to own the field that he agrees to the price.
[35:33] And his confession in verse 4 that we've just read, I am a sojourner in the land, is so important. The word there in Hebrew is ager. Ger. And ager is someone who has no inheritance.
[35:45] Someone who is a stranger. Someone who is outside of the line of inheritance of a piece of land. So he doesn't have a croft. He doesn't have a title.
[35:57] There's nothing to pass on. It literally means he has nowhere to bury his dead. And yet, this chapter has to be seen in life of a promise that has never been fully revealed.
[36:13] Remember the promise that God had given Abraham. Abraham, get up from where you are and out of the Chaldeans and go to the land that I will show you. And you and your descendants will inherit this land.
[36:26] And actually, everything that happens to Abraham in all of the chapters up to this point, all of it's in light of that promise. That God has given him a promise. God has established his covenant with him.
[36:38] God has given him a son to inherit. God has established Abraham himself as a prosperous and successful land working individual.
[36:50] He's a big, powerful farmer. He has hundreds of servants and cattle and sheep and everything else. But he still doesn't have the land. God still hasn't given the land into Abraham's possession.
[37:04] And so Abraham takes a step here of faith. There's really faith in action in this chapter, as we'll see. The writer of Hebrews picks up on this.
[37:17] Hebrews 11 says, when it's talking about the Old Testament, it says, All those died in faith. And having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
[37:34] And for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. And if they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. And as it is, they desired a better country.
[37:47] That is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. For he has prepared for them a city. So as we look at this chapter today, there's two points that we're going to notice.
[38:01] First of all, an expensive burial. But then secondly, in more detail, we'll see what this tells us about an expectant faith.
[38:11] So an expensive burial and an expectant faith. A bit of a tongue twister between these two points. So we'll not say them close together too often.
[38:25] But stories are very important. The stories about where you've come from. My family, we've traced our genealogy and heritage and family back quite a number of generations on both my mum's side and my dad's side.
[38:38] My dad's is fairly straightforward. They're Mathesons that go back a number of generations in the village of Grava. And before that, going back about seven generations, they were in Uig.
[38:51] And we think before that, they were probably in Lachal. And that's where the records kind of peter out. On my mum's side, it's much more complicated. Part of my mum's family, her mum was from Ranish.
[39:04] But her father was from Ayrshire. And there's a very complex family tree of folk from Ayrshire. And then cousins and relatives of them that pass over over to America and scattered all over the world.
[39:18] And so I've got broadfoot cousins from all sorts of strange parts of the world. And these stories about where we come from, they're really important. They give us a sense of place and identity. And they help us to have a sense of what's going on.
[39:34] And sometimes the stories almost become mythical. They take on a legendary characteristic. One of my father's ancestors was apparently a soldier of the Battle of Assay in India.
[39:46] And became apparently very prosperous with a lot of loot and booty that was taken. And was then subsequently taken and absconded and robbed basically from them.
[39:58] Stolen from them by the British Army. And he never saw a penny of it. These kind of stories form the legends of their family. And some of the stories that go back a long, long way. And sometimes the details of them get lodged in your memory.
[40:12] And that's what's going on here. There is a story here of a foreigner, Abraham, who pays an absurd price for a cave and the woodland around it.
[40:25] And that's all that's going on in this chapter. It's a story that's full of little Middle Eastern details. The venue of the meeting and the gate of the city. That's where the elders of the city would gather.
[40:38] In the ancient Near East, the area around the gate of the city was the only open space in a city. They didn't have a city square in the middle that was open. The city gates were the place that was open. Because that's where the soldiers would gather if they had to defend the city.
[40:51] So it was an open space at the gate. And so the gate of the city is a place for meeting. It's a place for commerce. It's a place for councils to take place. And that's what's happening here. All the elders of this Hittite community, a Canaanite community, they're gathering.
[41:08] And amongst them is Ephron. And there's a haggle that would be conducted there in standard terms. And so Ephron, it's almost as if in the form of the ancient Near Eastern process, Ephron makes his opening bid.
[41:23] And the opening bid is absurd. 400 shekels of silver. That's like 8 kilos of silver. It's a huge amount of silver to be passed on in a single field. In a small field with nothing but treason and a cave.
[41:35] It's not even a good piece of agricultural pasture. It's just a bit of woodland. And he says, 400 shekels. So it was open offer. And everyone laughs and says, oh, Ephron, that's a crazy price to offer.
[41:48] And then Abraham says, fine. I'll pay you the 400 shekels. And the story then becomes, as it's spread around in their community and in their campfires, and as it's passed on from myth into legend, I suppose, becomes the story of this ger, this foreigner, who pays an absurd price for a field to this man Ephron.
[42:13] But it does mean that in future, and this is the case 400 years later, when the Israelites return from exile in Egypt, they come back to the land.
