Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

John Cotton, a prominent Puritan pastor, arrived in New England in 1633.

Three years prior to that, in 1630 while still in England, he preached a famous farewell sermon to a group of fellow Puritans who were making their departure across the Atlantic to New England.

The title of the sermon was God’s Promise to His Plantation.

And his sermon text was

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His primary emphasis in this sermon was that God was making room for his people in this new land, New England.

He says in the sermon that when God

makes a Country though not altogether void of Inhabitants, yet void in that place where they reside.

Where there is a vacant place, there is liberty for the sons of Adam or Noah to come and inhabit, though they neither buy it, nor ask their leaves.

This placing of people in this or that Country, is from God’s sovereignty over all the earth… Only in the text here is meant some more special appointment because God tells them it by his own mouth… God’s people take the land by promise: And therefore the land of Canaan is called the land of promise.

There is poor comfort in sitting down in any place, that you cannot say, this is appointed me of God.

In a very real sense, for these Christians crossing the Atlantic to come to New England was metaphorically like Israel crossing the Jordan River to take possession of the Promised Land.

This was to be a new and better country for them where they would be able to escape the religious persecution they were enduring in England.

As we know, this “better city” wasn’t so much better for everybody.

In 1973 Stevie Wonder put this trauma to music with his song Living for the City - telling the story of a black young man trying to get out of the south and make a new life in New York City.

He gets sent to prison and serves ten years for a crime he didn’t commit.

His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty

He spends his life walking the streets of New York City

He's almost dead from breathing in air pollution

He tried to vote but to him there's no solution

Living just enough, just enough for the city

What was viewed as the chance for a better city by the Puritans became the place of persecution for others.

We can rightly criticize the Puritans for living as though New England was to be a place built by and for Christians.

And at the same time, we get the fact that, whether we’re Christians or not, we long for things to be better.

What that longing is is a longing for God.

A longing for God to make things better.

And it’s hard to endure with joy when that longing is so intense.

I love the way St. Augustine put it when comparing the cities of this world and the City of God.

He said,

One is the city of ‘belongings’ here in this world; the other is the City of ‘longings’ for God.

How do you live in the city of “belongings” here in this world as citizens of the City of “longings” for God?

This is what the Pastor is emphasizing to the Hebrews in our passage today.

He’s saying to them, “God wants you to live like you’re a citizen of heaven, not like you’re a citizen of Palestine.”

This is the life of faith in Jesus Christ.

By faith in him we are able to endure through the ups and the downs, the ins and the outs of this life because we understand that we are citizens of the city of God.

He’s saying, “God wants you to live like you’re a citizen of heaven, not like you’re a citizen of Palestine.”

This is the life of faith in Jesus Christ.

By faith in him we are able to endure through the ups and the downs, the ins and the outs of this life because we understand that we are citizens of the city of God.

He delivers this message to them by using Abraham as his example.

Abraham gets more space in this chapter than any of the other “people of old.”

That’s because Abraham was recognized as the father of the faithful.

So he had credibility.

If Abraham, by faith, lived like he was looking forward to a better city, a city with foundations, whose designer and builder was God, then what’s your excuse?

The Pastor’s already told them in 2:16 that Jesus helps the offspring of Abraham.

So, if you’re one of those offspring, you ought to be living like it.

You ought to be Living for the City.

That is, the City of God.

With Abraham as his example, the Pastor shows them and us what Living for the City of God means.

He shows us what it means to have your life now be informed and formed by the reality of a heavenly homeland.

I have four things to share with you.

Living for the City means Obedience.

Living for the City means Trust.

Living for the City means Clarity.

Living for the City means No Shame.

Living for the City Means Obedience

The Pastor began his roll call of faith all the way back in Genesis with Abel and Enoch who were commended by God.

God testified that they were faithful.

Then he talked about Noah who by faith constructed an ark for the saving of his household and became and heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Now he says in v. 8…

By faith, when Abraham was called, he obediently went out to a place that he would later receive for an inheritance.

And he went out with no idea where he was going.

By faith, when Abraham was called, he obediently went out to a place that he would later recieve for an inheritance.

And he went out with no idea where he was going.

Last week we talked about X-Ray vision, the connection between sight and faith.

Faith is the assurance of the things we hope for.

It is the conviction about the things we don’t see.

I said that faith in the unseen undergirds this entire chapter.

And here it is again.

Abraham didn’t know where he was going.

He didn’t know where this place he was to receive as an inheritance was going to be.

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God didn’t tell Abraham the destination ahead of time.

But when Abraham heard God’s call, when he heard the word of God he responded with obedience.

Living for the City means obeying the King of the city.

That word obedience makes us nervous.

It doesn’t make us nervous when it’s in the context of other people obeying us.

We definitely like that.

Parents all over the world would be smiling today if they knew that this was the one day of the year that their children were going to be perfectly obedient.

If they knew that today, of the 365 days, there was going to be no back talk; there was going be no rolling of the eyes; there was going to be no stomping or no grouchiness or grumpiness because your child didn’t want to do what you asked them to do.

Oh the joy that would fill a mother’s or a father’s soul on this day if that were to happen.

God didn’t tell Abraham the destination ahead of time.

But when Abraham heard God’s call, when he heard the word of God he responded with obedience.

Living for the City means obeying the King of the city.

That word obedience makes us nervous.

It doesn’t make us nervous when it’s in the context of other people obeying us.

We definitely like that.

Moms all over the world would be smiling today if they knew that this was the one day of the year that their children were going to be perfectly obedient.

If they knew that today, of the 365 days, there was going to be no back talk; there was going be no rolling of the eyes; there was going to be stomping or no grouchiness or grumpiness because your child didn’t want to do what you asked them to do.

Oh the joy that would fill a mother’s soul on this day if that were to happen.

You can hear dad now, “today of all days would you just do what your mama asked?”

We’re happy when other folk are obeying us.

What makes us nervous is when we’ve got to obey somebody else.

That’s because we’re not in the driver’s seat.

But this first point out of v. 8 is that faith responds to the word of God with action.

And the action is obedience.

Abraham was living in Ur of the Chaldeans.

That is, he was living in Babylon.

And he didn’t have a miserable life.

His wife Sarah couldn’t have children, but he wasn’t poor or struggling to make ends meet.