If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 9, and I'm going to again, for review, read verse 6 through 13. As Elder Joe read that, I want to read that one more time. Romans chapter 9, verse 6 through 13. "But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

Not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said, 'About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.' And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac.

Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls. She was told, 'The older will serve the younger,' as it is written, 'Jacob I love, but Esau I hated.'" Let's pray.

Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for this morning, and as we search your Word and take time, Lord God, for communion, I pray that you would enlighten and ready our hearts. Help us Lord God, with all the distractions in our lives, to fixate our eyes upon Christ, author and perfecter of our faith.

We thank you for your patience, we thank you for election, and we pray Father God that as we wrestle with this text, help us to understand and glean your meaning, not just through our mind, but our very wills and our lives will be changed the more and more we are exposed to your Word.

And so we pray for your Holy Spirit to guide us, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let me ask you a quick question, how many of you know the name Ryrie, Dr. Ryrie? Okay maybe one or two of you. Dr. Ryrie, he was a pretty prominent theologian when I was younger, when I was going through a Bible major undergrad in seminary, Dr.

Ryrie was the key theologian behind the dispensation of theology. Again, so I'm not going to go into details of what that is, but you know that in modern era you have the ESV study Bible, before that there was a Reformation study Bible, the MacArthur study Bible, the NIV study Bible, so in different eras there are different study Bibles that were very popular.

Well, prior to the NIV study Bible, Dr. Ryrie's study Bible was probably the most popular study Bible that people used. And so his name, even to this day, if you read a lot of commentaries, his name will come up when dispensational theology, the traditional dispensational theology comes up. So when I was undergrad, I was able to take a class that was taught by his daughter.

And so I was really excited because I was a Bible major and I was studying about dispensational theology, so when I heard that his daughter was teaching a class, it wasn't a theology class, it was business statistics. And so we were in there and I remember like man, getting the opportunity to talk to her and talk to her about her dad and I just remember that as soon as her dad's name came up, the first thing that she said is, "I know nothing of the theology, so don't ask me." So it seemed like she was almost annoyed that everybody would come in thinking that she at least gleaned some of the theology off of her father, but that's the first thing that she told us, she's like, "I know nothing about dispensationalism, so don't ask me." You know?

And then that kind of squashed it. And I remember some of us who were Bible majors were so disappointed because we were, we thought like oh, we get front row seats and maybe we can ask her about this man. But again, we were disappointed because we thought she had the opportunity, I mean she was raised in a home where theology was rich, her father's name is being quoted in all the theological books and commentaries and yet she gained nothing from it.

Every once in a while you'll hear about sports stars, that they had millions of dollars and they gained tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, and then after they finished their sports and career, you find them just in bankruptcy and it makes you wonder what happened to all that money?

What did they do, make a bad investment? How come they were so blessed financially and to be that far away from financial security? Well Apostle Paul described the nation of Israel as being as blessed as you can possibly imagine. In Romans 9, 4-5, Paul says of the nation of Israel, "They are Israelites, to them belong the adoption, they have the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever." The reason why Paul said that in Romans 9, 4-5 is because they were, to nullify the message of the cross, some people were saying, Apostle Paul must have hated his own people.

That maybe he has something against the Jews, maybe something went wrong and that's why he's preaching a gospel that seems so offensive to the Jews. And in defense he says, "No, that is not it at all. If I was able to, I would rather be accursed than my countrymen." In fact, he says of the nation of Israel, "We are so blessed.

God gave us the covenant, they had front row seats to all of his miracles. They were the first recipients of special revelation of God's law. Their temple worship, every single day that they went, revealed an aspect about Christ. Their sacrificial system was to prepare for the coming of the sacrifice of Christ.

No other nation had the front row seat to the glory of God than the nation of Israel. And yet, when Christ, the Messiah that they've been waiting for, for hundreds of years, standing before them, after performing miracles, after miracles, walking on water, calming storms, and even raising people from the dead, they were so completely blind to who he is, and they just walked away from him.