[42:25] And when they come back to the land, there is no question the field near Mamre, with the cave in it, the cave of Machvela, belongs to the descendants of Abraham.
[42:39] It's there. And part of it is this little picture of the absurd price and Abraham's willingness to pay it. For generations thereafter, the Hittites and the Canaanites who live in the land are all talking about this, and they're saying, that cave, remember Abraham how much he paid for it?
[43:00] The absurd price guarantees the ownership. And it's the only piece of the land that Abraham now owns.
[43:12] It's his. It's his for perpetuity. There's no question going to be asked about Abraham's ownership of this in the future. And so Abraham takes hold of the promise of God and buries his wife and prepares a place of burial for his family for the future in this cave that he owns.
[43:40] He wasn't happy about having a girl's burial. He wasn't going to be an outsider in the land that God had promised. He doesn't want Sarah to be an outsider in the land that God has promised.
[43:53] And so although he can't yet take possession of the whole land, and he doesn't even see a way for that to be practically possible, he still puts down a marker.
[44:06] It's like a down payment, I suppose. An expectation that one day all of this will be theirs, but today it's just this tiny, little bit.
[44:18] It's kind of like a foretaste of what's to come. And so this expensive burial that takes place, and it would have been an absurdly expensive burial, it stands as a reminder to everybody that Abraham believes is God.
[44:43] Abraham believes is God. Which kind of leads us into that sense of expectation for us as Christians today. What do we learn from this?
[44:55] Well, basically, Abraham is expecting that God's promise is one day going to be fulfilled. And so Abraham's actions and his lifestyle and his choices, they always display a confident assurance that God is to be trusted and that he expects God to fulfill his promises.
[45:25] And that's the key thing about Abraham. He's expecting something to happen. He expects, as the writer of Hebrews says, that God is going to provide him with a better future.
[45:38] He hasn't seen it yet, but he expects it. And for us today, if we are believers, then the question for us is, do we live and act in the same way?
[45:52] You know, when people tell stories about you and I, are they stories about the things that we have done which are shaped by our faith?
[46:06] That's quite a high bar. I think for the most part, we would say, and probably like Abraham did, for the most part, Abraham just gets on with his life. He farms his flocks, he looks after his commercial interests, he runs his businesses, he becomes very successful and prosperous, but he just gets on with things.
[46:30] But in the background, the decisions that he takes, and you can see this right the way through the book of Genesis, the decisions that Abraham takes are shaped by the faith that he has in a God of promise.
[46:47] And so we have to ask ourselves, just some examples maybe, of what this would look like. For example, when we think about our lives, if you're a believer, we can go to Romans 8.
[47:01] We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Along the way in our lives, there are many things that happen that seem, on the face of it, not to conform to that.
[47:24] It's easy for us to doubt in God's good intentions when there are cancer diagnoses, or a serious health emergency, or unemployment unexpectedly, or mental health collapses, or perhaps even spiritual anguish comes, times of doubt and uncertainty.
[47:47] We can question and wonder, where is God in all of this? Has God somehow lost control? Are things happening beyond his ability to work all things together for good for those who are called according to his purpose?
[48:01] But expectant faith always looks beyond the immediate circumstance. Expectant faith looks ahead to the day of God's ultimate purpose being discovered.
[48:22] Sometimes we think about that in terms of the experience of the church, particularly in eras of decline. And we think, well, maybe God has abandoned us.
[48:33] Maybe God is judging us. Maybe God's chastisement is upon the church just now in Scotland and elsewhere because the decline seems to be so sustained. And that in a few places of a little growth seems to be fairly distressing for us.
[48:51] But even this, God will work all things together for good for those who are called according to his purposes. In Romans, what Paul goes on to explain is that God uses these experiences of adversity and these trials that come upon his people and he uses them for the purpose of building up the character and the faith and the confidence of God's people because through all of these things we continue to learn to trust in him.
[49:18] Sarah doesn't see the promised land. So Abraham prepares a place of burial for her. Abraham himself is no longer expecting to see the promise.
[49:29] But he's been told, you have a son and the covenant line will continue through him and so Abraham is preparing a burial place for himself because he knows he won't directly see the fulfillment.
[49:43] Isaac too would not see this and Jacob would not see it and Jacob's sons would not see it and yet 400 years later when they come out of slavery in Egypt the promise begins to be fulfilled.
[50:00] And thousands of years later Christ comes. The ultimate fulfillment of the seed that is promised to the woman in Eden the offspring of Abraham that is promised not an offspring in the plural but an offspring in the singular who will one day conquer who will one day deliver who will one day bring freedom.
[50:23] It's the same of times of trial and persecution. We were praying about that this morning already. We try to remember the persecuted church every time we gather in public worship.
