Abner Chou | “When I feel alone…”

00:00:00.000 | >> Well, good afternoon.

00:00:04.640 | It is such a joy to be with you.

00:00:07.660 | Welcome to everyone who has come both from near and far.

00:00:12.480 | I've heard people coming as far as from New York and places like Ohio and the Midwest.

00:00:19.160 | I'm a Midwesterner myself,

00:00:20.800 | so I resonate with that and I appreciate the East Coast.

00:00:23.800 | So we're just so thrilled to have everyone here and our heart

00:00:29.280 | is to encourage you.

00:00:32.080 | We understand both the importance of the scientific disciplines,

00:00:37.240 | STEM and everything,

00:00:38.840 | but at the same time, we also understand that it can be difficult.

00:00:43.380 | There are challenges for all of you who are involved in so great an endeavor.

00:00:49.080 | So our heart is just to bring like-minded believers together so that you all can have

00:00:55.800 | mutual edification and go back to where you're ministering and working in,

00:01:01.620 | and to be just strengthened in the Lord.

00:01:03.580 | So if we can offer you that service,

00:01:05.840 | that is our absolute joy.

00:01:08.520 | I was able to just observe the fellowship happening at lunch,

00:01:12.920 | and it was just encouraging to my heart because it seems like that task is being accomplished.

00:01:17.960 | Well, let me begin us with a word of prayer and then we will

00:01:21.980 | jump into what the Lord has for us providentially this afternoon.

00:01:26.240 | Our God and Father,

00:01:27.760 | as we think of so many matters,

00:01:31.520 | particular and technical, nuanced in nature,

00:01:35.440 | ultimately we still yet understand that it is all subject to your word,

00:01:40.440 | and that the issues that we face,

00:01:42.640 | though specific they may be,

00:01:45.760 | in the end, they are addressed by

00:01:48.680 | the eternal transcendent truths of the scriptures which you have revealed.

00:01:55.400 | So we ask that in times of discouragement and in times of challenges and trials,

00:02:01.760 | that the word of God minister deeply to our heart,

00:02:06.400 | and even more than that,

00:02:07.680 | the God of the word be glorified.

00:02:11.320 | To that end, O God,

00:02:13.220 | grant us clarity and joy and encouragement,

00:02:17.700 | and ultimately worship as we go through the text of your revelation this afternoon.

00:02:25.480 | In your name we pray. Amen.

00:02:28.600 | Well, like I said,

00:02:30.360 | this conference, at least from my vantage point,

00:02:32.960 | is about encouragement.

00:02:35.480 | It is about finding some respite from the storm of the world that can be around us,

00:02:42.000 | in the face particularly of industry or even in education.

00:02:45.720 | And so I do want to encourage you,

00:02:48.320 | because what really can I, as an individual, contribute to your knowledge?

00:02:53.360 | You guys are the experts.

00:02:54.960 | You guys are the specialists.

00:02:56.960 | And yes, I will admit this, I am a son of scientists.

00:03:02.680 | My parents were chemists.

00:03:04.320 | They worked in the industry.

00:03:06.160 | My church growing up, every person,

00:03:08.600 | I think almost every person in my church had a PhD in some field of science.

00:03:14.120 | That's the way we grew up.

00:03:15.720 | One of the few magazines that I had in my home growing up was Chemical and Engineering News.

00:03:23.400 | Thank you.

00:03:24.360 | I thought that's what every kid grew up with.

00:03:27.640 | And I would read it, and I wouldn't understand most of it,

00:03:30.240 | but, you know, in the back there are these jokes.

00:03:32.960 | And I really appreciated that section.

00:03:34.520 | I thought that was the kid's section for all the parents, you know, and things like that.

00:03:38.760 | So that's how I grew up.

00:03:40.840 | I grew up talking about patents, and grants, and labs, and OSHA.

00:03:47.040 | When I heard that word, it wasn't used very positively.

00:03:51.800 | But people talked about these things, and experiments.

00:03:55.520 | And as children, my friends and myself, we all knew that this was the case,

00:04:00.880 | that whenever we asked our parents a question about science or math,

00:04:05.800 | we were hoping just to get the answer so we could finish our homework.

00:04:10.240 | But we knew what would happen.

00:04:12.440 | We would get a lecture instead.

00:04:14.760 | And then after the lecture, we'd get more homework.

00:04:18.320 | Because clearly, we didn't know what we were doing.

00:04:20.680 | So our parents thought, well, you got to get reinforcement and got to do it for two more hours

00:04:25.520 | just to solve the same kind of problem over, and over, and over, and over again.

00:04:29.680 | It was a very effective strategy to quash questions.

00:04:33.160 | In any case, I was a son of scientists.

00:04:36.720 | And to be clear, I so value the sacrifices that my parents made and investment

00:04:41.960 | in that way my parents made in me.

00:04:44.880 | I may be a son of scientists, but I am not a scientist in that regard.

00:04:50.560 | But I can encourage you.

00:04:52.320 | I can encourage you.

00:04:54.280 | My job might not be to expand the specialized fields that you have,

00:04:58.400 | but I would love to be able, by the grace of God, to strengthen your own heart in Him.

00:05:04.840 | And before I get into the main topic of encouragement that I want to go through this afternoon,

00:05:10.840 | I would be remiss if I did not talk to you about the nobility, the worshipfulness,

00:05:19.000 | the glory, and the honor that God has given in the sciences, in math and science, in all of STEM.

00:05:27.600 | And I think this is very important because sometimes in churches and sometimes when you meet

00:05:33.280 | with fellow believers who are not in the discipline, they say, "What do you do for a living?"

00:05:38.560 | And then you say, "I work in this."

00:05:40.840 | And then their reaction is, "Cool."

00:05:45.880 | And then after an awkward silence, they say, "So what's the point of that?"

00:05:51.880 | And of course, that can be a little bit insulting.

00:05:54.800 | And sometimes in churches, there can be even suspicion about science.

00:05:59.520 | And I recognize that too, and all of that can be discomforting.

00:06:03.640 | All of that can be discouraging.

00:06:05.200 | And so I would be remiss if I did not just first and foremost establish and encourage your heart

00:06:13.720 | that what you are doing can and should be done for the glory of Christ,

00:06:18.840 | that God has a purpose behind these disciplines.

00:06:21.960 | Now, to be clear, reason never overrides revelation.

00:06:28.320 | Reason never trumps the God who made the universe and ordained what it is.

00:06:34.800 | In fact, reason presupposes that.

00:06:37.120 | Reason depends upon that.

00:06:39.480 | And we understand that the Scriptures, theologically speaking,

00:06:43.560 | provide three categories of information.

00:06:46.240 | It provides the category of what we call special revelation that is focally found

00:06:50.440 | in the Scriptures.

00:06:51.440 | That is God's particular, detailed, specific revelation about himself.

00:06:57.040 | God discloses these things, and it is powerful because as Psalm 19 reminds us,

00:07:01.680 | it is what converts the soul.

00:07:03.480 | That is the power of special revelation.

00:07:05.560 | And then a second category the Scripture reveals is general revelation.

00:07:10.120 | And it is general in every sense.

00:07:11.840 | It is general in scope and in source because it is found in creation in its totality,

00:07:17.760 | not in its specialization.