In John chapter 1, 9-11, it says, "The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him." Now, we're removed from what happened 2,000 years ago, and we can easily look at that and say, you know, these Jewish people, how could they have been so blind?

If Jesus performed miracles in front of my eyes, I don't think I would have been so blind. If I had the law and I had the glory, I was able to see the glory and the covenant and all the patriarchs came from my own people, maybe I wouldn't have been so blind.

But the truth of the matter is, the statistics even today, you and I live in a post-Christian culture, meaning Christianity is saturated in our money, it's in our constitution, it's in our education, and I know that we have an element in our generation that's trying to weed a lot of this stuff out, and there's a resistance against that, but this nation is a post-Christian culture where many Christians that went before us have embedded the gospel message and the presence of God in so much of what we're doing.

It's in the judiciary system, it's in the money, it's in the education, but because we live in a post-Christian culture, there's a tendency for us to become numb to the truth. You know, if you never heard the gospel message, and imagine, I know a lot of you guys, you heard the message since you were a little kid, so when we talk about Christ crucified, I mean you've probably heard that, I don't know, tens of thousands of times.

This message, what you're doing this morning, you've done this for maybe decades, some of you. And so as a result of that, you become numb, it's become very predictable. The songs, there's nothing new. You're always kind of looking for a new edge, something different. But we become, for the most part, numb to the things that we sing, numb to the things that we profess.

I think it's extremely important that every once in a while we take a seat and take some time to think. If you are a non-Christian, never heard the gospel message, and you heard the gospel message for the first time, some of you may remember that. If you became a Christian later in life, and somebody brought the gospel to you, some of you may remember what it was like when you first heard the gospel, and what your response was.

Whether good or bad, whether you were angry or not angry, confused, you may remember all of that. And I know there's a lot of you don't remember any of it because you were raised in a Christian home. You don't remember a single time in your life where the gospel was not in your family in some way.

In any other case, as time passes by, there's always a danger of becoming numb to the truth, and when we become numb to the truth, we become blind. The nation of Israel did not become blind. Just all of a sudden one day decided, you know what, I'm going to walk away from God.

That's not what happened. Years and years of neglect, drifting, pursuing things that had nothing to do with God. Eventually, spiritually, they became blind, so blind that a man who walked on water, who fed them miraculous food, who raises Lazarus from the dead, standing before them, and they reject him.

The danger that you and I live in, in a post-Christian culture, one, if you're raising children in a home where you're teaching them BBS, you're diligent in bringing them to Sunday school, you know, Os Guinness wrote a book about the different generations of Christianity. It said first generation usually that receives revival or receives Christ, second generation becomes nominal.

Again, this is not 100%, but typical thing that you see in society. Second generation becomes nominal, and then third generation is apostate. The predominant experience in Christianity is children who are raised in Christian homes don't become passionate for Christ. I know every single one of us, if you're the first generation Christian in your home, you're doing everything in your power that your children is exposed to the gospel, they're going to be raised in a home that loves Christ.

But again, I'm just telling you statistically, predominantly children who are raised in Christian homes walk away from their faith. And I think part of the reason is, has to do with us. Part of the reason has to do with us. And the reason why is because after we've been a Christian for a while, we've learned to play the game.

We know what songs to sing. We know how to get organized. We know what to do in the church we serve. But our children see something very disingenuous. They see the words that we speak, they see the things that we do, but our faith is not real. And so we may pretend that church, but when we go at home, they see what's behind the scene that the faith is not real.

And so what we inadvertently do is raise children who are nominal Christians. They know how to play the game, but they never had a personal relationship with God. Israel had generations of this. They had generations of this. So by the time Christ came, they were so numb spiritually that they could not see their own Messiah standing before them.

The context in which this passage is written, Paul's been talking about God's sovereignty, how Israel is not going to be saved because of their works. It's not because of their heritage. It's by faith when they repent of their sins, just like the rest of the world. So the natural question that's going to come up, if God is sovereign and he made a covenant with the nation of Israel and he made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he's a sovereign God and he was a sovereign God who keeps his promises, at least that's what we are taught.