[50:35] James writes and says count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.
[50:53] You know there is a temptation the evil one will come to us and he will say the times of trial that come the times of distress that come into our experience they are a reason to doubt God to question God's ultimate sufficiency and his power to deliver his people to do us good and we turn our backs so often on him because of that we think well maybe actually Satan is right and yet this chapter challenges us to think about the grave in the experience of believers in the light of the New Testament in fact it invites us to think forward for that great and glorious day when Christ returns and the graves are opened and the dead in Christ will rise first what would it be like at the cave of
[51:57] Machpelah where Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and their family are raised that place will be a place of expectant faith delivery as Paul puts it or as the New Testament puts it now we see through our glass darkly but then we will see in full and the things that we do just now when we see through that darkened glass that smoked glass where we can't quite make out the detail one day will be revealed in their fullness I wonder if that's what your prayer meetings are like as a church are your prayer meetings characterized by that sense of expectation Acts chapter 2 tells us that those who were believers on the day of Pentecost they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers they devoted themselves to prayer because in the day of
[53:09] Pentecost there was that sense of expectation Christ is going to do something powerful here God is going to act the Christ who has been raised from the dead he may return any moment imminently!
[53:25] And there's that expectation of this and it characterized the life of the church in the way they fellowshiped together and the way they communed together and the way they prayed together is that the way we think at funerals as Christians are 1 Peter 1 Peter writes and says blessed be the God of our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and to an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power have been guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
[54:14] This chapter like I say it challenges us to think about what the grave means in the experience of believers and the prism through which we have to see that is Christ's tomb.
[54:32] It was a cave hollowed out in the earth. Interestingly it too was paid for with an absurd price. His grave, his burial was with the rich.
[54:44] And yet it's empty today because Christ is risen. And it's the same for us as Christians that we live in the hope of Christ's resurrection.
[55:01] That one day even if we die our graves will one day be empty. A testimony to the resurrecting power of Jesus. To the life of God.
[55:12] God. For believers. Because he has died at the cross but also risen from the dead. There is hope for us as Christians.
[55:25] Which is why we believe the gospel today. Christ is risen from Christ. In 1 Corinthians Paul writes and says for I deliver unto you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
[55:46] Christ is risen. His grave is empty and one day the graves of all of his people will be empty as well.
[56:01] And they're empty because these people expect him to do it. there's hope for the Christian not because of something we are going to achieve, not because of great things that we are going to do and pass on, but because of the greatest thing that has already been done.
[56:21] Because Christ has risen. Because the grave has already been beaten. Because death's grip has been loosed. Sin's price has been paid.
[56:33] And so we live with expectant faith because of an empty tomb in Jerusalem. And that was seen, that same faith. Remember, Abraham is the template for the faith of believers through the ages.
[56:49] Abraham's faith was displayed with this very expensive tomb that he bought for him, his wife and his future family. It was in the land of promise and it looked for the promise to one day be fulfilled.
[57:05] God's love. And so our actions now matter. Because they display, I hope, the same faith shared by us. That we show the victory of Jesus in the lives of his people day by day.
[57:22] Let's pray then. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the hope of the gospel. We thank you that we can live by faith day by day, that our actions can display the worthiness of our God.
[57:42] And so I pray, Father, that you would give us the wisdom to act that way day by day, to act with that confidence that grace has already been revealed and that there is hope for the people of God.
[57:56] Fill us therefore with confidence in your service. Enable us to press on for the prize of the glory of the upper call of Christ Jesus. And help us, Lord, to live therefore by faith day by day.
[58:10] Receive our praise, we ask. In Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to sing in conclusion in Psalm 16.
[58:27] This song of expectation. Verse 8, through to the end, before me still the Lord I set, so that it is so that he doth ever stand at my right hand, I shall not move it be, because of this my heart is glad and joy shall be expressed even by my glory and my flesh and confidence shall rest, because my soul engraved to dwell shall not be left by me, nor wilt thou give thine holy one corruption to see.
[58:57] Thou wilt me show the path of life, of joys that is full storm before thy face, at thy right hand are pleasures evermore. We'll sing these four verses to God's praise.
[59:09] Before me still the Lord I set. se Oh, my God, my right man, I shall no longer be.
[59:48] Because of this my heart is glad, and joy shall be it best.
[60:05] In thy glory, my grace, and your goodness shall rest.
[60:21] Because of this all in grave to dwell, shall not be left by thee.
[60:38] God will forgive thine holy one for my love shall be.
[60:55] There will not be sure the path of life, our joy says, O George.
[61:13] Lord, if all thy things are done, my right time, I'll let you ever hold.
[61:33] Now the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the Father, and the fellowship of God, the Holy Spirit, be with each one of us now and always. Amen. Amen.
[62:13] Amen. Thank you.
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