00:07:19.560 | It is general because it reaches to all people and makes them without excuse.

00:07:24.120 | It is general in even what it declares.

00:07:26.120 | It does not declare every single detail about God, but what Psalm 19 and Romans 1

00:07:30.880 | remind us, it declares that God exists and that he is powerful.

00:07:34.520 | It declares the divineness of his nature in that way.

00:07:37.880 | And it is general even in its effects because general revelation cannot convert

00:07:43.120 | anyone to Christ.

00:07:44.680 | That is why Psalm 19 contrasts general revelation, the heavens are declaring the

00:07:49.360 | glory of God, with special revelation, the word of Yahweh is perfect,

00:07:53.920 | converting the soul.

00:07:55.440 | And Romans 1 reminds us that people suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

00:08:00.400 | And so general revelation, though declaring the glory of God,

00:08:05.360 | cannot convert the soul.

00:08:06.880 | It gives you just enough information so that all men and all people are

00:08:10.720 | without excuse.

00:08:13.120 | But there is a third category of information, and that is what the Bible

00:08:16.560 | terms as knowledge.

00:08:18.560 | Unlike the first two, which are about revelation, God unveiling,

00:08:24.040 | God disclosing himself, knowledge is us discerning things God has done.

00:08:33.480 | Knowledge is us looking at things, and observing things, and deriving things

00:08:38.880 | from what God has established.

00:08:40.960 | One is God declaring it to us, the other one is us deriving things.

00:08:47.880 | And they are two categorically different areas of information.

00:08:53.120 | And often what can happen when we are not careful is we elevate our reason on the

00:08:58.440 | level of general revelation, thinking that, "Well, general revelation talks

00:09:02.880 | about creation, I'm talking about creation, so they must be the same thing."

00:09:06.000 | And then we elevate general revelation, or what we call general revelation,

00:09:09.920 | to the level of special revelation.

00:09:11.640 | "Oh, well, then that means that my discoveries must be on the level

00:09:14.600 | of Scripture.

00:09:15.360 | That is a dangerous road."

00:09:17.120 | They are different and distinct areas of knowledge.

00:09:21.200 | The way they are disclosed, the way they are derived, what they do,

00:09:26.240 | what they communicate, and their substance, we can never get them confused.

00:09:30.720 | Nevertheless, while reason can never override revelation, what scientific reason

00:09:38.480 | in the providence of God does, it expounds upon the ramifications

00:09:44.440 | of revelation.

00:09:45.840 | It explores the ramifications, and the consequences, and the ripple effects

00:09:51.160 | of all that God has revealed in Scripture because the Scripture has told us who God

00:09:55.640 | is, and the Scripture has told us what God has done, that He is who He is,

00:10:01.440 | I am who I am, and He has made the heavens and the earth.

00:10:05.920 | And science, and STEM, and math, and all these areas of observation

00:10:11.000 | and discovery, find, and locate, and explore all that God has already done,

00:10:19.280 | and all that God is as He has revealed in His Word.

00:10:24.520 | You could think of it this way, Scripture establishes who God is,

00:10:30.920 | and science expounds upon what God has already established.

00:10:37.320 | Grace is being translated in that way into science.

00:10:43.080 | Think of it this way, science is then the magnification of God back to God.

00:10:50.480 | It is the magnification of God back to God.

00:10:53.960 | You say, "What do you mean by that?"

00:10:55.520 | Well, it's really derived from Philippians 1 where Paul says,

00:10:58.520 | "In everything I do, I want Christ to be magnified."

00:11:01.680 | There are two ways to magnify something.

00:11:04.000 | One way is that you take something itty-bitty, and you put it under the

00:11:07.640 | microscope, and it magnifies it so it becomes larger.

00:11:10.960 | You take the small and make it bigger.

00:11:13.600 | Or you can magnify something similar to how a telescope works,

00:11:18.280 | where you take something that actually truly is very big, but we have thought

00:11:22.640 | of it as small, and we magnify it so that we see it the way it really is,

00:11:28.240 | the greatness that is really there.

00:11:30.600 | And science, like all of life, should be doing the latter with God.

00:11:36.720 | Science has the ability, and it's a noble discipline.

00:11:40.080 | It's a worshipful discipline because it can make every miracle and show the power

00:11:45.440 | of every miracle.

00:11:46.280 | I was one time talking with a neuroscientist who said, "How do you make

00:11:50.800 | somebody lame walk and function?

00:11:54.240 | How do you make somebody with a withered hand, whose hand is disheveled,

00:11:58.760 | to actually be whole?"

00:12:00.280 | And he was talking about all the ways that the nerves would have to be

00:12:04.240 | reconstructed, and all the ways the pathways to the brain would have

00:12:08.120 | to be reconstituted.

00:12:09.600 | And he said, "If any scientist could do that, they would make billions

00:12:12.960 | of dollars."

00:12:14.600 | And he said, "It's amazing that Jesus can just say it, and it happens."

00:12:21.320 | Science discovers the greatness of God in miracles.

00:12:25.880 | It glorifies his wisdom in creation.

00:12:29.200 | When we look at creation and we say, "Wow, that's genius.

00:12:34.240 | He's genius," that's what we're really saying.

00:12:37.080 | Likewise, science exalts his supernatural power, his sovereignty over everything,

00:12:42.960 | and his unique wisdom and transcendence.

00:12:46.680 | Psalm 104 is a good example of this.

00:12:48.840 | In Psalm 104, the psalmist recounts how God made the earth in six days,

00:12:54.320 | rested on the seventh.

00:12:55.320 | But in that framework, he says, that is the psalmist, on all the wonders

00:13:02.480 | of how God made things and how he uses them for his glory.

00:13:06.600 | What I like to remind my students to illustrate this point is,

00:13:09.760 | just even think of the way God created water.

00:13:13.200 | He created water in such a way that it can flood the earth.

00:13:17.160 | If you were me and you just thought it'd be hilarious to make water more

00:13:21.280 | like Jell-O because, you know, I like Jell-O or whatever, then you couldn't...

00:13:26.520 | It's very difficult to flood the world with the viscosity of Jell-O.

00:13:30.960 | It's very difficult to allow Jell-O to water the plants.

00:13:34.640 | That's what Psalm 104 says, that the water that takes away life is the

00:13:37.880 | same water that gives life, and feeds the plants, and feeds the animals,

00:13:42.320 | and feeds the humans, and gives beverage, and liquid, and life,

00:13:46.240 | and hydration to all.

00:13:48.840 | That's the brilliance of God.

00:13:51.720 | In sum, you could think of it this way, science is such a noble endeavor because

00:13:56.960 | what it constantly is discovering is how great thou art.

00:14:01.320 | That is the endeavor of science, and it's a noble one.

00:14:06.200 | It is a noble endeavor.

00:14:08.040 | In whatever you are doing, whether that be working with bacteria,

00:14:12.880 | or DNA, or a chemical, or a compound, or an equation,

00:14:18.640 | what you are magnifying to God is the depths of how great thou art.

00:14:24.520 | There is the nobility of your discipline.

00:14:28.480 | Whatever you may be doing, that is what ultimately, when done rightly,

00:14:34.360 | is happening.

00:14:36.000 | And for that reason, you need to be encouraged.

00:14:39.040 | You're not wasting your time.