Then the natural question is, if Israel has failed and they don't recognize their Messiah, then has God failed? Isn't that God's fault? That's the question that Paul is trying to answer in verse six. It is not as though the word of God has failed. It is not as though the word of God has failed.

Hebrews chapter six, four through eight, you don't need to turn your Bibles there. The author of Hebrews is answering that same question. Here's a group of people, maybe third generation Christians, who are beginning to drift back into Judaism. And so the author is writing to them, warning them that there's only salvation in the name of Christ.

If you drift back into your old way of life, there is no salvation. So this is the way he puts it. Again, some of you guys may be very familiar with this text and when you read it, you may be confused, but let me read this text to you and again, try to explain it where you can understand the context and the meaning.

Hebrews six, four, three. For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. If they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again, the son of God to their own heart, I'm holding him to holding him up to contempt.

Let me stop right there. He describes an individual who has tasted the goodness of God, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the heavenly gift. And on the surface, it sounds like a Christian because he's tasted the Holy Spirit. He tasted the goodness of God. But he says if he fails, if he fails to repent, it is it is impossible to restore him to repentance.

So some people have taken that text and say, well, it sounds like if you fail that you, God will not receive you, your repentance. Obviously, that contradicts everything else that we see in scripture. Clearly that is not what he is saying in Hebrews six. So I want you to continue reading with me in verse seven.

He says, for the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. If it bears thorns and thistles, it's worthless and near to be cursed and its end is to be burned.

So you notice the illustration that he gives between somebody who has received the goodness of God, which he's talking about the rain. Like so all have have received this rain, this grace of God, and some of them received it and bore fruit and some of them received it and they rejected it, had for no fruit and they are worthless according to the scriptures and they will be judged.

So what he is saying here in this text is all had the opportunity to hear God's word. All of them had the opportunity. He's talking about people who are in the church, who are around the preaching, participate in communion, maybe even Sunday school teachers, maybe even pastors. That the word of God, they had every opportunity to repent and come to Christ, but they never did it.

And so these people that Paul or the author is specifically talking to are talking about people who who've experienced it, who have observed it. They can even tell you about what they've observed. And at one point they may have, they may have even seemed like Christians, but they're returning back to their old life and bearing no fruit.

Let me, let me show you another passage in second Timothy two, 11 to 13. You don't need to turn your Bibles there, but here's a passage that is often quoted out of context. Verse 13, if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, comforting, right? Very comforting. How many times have we found ourselves to be faithless, to be caught in sin, to drift away and to be reminded that no matter how faithless you are, God will always remain faithful.

Now, is that statement true? Absolutely it's true. I just read it. It's in the scripture. But when you take that verse out of context and you begin to create this theology of who God is and who Christ is outside of the context of which Paul is saying this, you can have a lopsided view of the, of the doctrine of grace.

I want you, I want you to read the whole context of this in second Timothy two, 11, 13 says the saying is trustworthy for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful. You have to read verse 13 along with verse 12. If you only choose to read verse 13 is you, and this is part of the reason why we've created a culture in our generation of church goers who are living in sin and absolute assurance that they have salvation.

And you ask them why it's because they were raised in a Christian home. They went down on altar, they went to harvest crusade or, or they have some reason, but it's not genuine faith. See what Paul means here. He says, if we deny him, we don't believe him. We don't repent of our sins.

We know we have no intention of following him. And the end result is you will find that you have been denied by Christ. So what does it mean in verse 13? If we are faithless, he will remain faithful. No matter how faithless we become, no matter how unreliable our promises become, God remains faithful to who?

To himself. When God says that he will deliver us from our sins, he will keep that promise. But when he also says that there will be condemnation for everyone who rejects, he will also keep that promise. That God's promises are a hundred percent reliable one way or the other.