00:14:40.720 | Even sometimes when believers give you a funny stare, and they don't understand

00:14:44.400 | exactly what you do, even when your kids look at you funny and say,

00:14:47.640 | "Dad, I don't understand what you're doing."

00:14:50.120 | God knows.

00:14:51.800 | And it's an act of an amazing worship back to him because you are magnifying the

00:14:56.640 | greatness of God back to himself.

00:14:59.400 | So be encouraged, and be particularly encouraged in times of hardship,

00:15:04.320 | and that is particularly what I want to address this afternoon.

00:15:08.880 | I may be the son of scientists, but like I said, I'm no scientist,

00:15:12.640 | but I am a pastor.

00:15:14.800 | I am a pastor, and I am a university president, and so I understand that the

00:15:20.560 | workplace can be a hard place.

00:15:23.080 | Industry can be difficult.

00:15:24.440 | Even education can have its own challenges.

00:15:27.560 | And there are burdens, and worries, and trials, and perhaps one of the most acute

00:15:34.640 | of all of them is loneliness.

00:15:38.560 | It's loneliness.

00:15:40.280 | Especially in a discipline which has been overtaken by secularism and paganism,

00:15:46.040 | you can really feel isolated.

00:15:48.000 | You can really feel all alone.

00:15:50.660 | You are the odd one out.

00:15:52.640 | You are really different.

00:15:55.040 | And it may be that you are one of the few in your office, in your department,

00:16:01.280 | in your group that loves Christ, and you feel like the outlier,

00:16:07.400 | and you feel alienated, and you feel like the outcast.

00:16:11.960 | And as I was praying what to share with you all this afternoon,

00:16:15.400 | this idea really came to my mind.

00:16:17.800 | And it was really accentuated when Tide and A came to our board meeting,

00:16:22.360 | and she said one of the impetuses behind this symposium is that, she said,

00:16:28.440 | people sometimes feel like they're all alone, like there's no one who thinks

00:16:33.160 | like they do.

00:16:34.560 | They think, "Does everyone think I'm crazy?

00:16:36.680 | Maybe I am crazy."

00:16:39.520 | And as she was discussing these things, it really confirmed in my heart what I

00:16:44.240 | wanted to share with you all this afternoon.

00:16:47.720 | In this world, and by the way, it isn't just the scientists,

00:16:52.760 | it isn't just the specialists that feel this way.

00:16:56.040 | Even your pastor can feel this way.

00:16:59.360 | I remember being at Shepard's Conference, and at Shepard's Conference,

00:17:04.640 | there's about 5,000 pastors who come together, and the singing is tremendous.

00:17:10.600 | It's loud, it's almost deafening.

00:17:13.880 | They don't even have to mic the person at the piano, it wouldn't make a difference

00:17:17.600 | anyway because they just get drowned out by the men singing.

00:17:20.720 | And I was talking with some pastors on that phenomena, and I asked,

00:17:27.280 | "Why do you think they sing so loud?"

00:17:29.480 | And all of them there, it was about 100 guys, said, "It's easy."

00:17:34.800 | Because that time in our year, we realize we're not alone.

00:17:41.720 | We're not the only ones who believe what we believe.

00:17:45.040 | We're not the only ones preaching from a pulpit, begging people to be a certain way,

00:17:49.360 | and pleading with them about doctrine, wondering if we're the only ones who do

00:17:53.320 | this, or have these kind of struggles, or have these kind of issues.

00:17:57.040 | At that moment, when we're with 5,000 other men, we realize we're not alone.

00:18:03.480 | Everyone faces this.

00:18:05.120 | Everyone faces this, and you all face it acutely, I recognize.

00:18:10.600 | And so, what I would like to do is to remind us about how, and what to do,

00:18:17.560 | and how to think when we face definite loneliness, when we feel the pain

00:18:24.200 | of rejection and isolation.

00:18:26.880 | And at those moments when we're sad, it is not the moment, I recognize,

00:18:32.440 | to engage, maybe it is for you, but I don't think normally,

00:18:35.680 | it's a time where you want to engage in a complex theological proof and discussion,

00:18:40.880 | and to remember 57 different things, and to just arrange them all in order.

00:18:45.740 | At that moment, you just need a phrase.

00:18:48.480 | You just need a truth to hang on to, one that is rich, one that will minister

00:18:53.640 | to your heart, one that you can say quickly, but know with endurance.

00:18:59.280 | And the Bible gives that to us.

00:19:02.800 | The Bible has a refrain, and we should memorize it.

00:19:07.400 | We should memorize it for this afternoon, and carry it with the rest of our lives.

00:19:12.720 | And it is found in Hebrews 13, 5.

00:19:15.680 | And it's so simple, you almost don't need me to tell you it.

00:19:20.280 | You don't even necessarily need to turn your Bible there, although you should,

00:19:24.800 | but by the time you turn there, you'll have it memorized.

00:19:27.760 | You already will know it.

00:19:28.920 | "I will never leave or desert you.

00:19:31.200 | I will never forsake you."

00:19:34.040 | You know that phrase.

00:19:35.200 | We say it all the time.

00:19:36.640 | We say it all over the place.

00:19:38.320 | We know that.

00:19:39.240 | It's in the Old Testament.

00:19:40.440 | It's in the New Testament.

00:19:41.720 | It's everywhere.

00:19:42.560 | It's a catchphrase.

00:19:43.840 | We know that.

00:19:45.400 | But my goal this afternoon is to make sure we really understand the depths of it,

00:19:51.800 | so that when the trials come and we feel by ourselves that we can say that phrase,

00:19:59.880 | and we know exactly what it means, and let the truths therein minister

00:20:05.840 | to our soul as it is special revelation.

00:20:08.760 | So, the text that we're covering is Hebrews 13, verse 5.

00:20:14.760 | "I will never desert you.

00:20:16.680 | I will never forsake you."

00:20:19.160 | The context of Hebrews is really appropriate to discuss when we're talking

00:20:23.440 | about the issue of loneliness.

00:20:25.200 | And that might sound a little bit odd, but it's actually very,

00:20:27.880 | very both illuminating and hopefully encouraging.

00:20:31.720 | Because I think when we think about Hebrews, we often have a superficial

00:20:34.840 | understanding of the issues that the people of Hebrews,

00:20:38.120 | the audience of Hebrews, face.

00:20:39.880 | Yes, we know the book of Hebrews is about the supremacy of Christ.

00:20:43.000 | Yes, we know, perhaps, that Hebrews is not just a letter,

00:20:46.160 | but it's a motivational, inspirational, driving sermon and exhortation for people

00:20:52.320 | to cling to Christ with loyalty.

00:20:55.040 | Yes, we know.

00:20:56.200 | And we know that there is a warning and an urging never to go back to Judaism.

00:21:01.600 | Yes, we know, and we know that people were tempted to go back there.

00:21:05.600 | But why was all that happening in one word?

00:21:09.680 | It's very simple.

00:21:11.560 | They were lonely.

00:21:13.840 | They were lonely.

00:21:16.400 | Even to this day, in Jewish culture, this is how Christianity is understood.

00:21:21.480 | I one time was talking with a believer from Judaism, out of Judaism,

00:21:27.080 | and he's Jewish in ethnicity and background.