That's what he means in verse 13. That he will be faithful to himself through and through throughout generation to generation. He's that verse 13 is not saying that no matter what you do, no matter how rebellious you are, you have no intention of following Christ and continue to live in disobedience.

It doesn't matter because God will remain faithful to you. God will forgive you whether you repent or not. God will forgive you. That is not the meaning of this text. Why is this so important? It's important because basically that's what Paul is trying to say in this text. They fell away.

If God made a promise to the nation of Israel, and now you're saying they're under condemnation, even though God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then is God changing his mind or has his word failed? He's not keeping his promise? Is it by no means? In fact, he gives the primary reason.

And then he gives two illustrations of Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Esau to prove his point that God's intent always was salvation by faith and by his promise. So in verse six and seven, this is what he says in answer to that God has not failed his promise.

He's not breaking his covenant with the nation of Israel. This is how he explains it. Verse six, for not all who are descendants from Israel belong to Israel. Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. So let me interpret that in the context of what Paul is saying.

God did not change his mind. He's not moving on to plan B. His covenant and his promises that he made to the nation of Israel is consistent. The problem is you think that the promise is for you because you were born into a particular nation, because you went to the temple, because you have these outward appearance of being a child of God because you were circumcised.

Imagine how mind-blowing this is to a Jew that for decades and for centuries, no matter how hard life got, they reminded each other, at least we're Israelites. God said that he's going to be faithful to us. We are the apple of his eye. Why would God bring any harm to us?

So when the pagan nations took over and the Romans and the Greeks and the Persians and the Babylonians and the Assyrians came in and oppressed them, the encouragement that they gave to each other, we are God's people. God will not abandon us. Maybe if we just keep the law.

Maybe if we did a better job of keeping the Sabbath. So that was their security blanket. And all of a sudden, the apostle Paul says, you're completely mistaken. Not all of you are recipients of God's promise. When God made this covenant, you may not be a recipient of that promise.

God didn't change his plan. You misunderstood. In fact, this idea is not new. Paul's been saying this in Romans chapter 228, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly. Nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart.

In other words, the physical circumcision has nothing to do with your salvation. Not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. In fact, this idea, this false security that these Jews were holding onto was the primary thing that Jesus was trying to break. Until he broke into their false security, they would never come to Christ and cling to the gospel.

As long as their security is external righteousness, they would never come to Christ in desperation. So in order to bring the gospel to them, he needed to break that confidence. That's why it says in Matthew 3, 9-10, it says, "And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children from Abraham." Your confidence in your heritage is unwarranted.

God is not obligated to you or to us because of our heritage, because of our parents, because of what we've done in the past, or even what we're doing now. Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

As some of you guys know, I'm a third generation pastor in my family. My grandfather was a pastor, my father was a pastor, I'm a third generation pastor. So typically people think, "Oh, no wonder you became a pastor." And then so now, who's going to be the pastor in my family, since we are the family of Levites?

So who's going to be the next Levites? Who's going to carry the poles? Well, I mean, as I've mentioned to you many times, even though I grew up in a Christian home, you could have asked me before I became a Christian, "Am I going to go to heaven?" I would have told you yes, because I grew up at church.

I heard Sunday school, I memorized scripture, went to the VBSs. I can't remember a single Sunday that I missed church. No matter how sick I was, my dad was, "You have to go to church. Even if you're coughing up blood, just sit in the front row, and then we'll just leave early." And so that got embedded.

I'm thankful that that got embedded in me. It took church seriously. But if you asked me, was I saved? I really don't know what that meant, but I would have told you yes. Do I believe in God? Yes. If you asked me to recite the gospel, I wouldn't be able to tell you the details of the gospel, but I would have been able to tell you a Sunday school version of it.

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Jesus died for my sins. I could have told you that, because I was taught that since I was a little kid. But I was not saved. I was not saved. If I remained in that state, if I died, I would have met a God who was going to judge me for my sins.

I did not know him. It was not a faith. It was just something that was passed down to me. Just like certain phrases, just like certain cultural things. I just was raised in a Christian home. The danger of being a Christian for a long time, or raised in a Christian home, and again, don't get me wrong.

I have nothing against being raised in a Christian home. I'm not saying practice paganism at home for the sake of your children. I think rightfully we should do our best to preach the gospel to our children and be a good example to them. But the danger, the flip side of that, if we're not careful, we can inoculate our children to the things that ought to be so precious.

And it's not simply their fault. And the reason why inoculation happens is because we become inoculated. We know how to regurgitate the truth. We know how to copy what is right without ever having genuine faith. We know how to come to church. We know how to teach the importance of not missing church.

We can do all of that and have nothing to do with genuine worship. And it numbs our hearts, it numbs our churches, and it causes our children to regurgitate what we are doing, yet never having genuine faith and never being truly transformed. That's the danger of being in the same place for a long period of time.

And then typically we think, once that happens, we think, "Oh, it must be the other people. It must be my environment." And so we change churches, change groups, change friends, thinking that maybe it's their fault. The danger has always existed. And that's why if you study the Old Testament or the New Testament, the word "remember" constantly keeps coming up.

When we are rebuked in the book of Revelation of being lukewarm, he doesn't say, "Go look for a new method." He says, "Remember the height from which you had fallen." In other words, remember what you have. Remember why you became a Christian. Remember your desperateness before Christ, before you became numb to all these things.

One of the most scariest passages in the Bible, in the gospel of John chapter 8. In fact, if you can do me a favor, turn your Bible to John chapter 8. This is a passage that I've been to many times, but again, I think it helps us to see.

John chapter 8, verse 31. This is after Jesus' public teaching. In verse 31, it says, "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him." So I want to stop right there. Who is he talking to? He's talking to this verse, Jews who profess to believe. They believe what he was saying.

Oh, he must be the Messiah. He's speaking with authority. So they were following him. But the conversation he has, Jesus says, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." We know that passage very well, and we quote it all the time.

In fact, even the non-Christians quote this passage. That's how popular this passage is. When the Jews hear this, they're offended. They're offended because Jesus basically said, "You need to be set free." We're children of Abraham. We're Jews. We were given the promise. We have the covenant. We have the patriarch.

How can you possibly say, "We need to be set free," like a common criminal or a common slave? Do you know who we are? We're Jews. We're Israelites. And they're so offended, they go back and forth. And then I want you to go all the way down to verse 39.

And the conclusion of this discussion in verse 39, "They answered him, 'Abraham is our father.' Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

This is not what Abraham did. You are doing what your father did.' They said to him, 'We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God.' Jesus said to them, 'If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here.

I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.'" And listen to the conclusion in verse 44. Who is he talking to? Verse 31, "People who believe." That's what it says in verse 31.

But in verse 44, "You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires." He is a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he's a liar and the father of lies.

He was talking to a group of people who were saying they believed him. And the end result of this discussion was, he says, "God is not your father. Your father is the devil." What happened? Did they fall somewhere in this discussion? Did they start out as a believer and ended as a non-believer somewhere in this discussion?

See, their profession of belief was superficial, just like the thousands of people who followed Christ up to the hills and ate the miraculous food. And when Jesus said, "I am the bread of life," they turned away. This is too difficult. They didn't have true faith. And that's what Paul means to them.

God did not change his mind. God did not fail in his promises. But not all Israelites are Israelites. True Israelites are the ones who have true faith. That's what Paul is trying to say. And he illustrates it with two points. The earliest part of Israel's history, you have this example of Isaac and Ishmael.

So if you read starting from the second part of verse 7, it says, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God. So when he's talking about children of the flesh, if you know the story of Isaac, Abraham is promised that he's going to be the father of multitudes.

So he comes, packs up his bags with his family, he enters out into the desert. Years pass by, nothing happens. Sarah is unable to have a child and she's getting old, so she decides that she's going to take it into her own hands. So at that particular time in history, the wife could have taken the maidservant because she is not able to have a child.