00:21:30.680 | And he said to me, "The day I was baptized, my family, not just my immediate family,

00:21:37.160 | my whole family, extended family, held a funeral for me.

00:21:42.640 | The very second I was baptized, they knew the minute and hour I was baptized,

00:21:47.400 | and they proclaimed me dead."

00:21:50.960 | That is the typical understanding in truly orthodox, to use the term,

00:22:00.360 | Jewish families about when someone believes in the Messiah.

00:22:05.560 | They are dead to us.

00:22:07.920 | We hold them a funeral.

00:22:10.200 | It's as if they don't exist in our world anymore.

00:22:15.040 | And what you had with these Jewish believers in the time of the author

00:22:19.480 | of Hebrews is a bunch of people who not only were facing the political trials

00:22:24.520 | of being Christians, but whose families and friends and lifelong associates had

00:22:30.520 | essentially cut them off.

00:22:34.120 | They were by themselves.

00:22:38.160 | And it's hard to be alone.

00:22:40.360 | It's hard to be by yourself.

00:22:42.000 | And that's why in the book of Hebrews, there's exhortations like this.

00:22:46.560 | Hebrews 3 verse 1, it says this, "Therefore, holy brothers,

00:22:52.200 | partakers of a heavenly calling."

00:22:54.320 | Why does the author of Hebrews call them brothers?

00:22:57.080 | Not just brothers, but holy brothers.

00:22:59.280 | Why does he remind them?

00:23:00.640 | You guys are partakers of a heavenly calling.

00:23:03.440 | It's simple.

00:23:04.280 | He reminds them, and he's urging them, "Yes, I know.

00:23:07.760 | You feel like you're gone from your family.

00:23:09.720 | Yes, I know.

00:23:10.640 | You feel like you're cut off from your friends.

00:23:12.560 | Yes, I know.

00:23:13.440 | You feel like you are disconnected from your community, but you still

00:23:17.960 | are holy brothers.

00:23:19.840 | You have a new family.

00:23:21.400 | You have a new fellowship.

00:23:22.880 | You have a new society.

00:23:24.320 | You have a new friendship and a new reality that links you,

00:23:27.880 | not just your Jewish heritage, but that you are partakers

00:23:31.000 | of a heavenly calling."

00:23:32.960 | Why is it that the apostle writing this or exhorting this book has urged

00:23:39.800 | about the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, for sure,

00:23:43.960 | that he is better than Judaism.

00:23:45.760 | But in Hebrews 4, he reminds us, "He will hold you fast.

00:23:50.240 | You can hold on to your confession.

00:23:52.360 | You can endure because of his intercession for you.

00:23:57.240 | You can persevere because he preserves you."

00:24:00.640 | Why talk about that?

00:24:01.800 | Because the world can be a very lonely place, and you need to know

00:24:05.640 | that somebody is on your side, and Jesus is that one.

00:24:09.680 | And there's no one better than him.

00:24:11.440 | This is exactly why in Hebrews 10, we are familiar with it,

00:24:14.720 | "Do not forsake the assembling of one another together."

00:24:19.280 | Why?

00:24:20.040 | Because that's the only way you can overcome the loneliness of this world.

00:24:24.840 | Yes, you may feel like it is so lonely out there, and your family has disowned you,

00:24:30.720 | and you are completely cut off from everything.

00:24:33.560 | Well, the solution isn't to go back there.

00:24:35.560 | The solution is to get into fellowship here.

00:24:37.880 | That is the author of Hebrews' argument.

00:24:41.760 | Hebrews 11, why talk about the Hall of Fame of Faith?

00:24:46.600 | Because he's reminding his people, "Yes, just like Abraham, you're walking around.

00:24:51.680 | You're by yourself.

00:24:52.680 | Just like Moses, you're by yourself.

00:24:54.320 | Just like Noah, the whole world is against you, minus eight other people.

00:24:58.040 | But you are all by yourself.

00:25:01.440 | But the way you please God in the beginning, faith will get you through.

00:25:05.600 | The way you endure throughout all of that life, in the middle of it,

00:25:08.640 | just like Abraham had to endure, just like Sarah had to endure,

00:25:11.480 | just like Noah had to endure, God will get you through.

00:25:14.320 | And he will get you through to the end.

00:25:15.840 | No matter what the challenges are, you will overcome.

00:25:18.680 | God will get you through, even though you're an exile and sojourner

00:25:22.600 | in this world, only seeing the promises from afar.

00:25:26.520 | Hebrews exalts the glory of Christ to people who feel like they're the only one

00:25:34.760 | to force them to understand you are never alone.

00:25:38.840 | You are never alone.

00:25:40.120 | That's why the church exists and Christ is always with you.

00:25:45.480 | So there is hope.

00:25:47.000 | You have not come to a mountain of darkness, as Hebrews 12 says.

00:25:51.160 | You've come to the mountain of the saints.

00:25:53.720 | You've come to the mountain of the firstborn of God, that is the Lord Jesus

00:25:58.960 | Christ, the preeminent one.

00:26:00.980 | You have come to him.

00:26:02.600 | You are never alone.

00:26:04.760 | You have the best blessings of all.

00:26:07.520 | And in this grand presentation of Christ, there are all kinds

00:26:11.320 | of applications that can be had.

00:26:13.320 | You should, of course, know about Christ and his priestly ministry

00:26:16.720 | and his glories.

00:26:17.520 | That's true.

00:26:18.320 | You can, of course, know him.

00:26:20.480 | That would be very good.

00:26:21.960 | And, of course, you can remind yourself of these things and conform yourself

00:26:25.640 | to these things.

00:26:26.400 | That's true too.

00:26:29.000 | But there are some very practical, very specific actions that the author

00:26:34.040 | of Hebrews counsels all believers to do, that by doing those rudimentary

00:26:40.480 | activities, it enforces and implements the entire theology of the book

00:26:46.960 | of Hebrews.

00:26:47.560 | And that's what you have in Hebrews 13.

00:26:49.920 | If you want the starting steps, the very practical on-the-ground work

00:26:56.000 | that can be done and should be done to live out the book of Hebrews,

00:27:01.400 | you do this.

00:27:02.320 | Let brotherly love, as it says in verse 1, continue or abide.

00:27:06.520 | Why?

00:27:07.640 | Because if you're loving each other, you'll never be alone.

00:27:12.000 | And if you love each other with brotherly love, you will provoke each other to love

00:27:16.240 | in good deeds and remind each other about the glories of Christ and live that out

00:27:19.760 | together and encourage each other in it.

00:27:22.040 | Let brotherly love continue.

00:27:24.160 | Show hospitality.

00:27:25.400 | Don't be neglectful about hospitality.

00:27:27.360 | Why?

00:27:28.640 | Because when you feel like a stranger because you're cut off from your family,

00:27:34.120 | what you need is a new family.

00:27:36.560 | You need somebody to invite you into their home.

00:27:39.800 | And when you're home with them, you realize, "I'm not alone.

00:27:43.320 | I'm not cut off.

00:27:44.880 | I'm not doing Christianity just lone ranger by myself.

00:27:50.080 | Look at all these people I have with me who love me and care about me and are

00:27:54.400 | encouraging me about Christ."

00:27:56.440 | And the only reason that you would ever have that kind of relationship with a

00:28:00.480 | so-called stranger is simple, because the two strangers know Christ and they're no

00:28:04.600 | stranger from each other.