So legally, she can have her slave maidservant have the child with her husband. And when that child comes, if she receives the child, that child will be considered the rightful heir. And so that was Sarah's intention. Since I can't have a child of my own, I'll have Abraham sleep with my servant, Hagar, and then when she has a child, that will become my own.

And this is how we're going to fulfill God's promise. So they have a child, Ishmael, of the flesh. So he has every legal right to be the heir, rightful heir of the promise of Abraham. Well God has different plans. He says, "This promise that I made, this covenant that I made with you is not going to be carried up by your flesh.

It's going to be by my promise." So at a later age, more than 15 years later, when they're even older, God gives them a child, Isaac, and his name means laughter because it was unbelievable what God did. And so that's what Abraham is saying, that from the very get-go, that God's promise was not dependent upon the flesh, but his promise.

God is the one who is sovereign over salvation. That was his point. Now he gives a second illustration. The reason why he gives a second illustration, some of you guys may have already been thinking, well maybe Ishmael was disqualified because he wasn't the original mother. She wasn't a Jew, she was an Egyptian.

Well in order to answer that question, he goes to the second illustration, the next generation of Jacob and Esau. They have the same mom, right? So I want to read this. So now you can't disqualify it because they have different moms. They have the same mom, and you have these twins that are born, Jacob and Esau, and this is what it says, verse 11, 12, and 13.

Though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call. That God sovereignly chose Jacob. Esau, by his flesh, should have been the rightful heir of God's promise. But in order to demonstrate that it's not by the flesh, but by God's promise, he deliberately chooses the second child, just like he chose Isaac.

So from the very beginning of Israel's history, God embedded into their history that it was not going to be by your flesh, but by his promise, by faith. And he was illustrating this, that this is nothing new, that God actually had this from the very beginning. And then he goes further, the older will serve the younger, and then he comes to this conclusion, verse 13, "Jacob I love, but Esau I hate." I know a lot of people wrestle with this, right?

I can understand God loving Jacob, but Esau, he hated? What does that mean? Again, let's understand that within the context of the scripture and how the word hate is often used. I think the best illustration is found in Luke chapter 14, 26, when Jesus says, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yet and even life itself cannot be my disciple." I think all of us are sophisticated to know that Jesus is not saying, "Go hate your mom." Don't go home today and say, "You know the church that I went to today, this Baptist church, they told me, Jesus said, 'I need to hate you.

I hate you because I love Jesus.'" Go to your children. "I hate you because I love Jesus." Jesus himself said, "To honor your father and mother." Is that what Jesus means when he says that? You have to understand again, in the context of what Paul is saying, in the context of what Jesus is saying, he's saying that God's sovereign choice, God's sovereign choice of Jacob over Esau, demonstrates that the author of life is God and God alone.

Now, what does that mean to us as Christians? One, our flesh doesn't play a part in our salvation. Our flesh, our heritage, your past experiences, past works, whatever it is that you bring to the table has nothing to do with our salvation. God did not sovereignly choose us because he saw something precious in us and he needed us.

That's not how salvation is initiated or continued or finished. It is not of the flesh but of faith. The reason why they had Isaac is because God was trying to demonstrate that he's going to keep his promise so that Abraham and Isaac would understand that the promise wasn't because, wow, thank God we have Isaac now.

Isaac is our hope. Just in case that Abraham might have forgotten what he did at the end of Abraham's life, what does he say to Abraham? "You gave up your son Isaac." I mean, think about it. From Abraham's point of view, I mean, you took us through this once already.

We weren't able to have children and you miraculously gave us Isaac and now we have a hope and then now we've invested all of this time, energy, and money on this child thinking now the road seems clear and all of a sudden he comes out, boom, and he blocks the road.

"Give me your child." Why does he do that? Because he's trying to teach again to Abraham and to all of us, the father of faith. Salvation is not of the flesh but of faith. Isaac was not their hope. God was. Church is not our hope. God is. But people, circumstance, their experiences, whatever it is that we bring to the table oftentimes ends up becoming a hindrance.