00:28:06.440 | That's the reason why.

00:28:08.240 | And so, hospitality, do it.

00:28:10.280 | If you want to have encouragement, don't neglect and don't forget,

00:28:15.600 | but remember those in prison, especially for the faith.

00:28:20.720 | Why?

00:28:21.400 | Because prison can be a very lonely place.

00:28:24.440 | And so, you don't forget those people either.

00:28:27.280 | And you have a good marriage, verse 4.

00:28:29.840 | Why?

00:28:30.880 | Because when you've been beaten up by the world, even at work, where do you go?

00:28:35.640 | Home.

00:28:37.240 | And if home is a refuge where Christ is exalted and you see the love of Christ

00:28:42.160 | through your spouse, then you are constantly anchored to him there.

00:28:46.720 | This is practical.

00:28:48.840 | But all these have been interpersonal.

00:28:50.560 | Let's talk about a personal one, verse 5.

00:28:53.920 | At the heart of it all is contentment, that riches, wealth,

00:28:57.880 | status would never lure you anywhere else.

00:29:02.360 | And that's the struggle for a lot of the people in the author of Hebrews' time.

00:29:07.360 | They saw the political safety that Judaism had.

00:29:10.960 | They saw that there was all the wealth there and all the network and all the

00:29:15.520 | connections and all the advancement and all the promotion and all the fame.

00:29:20.040 | It was there in that culture.

00:29:22.480 | All the safety and security and prosperity was there.

00:29:26.520 | And your heart could say, "Well, it's just hard to be for Christ because I have to

00:29:32.720 | give all of that up."

00:29:34.080 | And without contentment, that will always pull you away from the Lord.

00:29:39.960 | So, what do you have to remember in those moments of loneliness?

00:29:42.960 | What do you have to remember in those moments where your heart is struggling

00:29:47.400 | with contentment and your heart is struggling to want something it can't

00:29:51.280 | have and it shouldn't have?

00:29:54.080 | The author of Hebrews says, "This is the key to everything.

00:29:57.280 | Just tell yourself what God has promised you.

00:30:01.360 | I will never desert you, nor will I forsake you.

00:30:05.560 | I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you."

00:30:09.280 | There are two statements here and there are two points then to this message.

00:30:15.440 | One, God will never disconnect from you.

00:30:20.360 | God will never disconnect from you.

00:30:25.040 | God's first promise is this, "I will never."

00:30:28.240 | This is the strongest or one of the strongest and most emphatic declarations

00:30:33.800 | of negation.

00:30:34.800 | "I will never desert you," or, "I will never leave you."

00:30:39.520 | The word "desert" or "leave" here, this first of two phrases,

00:30:44.240 | first of two promises, it's not a common verb.

00:30:48.240 | It's not a common word.

00:30:49.880 | It actually means to unfasten something, to open something up,

00:30:55.520 | like when you open up somebody's chain or you loosen a rope.

00:31:00.200 | That's what it's talked about in Acts 16, verse 26, as well as Acts 27, verse 40.

00:31:06.280 | It's talking about when you cease contact from something or you loosen a connection

00:31:11.800 | with something, when something is not tight, when something,

00:31:15.040 | it has distance, when something is released.

00:31:18.440 | And since this quote is a quote from the Old Testament, that's what the author

00:31:23.000 | of Hebrews is doing here, he's quoting people a promise,

00:31:26.200 | Deuteronomy 31, verse 6.

00:31:28.400 | Then, if you look at the Hebrew word that this is translating,

00:31:31.680 | it means to become slack.

00:31:34.000 | It means to become just completely disconnected from somebody.

00:31:39.880 | And so, negatively, you could think of it this way,

00:31:42.520 | that what God is promising here is that he will never disconnect from you.

00:31:47.200 | He will never lose the closeness he has with you.

00:31:51.320 | He will never depart from you.

00:31:54.800 | He will never be physically distant from you.

00:31:58.560 | He won't let you go.

00:32:01.160 | He won't be disfellowshipped from you.

00:32:05.960 | And you say, "Yeah, I understand that."

00:32:08.480 | And, of course, what is driving this truth and reality is the doctrine

00:32:13.200 | of God's omnipresence.

00:32:15.200 | And how we think about the doctrine of God's omnipresence,

00:32:17.720 | often what we say is, "Well, God's everywhere.

00:32:20.120 | He's here, He's there, He's over there, and He's next to me.

00:32:23.160 | Of course, He is because He's everywhere."

00:32:25.040 | And that is true.

00:32:26.160 | That's a good way to think about it.

00:32:27.600 | Psalm 139 reminds us, "Where can I go from His presence?"

00:32:31.000 | And the answer is nowhere.

00:32:31.920 | He's always with you.

00:32:33.480 | That is true.

00:32:35.320 | But it is healthy not just to think about the doctrine of omnipresence relative

00:32:40.720 | to you.

00:32:42.400 | It is healthy to think about God's omnipresence relative to God.

00:32:47.440 | Often, how we think about the doctrines of God and the attributes of God is how we

00:32:53.040 | are affected by them or how we see them.

00:32:57.160 | We often don't think about them relative to God.

00:33:01.560 | Put in scientific terms, please criticize me after this message.

00:33:06.960 | Well, we sometimes critique our fellow man about that they observe things

00:33:13.320 | phenomenologically from their perspective, sunrise, sunset.

00:33:17.880 | But we say, if you look at it from a true angle, a more objective angle,

00:33:21.400 | something completely different is happening, something very glorious,

00:33:24.520 | something amazing, something astounding is happening.

00:33:27.040 | Yes, what you're seeing is legitimate when you couch it in language of human

00:33:30.760 | observation, but you're missing out on something even far grander when you

00:33:34.720 | understand it from a different perspective, a more third-party perspective,

00:33:38.120 | and not just how you like to see things.

00:33:41.000 | Well, you can do the same thing with theology.

00:33:43.160 | Often, when we look at doctrines, we're just looking from our perspective.

00:33:47.760 | What's God's perspective on this doctrine?

00:33:51.400 | And I love this.

00:33:53.320 | The doctrine of omnipresence essentially says this about God, that he is not

00:33:59.520 | contingent but absolutely independent spatially.

00:34:05.440 | That is what it means.

00:34:07.120 | Omnipresence is the assertion of God's absolute transcendence,

00:34:12.320 | of God's absolute independence, that God has no need and no reliance

00:34:17.520 | on anything for his presence.

00:34:20.400 | You and I, we rely on things for our presence.

00:34:25.080 | If someone came up to you and said, "Sir, your kids aren't here.

00:34:32.560 | We can't find them."

00:34:34.720 | Your response is, "Normally not."

00:34:37.920 | Well, that's okay because they're not contingent on being in a certain place

00:34:42.800 | at a certain time.

00:34:44.080 | It's kind of irrelevant to say that and so I wouldn't worry about it because that's

00:34:48.120 | not really a matter of particularity.

00:34:51.200 | You wouldn't say that.

00:34:52.400 | You'd say, "That's not good because they got to be somewhere and I need to know

00:34:56.120 | where that somewhere is."

00:34:57.880 | They're contingent on something.

00:34:59.880 | It reminds me of one time there was a negotiation between Israel and the Arab

00:35:03.640 | nations and the Arab nation says, "We are totally okay with the existence

00:35:07.240 | of Israel."

00:35:08.280 | And everyone said, "That's great, as long as it's not on a map."

00:35:13.520 | How do you exist as a nation if it's not on a map?

00:35:17.000 | How do you exist as a nation without a land to exist on?

00:35:20.520 | Things are contingent, our presence, our existence is contingent on physical

00:35:27.160 | locationality in this world.

00:35:29.560 | We are contingent and reliant and dependent and predicated upon things.

00:35:34.480 | God is not.

00:35:36.280 | God has never been predicated upon space or time.

00:35:40.600 | He has never been relying on something to anchor His existence.

00:35:46.760 | He is completely autonomous above and beyond all of that.

00:35:52.160 | That is God.

00:35:53.640 | That is why He is not a man.

00:35:55.640 | That is why He is not creation.

00:35:58.680 | And there are so many passages that celebrate this.

00:36:02.200 | It is Psalm 23, "Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,

00:36:06.400 | you are what?

00:36:07.360 | With me."

00:36:08.120 | Why?

00:36:08.880 | Because it doesn't matter the space or the time, God is there.

00:36:13.520 | It is not contingent on, "Well, this is a pretty hard place to get to,

00:36:17.680 | so I don't know if God can be with me."

00:36:19.480 | That is irrelevant to God.

00:36:22.000 | There is no such thing as hard or easy space because you're not confined by space

00:36:27.720 | to begin with.

00:36:28.880 | It is the glory of God to be with you because it demonstrates that He was never

00:36:34.080 | dependent on any of those factors to begin with.

00:36:36.760 | They never hindered or factored into Him whatsoever.

00:36:41.520 | Likewise, Ezekiel 1.

00:36:44.600 | Ezekiel 1 depicts God in this divine chariot throne.

00:36:49.160 | In fact, the very chariot itself symbolizes creation.

00:36:52.360 | You can even see it.

00:36:53.080 | There's a wheel within a wheel, like a sphere, like a globe.

00:36:57.960 | And then on top of that, it says this, that there was a firmament.

00:37:00.480 | Where have we heard the term firmament?

00:37:02.560 | Genesis 1.

00:37:04.040 | It is as if you can see the world, the sphere of the wheel within the wheel,

00:37:09.360 | and the firmament on top of that, and then the glory of God on top of that

00:37:12.840 | in this divine chariot.

00:37:13.800 | It's a symbol.

00:37:14.920 | The divine chariot itself is a symbol that God's presence is everywhere.

00:37:20.280 | His glory fills the whole world.

00:37:22.600 | And therefore, just like a chariot is mobile and a chariot that has spherical

00:37:27.320 | wheels is the most mobile because you don't even have to turn the wheels like

00:37:30.520 | you do in a car, God's presence is unhindered.

00:37:33.960 | It goes everywhere and anywhere without any problem because it was never

00:37:38.400 | contingent on anything for its physical locationality to begin with.

00:37:43.840 | That is the presence of God.

00:37:46.080 | He is strong, stronger, and nothing binds Him because He is omnipresent.

00:37:53.200 | And you might say, "Okay, I understand that God is everywhere.

00:37:56.480 | I understand that He is with me, but it's really hard because I don't see Him."

00:38:03.520 | But remember this, His presence is not conditioned or contingent on anything.

00:38:11.040 | It's not even conditioned or contingent on His visibility.

00:38:16.600 | That's the point.

00:38:17.920 | You don't have to see Him for Him to be there.

00:38:20.560 | It's not a prerequisite for you to see Him for Him to be there.

00:38:24.160 | He is there because He's not contingent on anything.

00:38:29.160 | No factor disqualifies or could ever preclude God from being present because

00:38:39.360 | He's omnipresent and inherently transcends all of those things.

00:38:43.680 | And so, at any place, any situation, any trial, any hard moment,

00:38:50.440 | God has never left you.

00:38:53.760 | He has never deserted you.

00:38:55.960 | He has always been there.

00:38:57.480 | He has never disconnected Himself from you.

00:39:02.120 | That's to put it negatively.

00:39:04.800 | But there's another way to describe this, and we could describe it positively.

00:39:09.640 | Positively.

00:39:10.960 | If He's not deserted you, if He's not slack, if He's not loose,

00:39:15.720 | if He's not disaffiliated, then what is He?

00:39:20.080 | He's not just by your side.

00:39:22.560 | He's not just nearby.

00:39:24.600 | Sometimes, I tell students, and I think we tell each other, "Hey, hey,

00:39:28.240 | I'm not that far away.

00:39:29.880 | You just text me and I'll be there."

00:39:32.080 | "Oh, I'm not that far away.

00:39:33.960 | You just give me a call and we'll be right there."

00:39:37.440 | And our definition of not far away or really being close is just accessibility.

00:39:44.320 | It's just convenience.

00:39:47.240 | And that's good for human beings who are bound by space and time, I recognize.

00:39:52.320 | But here's the glory of God.

00:39:55.080 | It's not just that He's present.

00:39:57.600 | He's tight and close to you.

00:40:00.480 | That's why the text says, "He does not loosen Himself from you."

00:40:04.280 | What does that mean?

00:40:05.120 | He's just right there.

00:40:07.480 | He's not just nearby.

00:40:09.320 | He's not just close by.

00:40:11.160 | He's right intimately in you and in your situation.

00:40:17.120 | He's not just a prayer away.

00:40:19.720 | He's there.

00:40:21.480 | He's there.

00:40:23.120 | That's what's so powerful about this.

00:40:27.480 | Think of it this way.

00:40:29.520 | Psalm 46, I think we're very familiar with it, "A mighty fortress is our God."

00:40:33.600 | We know that.

00:40:34.600 | And then the next phrase is, "An ever-present help in trouble."

00:40:38.360 | Do you know what the word ever-present means?

00:40:40.560 | It means always found.

00:40:42.960 | That's what it means in Hebrew, always found.

00:40:46.040 | But it's very hard to translate always found help.

00:40:49.800 | What does that even mean?

00:40:50.600 | So we just translate it ever-present.

00:40:52.520 | But it really, in Hebrew, means always found.

00:40:54.400 | Why?

00:40:55.400 | Because in our minds sometimes, when we are in trouble, when we're going

00:40:59.160 | through a situation, when we feel by ourselves, when we feel threatened,

00:41:04.240 | we feel like we have to find God.

00:41:06.080 | Where did he go?

00:41:07.920 | Where is he in this situation?

00:41:09.600 | I got to go search for him.

00:41:11.080 | I got to go seek him out.

00:41:13.440 | What does God say?

00:41:14.160 | "I never deserted you.

00:41:16.520 | I never left you.

00:41:18.000 | I'm right there.

00:41:19.400 | I'm always found.

00:41:21.840 | You never need to find me.

00:41:23.200 | I'm always found.

00:41:24.560 | I'm right there.

00:41:26.000 | I'm not a phone call away where you have to then give a report, like to your boss,

00:41:30.800 | about what's going on and kind of help him to understand the situation.

00:41:34.280 | He's in the situation.

00:41:35.840 | He knows it better than you do.

00:41:37.560 | He's right there.

00:41:39.560 | You don't have to go looking for him.