First and foremost, the same lesson that Paul is trying to tell the nation of Israel is so crucial to every single one of us. The moment any kind of pride enters into our hearts in coming to the communion table, into the fellowship, into our pursuit of Christ, that very thing that you think is causing you to draw closer to God causes you to have the greatest hindrance.

Every single one of us, every time we come to God, comes as spiritual beggars. That's the point that Paul was trying to make. The second lesson is mentioned in Hebrews 6.17. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

That even when we are faithless, he is faithful. God does not change. So our hope that we have in Christ is absolutely immutable. Does not change. But the same faith that we started with is the same faith that causes us to persevere and is the same faith that will cause us to finish.

And that's why at the end of Hebrews chapter 12 it says, fix your eyes upon Christ. He's the author, he's the perfecter of our faith. That he who began a good work in you, he will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. So the application in the context, Paul may be trying to explain the gospel to the Jews.

The application is so important for every single one of us. Until we are humble and desperate before God, you will never fully appreciate and understand. And your heart will become numb and inoculated. We can sing the gospel, we can tell the gospel, we can repeat the gospel, we can recite the gospel, memorize the gospel, and yet does nothing to your heart.

Because we are not desperate. Every single one of us. Myself, and every elder, every deacon, every servant, every small group leader, every Sunday school teacher, every single one of us. We are desperate before God. That's what this communion table is ultimately about. Some of you guys may think twice about coming to the communion table because you struggle with the purity this week.

I don't deserve to come up. Maybe next time when I feel better, maybe when I did a better job as a Christian, maybe I'll come up. Here's the other side of God's faithfulness. He promised that if you confess your faith, confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of all your unrighteousness.

The only requirement is to confess and repent. Through repentance and receive forgiveness. So I ask all of you, as you guys are contemplating and taking some time to pray, if you have unconfessed sins, take some time to pray and genuinely confess. Not superficially, just, "Oh, forgive me," and then just come on.

Really come before the Lord in genuine repentance and renewal. And if Satan puts thoughts in your head, "You are undeserving," how can you possibly come up to the table again after your failure? Remind whatever is coming into your head that it was never of your flesh to begin with.

It was never of your flesh to begin with. The only requirement that God makes is to pray and ask for forgiveness. So I pray that as we open up the communion table, that one by one, as you are ready to come up and let me, since this is a new place, we're going to have to give you some instruction.

So what I'm going to ask is everybody, you guys choose from this side, this way. So if you're coming from this side, grab the elements and then go back out down this aisle. Okay? And same thing with you guys. You guys come this way, go back out this aisle.

If you start crisscrossing here, it's going to cause chaos. So again, if you're coming this way, grab your stuff and go back out that way. Same thing with this. And again, I ask when we open up the communion table, communion table is meant for baptized Christians. And if you are a confessing believer and your sins have been forgiven, then again, we ask you to come.

This is to commemorate and to celebrate what Christ has done. If you have never confessed Christ and never been forgiven, never been baptized, we ask that you would remain in your seat and that you would just be there and just watchful and prayerful. But again, let me open up the communion table for us in first Corinthians 11 and then I'm going to pray and ask the praise team to come up.

And then when you're ready, one by one, please come up and participate. First Corinthians 11 23, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed to bread. And when he had given things, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me in the same way. Also he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Heavenly father, we thank you. We thank you for what this communion table represents. We do this in remembrance of Christ that we may proclaim his love and sacrifice, the blood and life that he sacrificed for us. You knew no sin, but become sin for our sake. Help us Lord God to revisit our salvation, to rethink and remember Lord God, our desperate state when we are always far from you.

Help us Lord to be revived and renewed and reconciled. There's any unconfessed sins. We pray Lord God that you would bring it to remembrance. Help us to be reconciled before we come to the table. We pray that by your grace that we would receive your grace in Jesus name.

Amen.