00:41:41.520 | He's found."

00:41:42.680 | In fact, it goes to this point.

00:41:44.280 | This is amazing.

00:41:45.720 | In Psalm 73, verse 23.

00:41:49.920 | Psalm 73, verse 23, it says this, and listen to the words carefully.

00:41:54.800 | "I found.

00:41:56.080 | I am with you.

00:41:59.720 | I am with you."

00:42:03.480 | Listen to those words for a second and think about it this way.

00:42:07.680 | Often, what we say to God is, "You are with me."

00:42:13.960 | That's how we often think about it.

00:42:15.040 | God's with us.

00:42:16.120 | God's with us.

00:42:16.800 | And that's a biblical phrase, and that's a biblical truth.

00:42:19.800 | Amen and amen.

00:42:20.840 | God is with us.

00:42:21.640 | And the presumption that goes along with this is that we're meandering throughout

00:42:26.800 | our lives and going about our jolly business, and God is right by our side.

00:42:31.520 | He's hugging very tightly close to us, and that's true.

00:42:34.920 | But what does a psalmist realize in Psalm 73?

00:42:38.000 | That we are so close to God, and God is so close to us.

00:42:42.080 | It's not that he is with us.

00:42:44.120 | We are actually what?

00:42:46.400 | With him.

00:42:47.760 | This whole time, you have thought that you are going along your life,

00:42:52.300 | meandering down the ways and the path of this existence, and then God is just

00:42:57.720 | tagging along with you, supporting you as you go.

00:43:01.280 | And there is a truth to that, but the real truth, if you're looking at it

00:43:05.000 | from a third-party, omnipresent perspective, is this.

00:43:09.800 | God was actually leading you the entire time.

00:43:12.560 | He was the one cutting the path forward.

00:43:14.480 | He was the one driving through every single trial.

00:43:16.760 | And it wasn't that he was with you.

00:43:20.520 | It was that you were alongside of him for the ride.

00:43:25.080 | That's how close he was with you.

00:43:27.840 | He was holding your hand and dragging you through, not the other way around.

00:43:34.120 | That is the God who never deserts us.

00:43:39.440 | That's how close he is.

00:43:41.080 | When God says, "I will not desert you," it's a promise that he will never slacken.

00:43:46.120 | He will never loosen.

00:43:47.760 | He will never create distance.

00:43:49.520 | He will not disconnect.

00:43:51.140 | But rather, he will always be in the closest, most intimate,

00:43:56.000 | most involved position with you.

00:43:59.040 | He, and when you have trouble, and when you have trial, you don't need

00:44:02.840 | to search for him.

00:44:03.800 | He's found.

00:44:04.760 | And when you feel isolated in work, or at school, or in industry,

00:44:09.160 | you don't need to go to meet him.

00:44:12.320 | You don't need to go anywhere.

00:44:13.880 | He's there.

00:44:15.120 | And when you are hurt, and when you are rejected, and you are wondering,

00:44:19.240 | "Does anyone understand what I'm going through?"

00:44:21.800 | God does.

00:44:22.600 | Why?

00:44:23.160 | Because he's there.

00:44:24.480 | He's right there in the situation.

00:44:27.520 | He has not deserted you in that moment.

00:44:30.640 | He's right there.

00:44:32.720 | He is not spatially bound.

00:44:34.200 | And if you say, "Okay, I understand that, but I just can't see him,

00:44:37.880 | and I struggle with that."

00:44:39.560 | Remember this, you may not be able to see him, but that doesn't mean he's

00:44:43.520 | not there because that he was never contingent on that visibility

00:44:48.520 | to begin with.

00:44:50.800 | He will never desert you.

00:44:52.480 | He's right there.

00:44:53.840 | He's always found.

00:44:55.160 | It's not that he's with you, you're with him.

00:44:58.520 | That's what's going on.

00:45:00.320 | Second, God is not just not disconnected, he is not distant from us.

00:45:08.720 | Notice the last phrase, equally emphatic, "I will never,

00:45:14.480 | it will never happen.

00:45:16.680 | I will never forsake you."

00:45:20.560 | Sometimes loneliness is not just a physical reality, just being physically

00:45:25.960 | by yourself or physically isolated or quarantined, it's relational.

00:45:33.080 | You know, you can be in a room filled with people but be alone.

00:45:37.160 | You can be in a room with all your colleagues but be completely rejected.

00:45:42.120 | And probably some of you here have experienced that.

00:45:46.080 | People can shun you, people can mock you, people can feel uncomfortable

00:45:49.840 | around you, people want to distance themselves from you.

00:45:53.600 | And even though they're right next to you, you can be all alone.

00:45:57.800 | And that perhaps is even more hurtful than sometimes being physically

00:46:01.760 | by yourself and wondering if there's anyone out there.

00:46:05.960 | Because when you're physically by yourself, nothing is happening.

00:46:08.840 | There's no one around to do anything to you.

00:46:13.360 | But when people are there and they're proactively rejecting you,

00:46:18.320 | that's when it hurts the most.

00:46:22.080 | And here is exactly what was happening to the people in the author

00:46:26.840 | of Hebrews Day.

00:46:29.000 | They had people around them all the time.

00:46:30.720 | They were presumably in the city of Rome, but they were all by themselves.

00:46:35.360 | They were all by themselves.

00:46:37.360 | And so what does the author of Hebrews do?

00:46:39.520 | In the final chapter, he reminds them of this promise,

00:46:42.480 | "God never has ever forsaken you."

00:46:49.160 | Here's the idea.

00:46:51.320 | There's never been a point for the believer, for the one who knows Christ,

00:46:57.360 | where God has not only just disconnected from them physically but shunned them.

00:47:02.960 | He has never closed the door on them.

00:47:05.080 | He has never turned a cold shoulder on them.

00:47:07.480 | He has never rejected them.

00:47:09.640 | He has never just had enough and doesn't want to listen anymore,

00:47:13.280 | and just completely distanced himself from them.

00:47:16.880 | No, rather, what is it?

00:47:18.600 | It's the opposite of that.

00:47:20.040 | God has always embraced his children.

00:47:23.880 | He has always been near to them.

00:47:26.440 | He has always warmly hugged them.

00:47:29.800 | He has always warmly loved them.

00:47:33.560 | He has always been intimately related and connected with them.

00:47:39.400 | And even in discipline, even in discipline, he still shows that care.

00:47:47.200 | You know, as an educator, sometimes you just feel like you can never win.

00:47:51.200 | If you grade your students harshly, then they say, "The teacher's too harsh.

00:47:58.200 | Writes too much.

00:47:59.800 | Tell him to slacken off a little bit."

00:48:02.560 | So then you abide by their instructions, and then you don't say a thing.

00:48:06.760 | And what do they say in their reviews?

00:48:08.760 | "The teacher seems very disinvolved with the students, doesn't pay attention,

00:48:13.160 | doesn't participate enough in their lives.

00:48:15.360 | We need some more critique.

00:48:17.040 | We need some more rebuke."

00:48:18.800 | Which one is it?

00:48:21.400 | But that's the point.

00:48:22.800 | Even when we're rebuked, even when we're disciplined, it's because a God is there,

00:48:30.240 | not because he's not.

00:48:32.360 | It's because God has not shunned his children.

00:48:35.440 | He's there.

00:48:36.920 | He's there, still holding on.

00:48:39.520 | He's there, still embracing.

00:48:41.800 | He's there, loving, and understanding, and caring about you as his child,

00:48:48.400 | as his adopted son, as his heir.

00:48:51.200 | You can always have comfort.

00:48:53.800 | Even when everyone is ridiculing you, and you feel completely misunderstood,

00:48:58.840 | and they don't understand where I'm coming from, and they don't get me,

00:49:02.280 | there is one who always does, and that's your God.

00:49:07.400 | He perfectly does.

00:49:09.480 | And he is right there, and he is right there, and therefore,

00:49:13.240 | understands everything completely in that second.

00:49:16.480 | And as we go to him in prayer and seek solace in him, you will always have it.

00:49:21.440 | Why?

00:49:23.360 | Because he will never forsake us.

00:49:27.040 | There is no distance between us and God ever, relationally.

00:49:31.080 | But if that's not enough, if you just can't seem to grasp and have our hearts

00:49:37.040 | compelled by this truth that God always embraces us, and always keeps us close,

00:49:42.720 | and always relationally understands, and he is our sympathetic high priest who is

00:49:48.760 | not just understanding, but interceding so that we persevere to the end.

00:49:53.160 | And if that just doesn't grip our heart, remember why God will never forsake us.

00:49:58.920 | Remember why God will never forsake us.

00:50:01.680 | You see, Hebrews 13, 5, like I've been saying, is a quote from the Old Testament.

00:50:06.240 | And it is a quote from the Old Testament, and the Hebrew word "forsake" is found

00:50:10.440 | in other very, very key passages.

00:50:13.120 | You know of one of them, Psalm 22, verse 1.

00:50:16.200 | "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

00:50:22.960 | There's a reason why God will never forsake you.

00:50:29.200 | The reason is this, because he forsook his son.

00:50:35.440 | The reason God will never forsake you is because there was one who took your place.

00:50:43.560 | Do we deserve to be forsaken?

00:50:46.080 | Absolutely.

00:50:47.000 | Do we deserve rejection and the worst kind of repudiation, and humiliation,

00:50:53.760 | and wrath?

00:50:54.680 | Of course we do.

00:50:56.080 | Do we deserve the worst kind of punishment, and the worst kind of alienation,

00:51:02.160 | and the worst kind of despising that we could ever receive?

00:51:05.560 | Of course we do.

00:51:07.000 | But why don't we have it?

00:51:08.400 | Why do we have the complete opposite?

00:51:10.640 | It's because there was one, in space and time, that was forsaken.

00:51:16.000 | And it was not us, but our substitute, the Son of God.

00:51:20.920 | And he was forsaken on our behalf.

00:51:24.040 | He, in his humanity, was rejected by the triune God, and by God the Father,

00:51:30.840 | and poured out his wrath on him, absorbed the penalty for us,

00:51:34.640 | so to speak, took our place.

00:51:36.280 | And all of that happened so that we would never, never, ever in our life,

00:51:42.280 | in our entire existence, face what it really means to be forsaken.

00:51:46.520 | It will never happen because someone took our place.

00:51:50.240 | And in the times when you wonder, because you're hurting so badly,

00:51:54.920 | or you feel so poorly, "Does God still really love me?

00:51:59.080 | Does God even care about what is going on?"

00:52:02.640 | Remember this.

00:52:04.040 | Yes, he does.

00:52:05.280 | Why?

00:52:05.960 | Because someone already took our place to secure that for forever.

00:52:10.560 | That we would never face that.

00:52:12.240 | And in the moments when we're skeptical about how deep that love could be,

00:52:16.760 | and how intimate that care, and compassion, and sympathy is,

00:52:21.680 | just remember what God has communicated here through the wordplay of the text.

00:52:26.600 | He says this, "I gave up my son for you.

00:52:30.040 | I forsook my son for you.

00:52:32.080 | Do you really think that I would forsake you when I could give up and I did not

00:52:37.160 | spare my only son?

00:52:39.040 | Of course, I care about you.

00:52:40.720 | Of course, I love you."

00:52:42.400 | Remember that.

00:52:44.200 | Remember that.

00:52:45.480 | We will never, ever be forsaken because someone took our place and was that for us.

00:52:56.200 | So, God says, "I will never desert you.

00:53:00.480 | I will never leave you nor forsake you."

00:53:02.960 | He's not disconnected.

00:53:05.360 | He's not distant from us because he's always right there.

00:53:10.640 | He's ever found.

00:53:12.400 | And he cannot disconnect from us because his son took that on our behalf.

00:53:20.320 | And when you feel alone, and when you feel rejected, tell yourself that phrase,

00:53:27.800 | and that'll carry you home.

00:53:29.920 | You see, you might say, "How do I know that that's true?"

00:53:33.640 | Remember, this is an Old Testament quote.

00:53:36.520 | It's first found in Deuteronomy 31, where Moses told that to Israel,

00:53:41.240 | and Moses told it to Joshua.

00:53:43.920 | And then, it's found again in Joshua, where God told that to Joshua to tell

00:53:49.520 | to the people of Israel.

00:53:51.320 | And then, it's found again in 1 Chronicles 28, verse 20,

00:53:56.400 | where David is telling that to Solomon.

00:53:59.240 | What you start to see is that every generation tells that truth to the next

00:54:03.680 | generation, which tells that truth to the next generation, which has told that truth

00:54:08.160 | to the next generation, which has told that truth to the following generation.

00:54:12.880 | And so, the author of Hebrews here, he said, "Don't forget what your parents

00:54:16.640 | told you.

00:54:17.840 | Don't forget what was true throughout all history, not just in your lifetime,

00:54:22.600 | not just in your parents' lifetime, not just in your grandparents' lifetime.

00:54:26.120 | It's the only reason why you exist.

00:54:28.240 | It's the only reason why history has flowed the way it's flowed.

00:54:31.080 | It's because of this truth, because God has never left you,

00:54:36.040 | nor will he ever forsake you.

00:54:38.400 | That's why you exist now.

00:54:41.440 | That's why history is the way it is.

00:54:44.180 | There is a history, a history of proof that this is the truth.

00:54:50.880 | The author of Hebrews reminds us, "Don't go by just what you feel.

00:54:54.200 | Never go by what you feel.

00:54:56.360 | Go by what is true, what has always been true."

00:55:01.120 | And with that, God is always with us.

00:55:05.320 | He's always found.

00:55:06.760 | He's never disconnected.

00:55:08.400 | He's never distant.

00:55:10.600 | And you may feel the acute pain of loneliness and rejection.

00:55:14.500 | It comes with being in this world where we are sojourners and exiles.

00:55:18.700 | But just remember, our God never deserted us.

00:55:22.380 | Our God never forsook us.

00:55:24.720 | In fact, what he did instead is he forsook his own son so that we would never,

00:55:31.140 | ever be forsaken.

00:55:34.180 | And that's how much, that's how great God loves his children,

00:55:39.500 | how much he loves us, how much he is with us.

00:55:44.060 | In fact, truly, in the end, he is so with us that we are, in fact, not we are,

00:55:53.140 | God is with us, but we are with him.

00:55:56.260 | you

Abner Chou | “When I feel alone…” | Math3ma Symposium 2023

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